Lucy needs to make observations of nature in a field book for school. We went to the pond at McKinley Park to see what we could find. We found water fowl! Hurray!
Ducks or Geese? I don't know!
Lucy and I went on a walk in the woods near our house as part of a class assignment. She is supposed to be doing a nature journal. Above is a photo of one of the turkey vultures that kept circling overhead. I knew they would be there. I chose these woods because I thought we would get to see them up close, but they never landed while we were there. Below, is Lucy sketching a plant.
When I first started writing this column in January of 2005 the intent was to keep readers up to date on what is happening at The Marion Star. I wanted to let people in on the way we make decisions on what we cover, what we don't cover and why we do the things we do.
I also wanted to add a human element.
Often the decisions I make are based on past experience. I have worked in the media business since 1985. I have been a reporter, a radio DJ, a sports broadcaster, a paginator, a photographer, a paste-up artist, a photo-tech, an online editor, an assistant managing editor, and a managing editor.
Nearly every day, we make a decision about one thing or another that calls on experience. It might be something big, like how we are going to pursue a story or something small, like how best to crop a photo.
My personal experience comes into play as well. We all have lives outside our place of work. We have families and friends that color our lives and alter our perspectives.
Almost every decision requires you to think like a journalist and call upon your experience and knowledge to make sound ethical judgments, but you also have to think like a reader and call upon your experience has a father, friend and community member.
It might be journalistically sound to reveal the name of a juvenile offender, but the father in you tells you that the name can wait while more of the story is pursued.
Nothing changed my perspective on how I run this office more than the cancer diagnosis I received almost three years ago.
I don't think there is anybody in my field that hasn't contemplated the possibility of dropping dead at their desk.
Anxiety is a byproduct of our work. So is stress and emotion. We also spend a lot of time at our desks, exercising only our fingers, and the meals we gulp down at our desks are hardly the most healthy available
This job might eventually kill me. If it does, we'll be even, because in 2006 this job saved my life.
I was writing an editorial about colon cancer. March is, after all, Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. As part of the editorial I started to list the symptoms of colorectal cancer.
As I transferred the symptoms from the American Cancer Society's Web page into the editorial, I checked them off in my mind.
I had enough of the symptoms to get me worried.
Taken separately, the symptoms are common enough and explainable. It was not until I saw them listed together that I thought maybe something more than my diet was causing me problems.
Getting beat up with radiation and chemotherapy, months of anticipating major surgery and learning to live with a body that has been altered forever changes you.
It doesn't take the fight out of you, but it makes you consider what you are fighting about and for.
It makes you want to get things done now, but it also makes you want to slow things down and savor every moment.
The ethics of journalism don't change. Decisions based solely on journalistic principles are the same today as they were three years ago. It's the gray areas where your life experience comes into play that we find changes.
Speaking of cancer survivors I had the opportunity to meet Mary Miller this week. Mary has just completed her cancer treatment and she is moving full steam ahead. Mary is a comedian, a comedy consultant and a singer/songwriter.
You have two chances to see her locally in the next few weeks.
On Sunday March 15 she will be hosting a comedy show at Bluefusion. You can call 740-386-4255 for more information.
On Thursday, March 19 you can see her at our Laughs and Lipsticks Expo at Marion Centre (formerly Southland Mall).
Mary and I shared our cancer stories with each other. We both talked about the people we met, the help we received, the acts of kindness from friends, families, nurses, doctors and strangers. I am going to bet that Mary's cancer has influenced her work just like it has mine.
The basics we learned from years of experience are still there and still important. Our cancer experience has given us a profound view of the world that we didn't and couldn't have had before.
We're not smarter or better, but we are changed forever.
Tom Graser is the managing editor of The Marion Star. You can contact him at 740-375-5107 or tgraser@marionstar.com
Hopefully, this will get a few edits before it publishes in the newspaper
Why yoga is like journalism
If you read last Sunday’s newspaper I hope you took the time to read Jeannie Brewer’s column about yoga and equanimity. Equanimity, as Jeannie explained, is eveness of mind, especially under stress.
In yoga it means, as I understand it, keeping your mind at ease even while you have contorted your body into a strange position.
My full disclosure is that I have been taking Jeannie’s class for the last 14 months.
Yoga, I have discovered is a lot like journalism.
Anyone can do yoga. Anyone that can read and write and has access to the Internet can be a journalist.
My first yoga class was Dec. 20, 2007. I was trying to lose weight and get in shape and Jeannie had talked me into trying out the class. I could try a couple of classes for free and she would let me borrow a mat. She had me at the word free.
I thought the first class was easy. I got a bit tired in the inverted V of the downward facing dog position, but other than that it seemed like nothing more than a pleasant stretch.
At the next class, Jeannie showed us how we could increase our heart rates by a simple breathing exercise. Maybe, I thought, there was* more to this than stretching.
During the second class, I pushed myself a little more. When she told us to push into the floor while in the warrior pose, I pushed hard into the floor. I started doing a thing I called “angry yoga.” I pushed like I was mad and stretched like I had to reach out and strangle someone.
I would leave each class on wobbly legs. I don’t think I was doing the yoga very well, but I was getting something out of the class.
It wasn’t until the summer that I started to really get it.
It was hot and we were about half-way through a class. With sweat rolling off my bald head we moved into the downward facing dog position and I let out a yelp.
It is usually pretty quiet in the class, but I couldn’t help announcing that instead of balancing on my toes, my heels were on the mat. Jeannie came over and adjusted me a little and reminded me to breath. I inhaled slowly and finally understood what she meant when she told us “relax into the pose.”
The downward facing dog had always been a position of stress for me - I used the stress to my advantage but I wasn’t getting everything out of the pose.
Now, I love the dog. It’s still hard and it still hurts when it stretches my legs and lower back, but now I let my body handle the stress while my mind dwells on something else, or nothing at all.
So, how is yoga like journalism?
Anyone can do it. It’s easy to be an angry journalist and push an agenda and get caught up in politics and jump when the scanner chatters and chase ambulances and fire trucks.
It isn’t until you can achieve an eveness of mind that you can really understand your community, really understand what is important and use your resources towards the most beneficial outcome.
You need to work hard and push and stretch and fight, but you need to do it with control and eveness or you waste a lot of energy.
Spot the dinosaur. I made this one. It took way to long for the lousy result.
Chucky the chick. Lucy did this one. I think the perspective is amazing.
This is "Whaloe," the whale I designed. Lucy helped with the tail.
This is Lucy's Alien. Not sure if he has a name yet. She did this all herself.
The Panda was professionally designed and the parts cut out by the nice ladies at the Marion Public Library. Lucy sewed him together. No name yet.
The rabbits were professionally designed and cut out at the library. Lucy sewed the orange one, her name is Libby (for the library). I sewed the blue one, her name is Summi (because it sounds Japanese and we live on Summit Street).
Check out third paragraph. My coach really liked me.
I am pretty sure this is the only high school hockey game we ever covered. We did high school football and basketball and college hockey!
I gave away a cake every morning on my radio show!
Check out the third paragraph. I had forgotten all about Penn State.
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Here is the pretzel she was talking about. Each color represents a different branch of government. I guess the fourth estate is represented by the cord that allows you to hang the pretzel from your neck.
