Miracles Multiply

13. October 2010 by pat desmond.

Watching Nightline on late night TV, I celebrate the miracle of the Chilean miners.

I admit I have avoided many of the stories because I try to protect myself from great tragedies and sadness.

But tonight I watched as the first of the miners appeared from the depths of hell. The first of the 33 miners to emerge from the collapsed mine. Florencio Avalos, father of two, came out of the San Jose mine smiling, looking well.

Shortly after midnight the second man emerged in the strange looking capsule.

I cried when the first man was saved. Now it’s a story I want to follow. Now the happy ending seems possible.

Flipping to CNN, I rejoice in miracles.

The first rescue took 16 minutes for the last stage. But for 69 days, the men were buried, with little hope. Yet they hoped.

Isn’t live TV grand. Mario Sepulveda Espinace, #2 guy, came out of the pit with some sort of souvenir gift for the men who were part of the rescue effort.

Life is good. Miracles happen. Sometimes the world moves in the right direction.

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Winning Rocks

10. October 2010 by pat desmond.

The Milton Times staff just walked away with its second award in two years from the National Newspaper Association.

The award was announced last summer but presented at the NNA’s annual convention in Omaha last week. The convention celebrated the success of community newspapers in a tough economy.

The cartoon that won the Milton Times a third place award depicted Ledger reporter Fred Hanson standing in a crowd of Milton residents just before he was pulled off regular coverage of Milton news for the local daily paper.

Fred was saying “If only a few more of you bought the Ledger, I’d still be covering Milton.” Nearby someone had a thought bubble saying, “I read it online.”

The cartoon is not actually funny. The reality is daily newspapers like the Ledger have been giving their product away free for the past decade and they’ve watched their print readership decline in those years.

The Milton Times, like those big dailies, has a free web site. Obviously, if you found this blog, you can read stories from Milton online.  But after trying the model the bigger papers have been using (for two years back in 2000-2002), we have limited what goes online.

Just last week the Boston Globe announced it would be trying a paid web site while keeping the free site it’s been promoting at Boston.com. All of the big papers have figured out they need to do something differently.

It the past few months those big papers have been going after the small local retailers, trying to eat away at the losses they have been absorbing.

Those small local retailers are the source of life for a small weekly paper like the Milton Times. We have served the Milton market for the past 15 years. There are features we have tried and then moved away from in the brief history of the paper.

Our first responsibility is to create a viable newspaper. This means capturing stories about Milton and its people. It also means we pay attention to the bottom line. Our staff deserve more pay than they receive, but they are willing to accept the salaries that work in this market. We would love to print more photos and add more stories - the limiting factor is a financial one. Advertising pays the real cost of the paper. Subscriptions pay for the postage, plus the cost of subscription upkeep.

It’s fun to win awards. It’s great to be acknowledged by our peers.

Cartooning is fun, too.  Maybe there will be more cartoons in the Milton Times in the coming year.

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Postage Increase Held Off

7. October 2010 by pat desmond.

Well, one of the universal truths of America is that costs increase.

(I’m not thinking that is part of the American dream.)

Anyway, the powers that be in the Postal Service decided to ignore a law passed in 2006 that provided postal increase should be limited to the cost of living.

But the Postal Regulatory Commission voted recently to put the increase on hold. The PRC is not the last word. Its decision could be appealed but so far the postmaster general has indicated he is looking in other ways to deal with the budget problem. The post office is thinking about reducing delivery service from six to five days a week.

Who in their right mind thinks reducing service by 17 percent will increase the bottom line? Are they thinking they will lay off 17 percent of the staff? I don’t think so.

Meanwhile the cost of a first class stamp is 44 cents. Email is free.

I think they have a marketing problem.

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Contest Winner Announced

18. September 2010 by pat desmond.

 

 Richard O’Mara and David Thompson

This space is usually reserved for my thoughts but I want to share a story about the garden contest I judged last week. 

By Janet Harrold

A few months ago we decided to have a garden contest. Our thought process at the beginning was to not expect too much our first year. To our surprise it was well received by avid gardeners from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. Our panel of judges were carefully selected and brought in for site visits once the 5 finalists were established. This was an extremely difficult choice to make as they all worked so hard and were well thought out. Our judges really had their work cut out for them. Unfortunately we can only have one First Place winner, and we are proud to announce The recipient of this years $500.

Cedar Grove Gardens Credit will be awarded to………….Drum roll please……………….David Thompson from Dorchester, MA!

David is no stranger to gardening, his hard work really paid off this year as he was also the recipient of The Mayor’s Golden Trowel Award. It was no surprise that his passion and many talents were reflected in his gardens.David owns and operates Eclipse Salon in Milton. http://www.eclipsesalongallery.com/ David is a Photographer, and an Artist.http://www.davidthompsonart.com/
He paints primarily with oil. He is a Dune Shack artist, a Cape Cod artist, and a New England Artist.

