Last Night in the Cubbyhole
The power at home has been on for three days, but I've kept sleeping here, partly because we've been working past curfew and partly because this has been my home and working family for the past two weeks. I've been quite comfy on the couch cushions set up in a cozy closet in the executive offices. I have a little shelf for my toiletries. There's even an air conditioner vent in there.
It can be a little loud in the morning when folks go into the kitchenette next door to get coffee, but I'm not complaining. If it weren't for them, I might sleep all day.
During the past few days, the number of people sleeping here has dropped precipitously as power crews from around the nation restore electricity, one house at a time in some neighborhoods, particularly the ones where the trees are lying like matches in a shaken box.
Last night, there were only five of us here: Publisher Aubrey Webb, Assistant Publisher Dave Pero, Assistant Managing Editor Pete Churton, reporter Beth Gallaspy (Churton's wife), and me. We stood outside the front entrance, drinking beer and feeling the effects of a cold front roll in.
I announced that it would be my last night to stay up here, and Webb whooped and said, "I win!!"
I didn't know this, but he, Pero and I were the last three people to have spent every night up here since Hurricane Rita started chewing into the coast Sept. 23. Pero and I had finally decided to bug out, so Webb was going to be the last. One more night.
How fitting. The captain, riding his ship from the storm's wake into calmer, more routine waters.
After a few more sips of beer, the outdoor gathering broke up. I wandered around to the back dock, where they seemed short-handed, so I started to help sling papers down the conveyor belt. The papers were loaded into trucks, vans and cars for delivery.
I slung and slung and slung, and those papers kept coming, thousands of them, coming down a corkscrew slide from a work room above.
My hands turned black from ink.
During a lull, I made my way back into the first-floor offices where we slept. No one was there, so I went up to the mail room, the place where newspapers are sorted, stuffed with inserts, bundled and sent down the corkscrew slide.
Webb, Pero and Churton had inky hands, too.
With the papers finally gone and the presses stopped, we regrouped outside the main entrance and had one more beer. I went to bed at 3 a.m.
At 9 a.m., I emerged from my closet to find more Enterprise employees returning to work. I packed up my stuff in the closet and put it in the car. I put the couch cushions back where they belonged.
After getting my coffee, I settled into my desk in the makeshift newsroom. Reporters and photographers got their marching orders. I checked my e-mail.
I checked my office phone messages and got this from a cranky old lady:
"Yes, I'm a subscriber to your newspaper. I'm wondering if you're out of business. You don't deliver anymore. If you don't, would you at least have the common courtesy to tell people that you no longer deliver a newspaper? Thank you."
Click.
You know business is returning to normal when the disgruntled subscribers circumnavigate the circulation department and start barking at the managers whose phone numbers are listed in the newspaper and online.
I like it that they're angry if they don't get their newspapers. It shows that they care, and almost no one wants them to get their newspaper more than I do.
Too bad the lady didn't leave her name and number, because I could have gotten her a newspaper, maybe even one with my thumbprint on it.
It can be a little loud in the morning when folks go into the kitchenette next door to get coffee, but I'm not complaining. If it weren't for them, I might sleep all day.
During the past few days, the number of people sleeping here has dropped precipitously as power crews from around the nation restore electricity, one house at a time in some neighborhoods, particularly the ones where the trees are lying like matches in a shaken box.
Last night, there were only five of us here: Publisher Aubrey Webb, Assistant Publisher Dave Pero, Assistant Managing Editor Pete Churton, reporter Beth Gallaspy (Churton's wife), and me. We stood outside the front entrance, drinking beer and feeling the effects of a cold front roll in.
I announced that it would be my last night to stay up here, and Webb whooped and said, "I win!!"
I didn't know this, but he, Pero and I were the last three people to have spent every night up here since Hurricane Rita started chewing into the coast Sept. 23. Pero and I had finally decided to bug out, so Webb was going to be the last. One more night.
How fitting. The captain, riding his ship from the storm's wake into calmer, more routine waters.
After a few more sips of beer, the outdoor gathering broke up. I wandered around to the back dock, where they seemed short-handed, so I started to help sling papers down the conveyor belt. The papers were loaded into trucks, vans and cars for delivery.
I slung and slung and slung, and those papers kept coming, thousands of them, coming down a corkscrew slide from a work room above.
My hands turned black from ink.
During a lull, I made my way back into the first-floor offices where we slept. No one was there, so I went up to the mail room, the place where newspapers are sorted, stuffed with inserts, bundled and sent down the corkscrew slide.
Webb, Pero and Churton had inky hands, too.
With the papers finally gone and the presses stopped, we regrouped outside the main entrance and had one more beer. I went to bed at 3 a.m.
At 9 a.m., I emerged from my closet to find more Enterprise employees returning to work. I packed up my stuff in the closet and put it in the car. I put the couch cushions back where they belonged.
After getting my coffee, I settled into my desk in the makeshift newsroom. Reporters and photographers got their marching orders. I checked my e-mail.
I checked my office phone messages and got this from a cranky old lady:
"Yes, I'm a subscriber to your newspaper. I'm wondering if you're out of business. You don't deliver anymore. If you don't, would you at least have the common courtesy to tell people that you no longer deliver a newspaper? Thank you."
Click.
You know business is returning to normal when the disgruntled subscribers circumnavigate the circulation department and start barking at the managers whose phone numbers are listed in the newspaper and online.
I like it that they're angry if they don't get their newspapers. It shows that they care, and almost no one wants them to get their newspaper more than I do.
Too bad the lady didn't leave her name and number, because I could have gotten her a newspaper, maybe even one with my thumbprint on it.
posted by Brian Pearson at 11:09 AM
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