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How to make a bad day good, or Spike gets some cake

A proper piece of cake.

Tuesday. January 30, 2018.

It was a bad day at work for fellow reporter Charissa Bryce and me until Ag Editor Spike Jordan rolled in. He came in, sat at his desk and pretended to work for a bit before rolling over toward our desks in his black, high back chair.

It is what it is

The world in 2017 spiraled away from what was normal and it touched me so deep inside that something broke.

Everyone spoke, but no one listened.

Maybe we are like this

On November 4, 2017, a letter to the editor from local resident John Gable spurred controversy in our town. It was vitriolic. I wrote about how we are better than this. Many of my friends and acquaintances would not agree with the racism, bigotry, and general hate of the “other” that has been occurring in the country.

But those feelings of hate have always been there, under the surface, and it’s rising. Apparently, we aren’t better than this and we need to talk about it.

We are better than this

I woke up to my community in despair on Saturday. A letter to the editor in the local paper, the paper where I work at as a reporter, was causing a stir.

The letter, which many people have spread, can be seen below in the screenshot from the Scotts Bluff County Democrats. It is full of hate and ignorance. Its words make me want to leave this town, but I have spent two days thinking about where to go from here.

There are no “signs of the times” and the world is not ending

Far too many people are caught up in speculation about the end of the world. While we are doing a good job at ignoring actual climate change, the hurricanes currently ravaging parts of Earth are not the end of the world, nor do they have anything to do with Jesus Christ, the book of Revelation, or any other such nonsense. Yet, in a letter to the editor to the Star-Herald, a reader thinks that is exactly what is happening.

Photo Essay: Total Solar Eclipse at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument

The road wasn’t as busy as I had thought it would be at 5 a.m. I suppose it’s because several people traveled up to agate Fossil Beds National Monument the night before and many more came later in the day.

About 10 miles before the park, cars, trucks and RVs dotted the sides of the road. They were all out of state vehicles. Most were pulled off the road and parked against fences. The fences are to keep livestock in. It doesn’t mean it’s free land to park your car or pitch your tent. But they did so anyway.

It angered me in a way. It’s great that people travel from places far away to see an eclipse at a great site, but disrespecting others and their land rubs me the wrong way.

Later in the day, I heard one gentleman say, “We’re so far out in the middle of nowhere, the owners, if there even are any, probably wouldn’t have seen us anyway.”

I was wearing my Star-Herald polo shirt and I was working. I chose to let that comment go. I also didn’t want it to ruin my day.

I turned into the park. The rangers smiled as they saw me. My day was already better. This is a photo essay of my day. I wrote two stories for the Star-Herald, took more than 700 photographs, met some new people, and experienced a phenomenal event.

Some things you should know

If I were a cow, this would be me. Going where I’m not supposed to go to get something good. A part of the herd, but apart from the heard.

Life is very difficult for me right now. And I don’t use the word “very” often.

After returning from a short vacation to visit my mom and not seeing everyone in my family that I wanted to, I have been working. Literally. It’s all I have done. I returned from vacation on June 27. I have had five days off since then. I can feel it. Something inside is about to break.

On going home

A pricker bush at Winding Hills Park in Montgomery, New York.

When I left New York at 18 in 1988, I was off to college, but I was also searching for a place to fit in.

As I walk in the lush greenness, the familiarity of Middletown, it is not my home. It’s the place where I grew up, the town that shaped who I am today, but it’s not a place where I fit in.

Something happened to my family in the years that I’ve been gone. They’re more conservative. More entrenched in what they are doing. More easily shaped by the words spewed forth on the television or by their friends and neighbors.

They’ve got the car, the house, the kids, the white picket fence, the stability. But none of that was anything I ever pursued. And yet, there’s that non-spoken condemnation and the looks because I chose a different path.

When other people cause the magic to fade

On any given Sunday, the movie theater was where you used to be able to find me. Cinemas 6 in the Caldor Plaza was about a mile’s walk from home. It eventually expanded to become Cinemas 9. My friend, Doug, and I would spend the day there, arriving for the first show around 11 a.m., and leaving after the last, near midnight.

Before going, a plot was made of each movie and which theater it was in or the time listing from the newspaper was torn out and kept in my pocket. As each movie ended, we walked with the exiting crowd, slipping into the next open theater.

Employees and management didn’t seem to mind. We didn’t cause trouble. If we were loud and disruptive, we’d be kicked out.

She soothes my soul

Cinders stares off into the distance.

Sometimes the purring wakes me up.

It’s 4:30 a.m. Without opening my eyes, I can feel her head nuzzled on my collar bone. She’s only partially awake, but I must disturb her so I can begin my day.

Like clockwork, she comes near me at 7:20 a.m. She extends her left paw toward me for head scratchings and belly rubs before I head out the door.

Page 11 of 12

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