Waiting for the Patriot-News rapture
I received word yesterday that I've been approved for the buy-out at the Patriot-News, the newspaper in Harrisburg, Pa. where I've worked since 1987. Never having been down this road before, I'm not sure how one is supposed to feel. My family and I went out to celebrate the buy-out over some tasty ribs at DaPits, which still seems weird. Do you really celebrate losing a job you've had for 21 years, even if it gives you an opportunity--and a financial base--to do something different with your life? I guess I can say I was relieved, but with a tinge of anxiety, given the current economy.
A lot of the newsroom will be leaving, including some of the paper's best reporters. Maybe it will be like the Biblical rapture, where the Elect suddenly vanish from the newsroom and are assumed into their new lives, just like that. I'll try not to be pouring a cup of coffee when it happens.
Just as those Left Behind will need to adjust, so too will the community, especially the local governments and police departments accustomed to dealing with reporters who in some instances have covered them for years.
After dinner at DaPits I dropped off my wife at home and took my daughters to see the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace ( I still don't know what that title is supposed to mean--give me Goldfinger or You Only Live Twice anyday). On the way out, we ran into Dennis and Angie McMaster. He is chief of police in East Pennsboro Twp. and she is president of the school board.
I had covered East Pennsboro Twp. for a year after being moved off the business staff in September 2007. My assignment changed abruptly again in early October when I was shifted to night cops after the early buy-out approval of another reporter. Chief McMaster gave me a timely call one night after they arrested a man for the murder of his aunt.
So I mentioned I would be leaving the newspaper, and the McMasters said my colleague Jerry Gleason, who had covered East Pennsboro for years before I took it over, had told them he was leaving, too, which he is. Angie mentioned that Gerry Lenton of our staff had covered a couple of their school board meetings since I left. Oops. He's leaving, too, I told her. The chief is a big newspaper fan, but told me his younger officers don't read the Patriot-News, preferring to get their news online or via television. That kind of sums up the problem the newspaper faces.
They wished me the best and continued on out to the parking lot. The chief didn't like the Bond movie, by the way. I thought it was okay, apart from the weird title, but not a top-tier Bond.
So now I'm throwing myself into finishing my last big project for the Patriot-News, a story on the unsolved murder of Betsy Aardsma. She was from my hometown of Holland, Michigan, and went to my high school, and was stabbed to death Nov. 28, 1969, in the library at Penn State University up in State College. Fascinating story, and you can read it Nov. 23 in the Patriot-News or at the PennLive.com website.