Right back where I started from

Bill Rea

More than 13 years ago, I left a job with a community newspaper for which I had worked for 10 years.

In my final column, I concluded by acknowledging the many friends I had made, and predicting that I intended to stay on top of local happenings and visit the community often.

"You didn't think you were getting rid of me forever, did you?" was the final line in the piece.

That community newspaper was the Caledon Citizen, and here I am; back.

Did you miss me?

A bit of background is probably in order.

As many of you probably know, there have been a number of recent changes here at the Citizen. The latest adjustment is the departure of Mark Pavilons. After 23 years with this publication, he's switched to a new and (from the sounds of it) exciting project. Late in October, I was appointed managing editor of this group of newspapers.

That is a very simplified explanation of why my devilishly handsome mug appears above.

My connections with the Caledon community and the Citizen goes back a lot longer, to those days many years ago when I was a kid in school and Pierre Trudeau was in the Prime Minister's Office.

I was in my last year of the journalism program at Humber College, specializing in the radio pathway. I remember having some vague ambition of being the next Gordon Sinclair. But I was also was getting the impression, as time went on, that radio maybe wasn't for me. I spilled out my feelings of woe one Thursday morning in February to the journalism coordinator, and he responded that if I wanted to get back into the newspaper stream, he knew where there was an internship available, in a place called Bolton. It was one of those brief conversations, timed in such a way that it both changed and greatly enriched my life.

I spent two wonderful months interning with a paper called The Enterprise, then wouldn't you know it? A spot opened up at the paper across the street. It was there, staring me in the face. I grabbed for it, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I spent 10 years here at the Citizen, answering first to an editor who showed up intermittently, then to a workaholic who yelled a lot. And then Mark and I became co-editors.

Those were the days before such things as the internet or e-mail. I remember the day some noisy and annoying contraption was installed next to my desk.

"What the heck is that?" I demanded.

It was a fax machine. I had never heard of such a thing, let alone seen one.

In those days, much of the work was done by hand. Letters to the editor came in through the mail, and had to be typeset manually, by the editorial staff. Pictures were taken on 35mm cameras, with the film being developed and the kid who took them praying that everything turned out, or was at least useable. Putting the paper together involved cutting and pasting, with the use of sharp knives (I took at least one trip to the ER when the knife slipped) and putting it all together involved an all-nighter.

Funny how there are some things you don't miss.

But the best was covering all the events in Caledon, the fairs, the church socials, the school events, the elections. And there were the meetings of councils and school boards and other groups in the community. There were groups that said they cared about the environment, and actually did. There were peoplewho said they cared about taxes, and actually did not. I had lots of fun with those jokers.

In the intervening years, I have experienced the community newspaper scene in a couple of other places, like Toronto. I spent a lot of time around East York, Danforth Avenue, etc., learning a lot more about life, railing against people who did like Mike Harris, and railing against Harris because people didn't like the idea of the megacity.

More recently, I have been working in King Township, and having lots of fun there. King is a lot like Caledon, with plenty of green space and open areas that people want preserved, combined with the growth pressures from people who want to live in an area with plenty of green space and open areas.

No wonder this job is so much fun.

So while I haven't actually been working in Caledon for the last several years, I've hung around and stayed in touch. My wife is a Caledon lass, I plan spent a fair chunk of the coming holidays in Caledon. My dairy farmer brother-in-law will probably be pressing my brother and myself into service in about a month to help him vaccinate his herd.

The connections continue.

And I hope some old friendships can resume.

I was very touched 13 years ago with the numerous letters, phone calls and notes I received. Most of them wished me well and complimented me on a job well done.

One, that has always stood out in my memory, was addressed to Mark, advising him on ways to improve the paper now that I had taken my "petty" and "small-minded" style elsewhere. It's guys like that who really told me how good a job I was doing.

I'm going to have soooooo much fun!