advertisement:
(First of a three-part series)
If there was a do-over, perhaps I would have found a way to go to college, get a degree, and go on to become a play-by-play broadcaster for some major league baseball team.But, then again, the home town, and what goes on in and around it, would have been greatly missed,
Thus, there are no regrets as this homeboy is about to flip the switch on a 45-year employment with the News-Banner . . . over 50 counting paper route days.
Back in May of 1963, as a timid 19-year-old, thoughts of the future really didn’t go too far past the next day as I went to work at the News-Banner as a Linotype operator, single, care-free, and anxious to have a little money in my pocket.
The idea to become a typesetter in the first place had come from years of hanging around the News-Banner as a kid. As a paper boy, there were numerous opportunities to slip into the N-B production room where the four Linotype machines continually chattered and the huge Goss flat-bed press roared every afternoon.
Back in those days, short of a college education, being a proficient Linotype operator was regarded as a skilled, and well-paid occupation. Each day there was a goal to get the newspaper out and about on time.
It was satisfying to be able to take a copy of the paper home every night and know that even though I was typing someone else’s words, I contributed to that day’s publication.
Early on, I never gave much thought to being one of those people who actually wrote the words for the Linotype operators to type.
But as years went by, and I was daily typing someone else’s thoughts, I began to think that maybe I could write and report, especially if it had something to do with sports.
Although there are no athletic bones in this body, I have always been a sports fan, and during my Linotype days, I always encouraged then-managing editor Gene McCord to give me the sports copy to type.
My big break came in 1968 when the county schools consolidated and extra help was needed in the sports department.
Roger Swaim, McCord and Jim Barbieri felt I was up to that task, and ever since, I’ve been grateful for their confidence.
Thus, on Saturday, Aug. 31, 1968, I covered my first athletic event . . . Norwell playing football in an afternoon jamboree at Woodlan.
Just last Friday, for old time’s sake, I volunteered to cover one last football game, and must admit, it was a bit nostalgic being down on the Southern Wells sidelines at Wabash reflecting on 40 years past. But once the game started, the memories faded as it was all I could do to keep up with a grandson and his high-powered Raider teammates in their 40-0 romp. It was great fun. . . how nice of the Raiders to score 40 points on this night.
That first game back in 1968 resulted in my very first byline, but it wasn’t the one I had envisioned during five years of typesetting.
Instead, it was the first and only story I ever wrote which said “By JOEL SMEKENS.”
Even though Joel is my given name, (bless my mother’s soul), I’ve always been Joe and that’s especially how I wanted my very first byline to read.
But my fellow Linotype operators and the other guys in the composition department pulled a fast one, inserting the “L” right before press time when I wasn’t looking.
Just because I had managed to get my foot into the door of the front office, my buddies in the back didn’t want me to get too big for my britches.
For the next seven years, I did double duty for the News-Banner
. . . . a typesetter by day and a sports reporter by night . . . . including some very late nights.
Those were good years because I was working with a great bunch of people by day and getting paid to have fun by night, going out and about to various sports events.
There were some bumps along the way, including a collision with a black Angus steer west of Bluffton coming back from a Southern Wells basketball game.
No injuries in that one, but there was another Raider basketball game at Huntington Catholic in which I, in my really cool polyester pants, slid down the bleachers to chat with the Garrett boys, Pat and Mike, only to pick up a hefty splinter in my rear end.
It took two trips to see Dr. Harold Caylor to get all the wood removed, but it’s my only battle scar, unless you count those pesky heart attacks in ‘86, ‘89, ‘94, ‘95 and ‘98 and the problem-solving bypass surgery in ‘03, which appears to have fixed me up. Oh, yes, there was the time when I got bit by a News-Banner customer’s monkey during the paper route years.
Opportunities to write and report increased in 1975 when the News-Banner moved from West Market Street, leaving the Linotype machines behind to enter the world of “offset” printing at our current location.
That’s when I was given the chance to become a full-time person in the news department. Other duties inherited upon the move was that of court reporter and police reporter . . . two very different manners of writing about people than reporting on sporting events. One of the first police assignments given to me was to go to a rural residence south of Bluffton where I was told that “something was going on.” Turned out that a man had committed suicide, which is not something in which a News-Banner reporter usually runs off to . . . it was a day in which this hot-shot reporter learned some good lessons about the job, about people, and about life and how fleeting it can be.
With exceptions, of course, reporting and especially writing about people, places and things has been fun over the years, and has resulted in many friendships . . . even if many friends at one time or another have not been happy over something that was either printed or not printed in the paper concerning them and theirs.
It’s been an eventful ride, with the very best years being from 1977 to 1986 when my primary duties as sports editor were to write about kids and report fun and games......what could be a better job? It truly was a labor of love.
More reflections tomorrow.......
joe@news-banner.com
Read this story in our E-Edition, Click Here
Talk about this story in our forums!