Cub scratches out a year

I am a person who, more or less, looks back at his life in eras.

The dictionary defines era as a long and distinct period of history with a particular feature or characteristic; a system of chronology dating from a particular noteworthy event; a date or event marking the beginning of a new and distinct period of time.

My years as a student, kindergarten until I graduated college, is era number one. This one is my longest since I have eras that last only a year or so. Sometimes those mix together.

My Capitol Hill era was over after five years in my early twenties and for three years of that time I was single, so that was an era unto itself. Another instance, my marriage is an era mixed in with when I was working at a bar that served a mostly black clientele in Washington, D.C. and often I would find myself the only white person in the establishment. Both are considered eras in my life, but are actually separate.

Sometimes an era is geographic for me. I lived in Hawaii and Australia for about two years a piece and definitely, I break each place into an era of my life.

The cool thing about eras is that I can usually tell when one is starting.

Last March, I commenced working at the Saratoga Sun.

I earn my wages by writing and this is a first for me. The magazines I wrote for in the past, had me as a guest writer or contributor, but I always had another job that was my bread and butter.

Making my living at a newspaper definitely started a new era in my life, but not so much because of the week after week writing; it is because I am a reporter.

The dictionary on my computer defines reporter as a person who reports, especially one employed to report news or conduct interviews, for newspapers or broadcasts. Take the broadcast part out and that describes me pretty well.

There has been a fair amount of adventure as I look back on the year. I have been on historical walks; traveled with a game warden as he went about his day the opening of hunting season; been on a snowplow that was clearing snow at Battle Pass; covered many concerts; been at more sports activities of students from Carbon County District No. 2 (CCSD2) than all my years of living in Carbon County combined.

I have learned more about the towns of Carbon County with their each unique set of attributes and problems. I cannot say enough positive things about the town clerks, mayors and town council members of all the municipalities I have covered for the Sun. These remarkable people give so much to their communities and it really is inspiring to see the effort they put forth.

When I left Capitol Hill, I pretty much walked away from politicians and their agendas. I had a few heroes from my experience, but I had lost faith in politicians wanting to really help the people who elected them. Observing the town council meetings and going to joint power boards, I have really come to respect how much work these elected officials do.

I don’t always agree personally with how all these people see the world, but the effort and time they give to their community cannot be given enough credit.

My exposure to the volunteers of all the emergency services provided has been eye opening to me personally. I was in Elk Mountain watching a mock up of an accident that required a person to be cut out of an overturned car.

It was awe inspiring.

I think I took emergency services for granted before I saw how much hard work and dedication these volunteers put into in keeping communities safe.

I once was an English teacher in Taiwan, so I thought I knew a bit about education.

No, I didn’t.

I can’t even compare what I thought I knew about education and what I know now after interacting with administrators, teachers and all the workers associated with keeping a school system safe and nurturing for the students of CCSD2. Concerning the coaches: “Wow” is the only word I can come up with. The work they do with these student athletes is nothing short of remarkable.

Law enforcement personnel are another group of people I took little notice of until the Sun needed me to interact with them to understand stories. A lot of my exposure has been with Hanna Marshall’s office personnel, who are all outstanding in helping me understand different topics of criminal justice, but I have met other law enforcement people from other communities who have been great helping me too.

A surprise has been how much I have learned about businesses that aren’t related to alcohol. You might laugh, but for so many years I could tell you about whiskey, but I knew hardly anything about the huge companies in Carbon County such as Sinclair Refinery, the different wind energy companies or even the smaller businesses the Sun would ask me to find out about to get a story. I cannot think of a time when anyone who was talking to me about their industry were not incredibly helpful.

Also State agency workers have been generous with their time when I got in touch needing information. If any agency hadn’t been helpful, I would say so now.

I hope I am not jinxing myself.

It has been an incredible experience as people have generously let me into their homes and lives to give me a story. Sometimes pictures are involved, in other instances, it is purely words. On many occasions, I walk away from these families and individuals feeling motivated on how selfless and humble quite a number of these people are.

I take tremendous pride in being a Carbon County resident because of the stimulating tales I get to hear about thanks to this job. I am not saying it is a perfect world here in Carbon County. Nor am I saying everyone I meet is outstanding, but most of the time, yeah, they are.

Speaking of not always perfect, I guess I have to mention a few of my missteps as a cub reporter. I have been known to get a company or person’s name spelled wrong—or not have my camera with me (this actually only happened once) at a crucial moment.

By far my most embarrassing moment happened only a few weeks ago.

I was interviewing Doug, Kathy and Judd Campbell as well as Edge Powell of the Hotel Wolf for the article of Doug and Kathy getting the Big WYO award. The interview was going great when I looked down at my recorder only to see it had stopped recording because it’s memory was full.

I couldn’t believe it.

I can say the Campbells were gracious about me making them repeat a lot of what they had told me. Never wanting that to happen again, I have been a monster the past weeks about checking how much memory I have before the recorder is turned on.

So I guess my cub reporter days are over for the most part after a year, but another era in my life has occurred.

I wanted to use this column to say “thank you” to all who have been a part of making this new era as special as it has been for me.

I look forward to it being a long-lasting era.