To quote one of our judges “I loved the mix of modern and antique in his garden. The textures and colors balanced each other perfectly. Especially liked the koi pond and greenhouse, and thought out pathways. Use of “found” objects were a nice detail-a very personal garden”.
We would like to thank all of our contestants for participating and invite them to try again next year.
Thank you David for participating in our garden contest and also for helping to make Dorchester beautiful with your many talents.

(Contest judges included Pat Desmond of the Milton Times, Maureen Forry of the Dorchester Reporter and photographer Kristin Ahern.)

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How Does Your Garden Grow

10. September 2010 by pat desmond.

Cedar Grove Garden created an interesting online garden contest in the last days of summer.

This week, three relatively non-partial judges (including me) traveled through the backyards of the finalists. We still haven’t made a final decision. But the results will soon be known.

Cedar Grove’s Richard O’Mara found a spectacular angle for the contest. The five finalists were selected by a crowd of online voters. The five gardens managed to earn several thousand votes each.

So Maureen Forry of the Dorchester Reporter and Kristin Ahern, a Dorchester photographer, and I all agree that the quality of the five finalists was amazing.

Now truth be told, the gardens look more colorful in the photos on the Cedar Grove Garden Web site than they did for our Sept. 9 garden tour. But  the designs, the lighting, the chimes, the stone work are there to bring out smiles even after the blooms fade.

I was amazed at the blooms still available.

So thank you Richard Froio, David Thompson, R. Foley, Cheryl and Buddy Earle.

Four of the final gardens are located in Dorchester. Earle lives in Cambridge. The contest pulled in entries from as far north as New Hampshire.

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Wedding Bells

3. September 2010 by pat desmond.

 (This poem was written to commemorate the marriage of my only son Aug. 28 at Slide Ranch in Muir Beach, CA. Sometimes even a publisher travels beyond the borders of Milton.)

I carried the precious

as rainbow mist groom’s ring

across the continent,

to reach the fog of San Francisco

the foothills of the wedding of the millenium.

30+ years ago I carried the groom

from possibility into life.

Steeped in joy and warmed

by the love of my tiny family,

I sit with my memories

and smile like an aged cat

as I remember the boy

who walked on walls

and played as if his games

were earth-defining.

My son with his ah-so-many questions,

his torn dungarees

and his tilted baseball cap.

I miss that child of mine,

much as I glow with pride

at the man he’s become.

Years move quickly.

Yesterday disappears like smoke.

Timothy Ambrose

True Mountain of Joy.

Joy of my life.

I remember when you

introduced Annie to me -

Your friend, you said.

And I smiled, knowing better.

She was there to support you,

the day you wore your master’s hood.

And so, dearheart, was I.

Years pass

when you least expect it.

Days dissolve.

My family grew today

as we circled around the bride and groom -

Annie and Ambrose.

This is a day to cherish.

A day worth holding fast in memory.

A memory to feast upon in years to come.

Carry it close to your heart.

Take it out when you need

a breathe of love

a moment of joy.

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Deep Background

8. August 2010 by pat desmond.

Now that my children are grown and living out of state, I have more time to think about whether my life’s work is moving in the right direction.

 

I began working in journalism in 1966 while still in college. I had zero skills for the occupation but I loved to write and thought newspapers were about writing.

 

Over the past 40 years I’ve learned about journalism.

 

Good journalism is essential to preserving democracy. Shedding light on the issues allows voters to make informed decisions.

 

There was a time in my life when I worried about the direction newspapers were taking.

 

After all, my career came of age at a time when newspapers were taking risks to uncover problems in our society. The New York Times – and other papers – published the Pentagon Papers released by Daniel Ellsberg, making the world aware of the lies beneath the rationale for the Vietnamese War.

 

Then Washington Post set two of its investigators loose on the Watergate story. We all know the end.

 

Back in those days, mega-corporations hadn’t taken control of the news process. And Wikileaks hadn’t begun overwhelming the citizenry with information. Years passed.

 

The Milton Times began publication in 1995. Both of my children helped in the beginning. My son, who was at Milton High School, handled deliveries and picked up the newspaper from the printing plant. My daughter worked full time creating ads and helping with page layout on the computer. My mother helped proof the pages.

 

The paper has changed over the past 15 years. A full-size truck brings the paper to town because it no longer fits in a large car or SUV. There is a staff of hard-working professional who put the pages together.

 

About 14 years ago, the paper developed a static web site which has undergone steady improvement. We continue to think about ways to change and improve the product.

 

While I’ve been busy growing the paper, my children have moved in other directions. My daughter is working towards her bachelor’s degree while raising two children. She has written two excellent children’s books.

 

My son is working as a therapist in California where he seems to have settled after traveling all over this country and through at least four Continents. He will marry later this year and I gain a new daughter. Today he has a web site of his own. Visit him at www.psychresources.net for more information.

 

 

 

 

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Summer Hours

1. July 2010 by pat desmond.

For the summer months, the office of the Milton Times will close at 4 p.m. After Labor Day, we will return to our regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours.

The early closing begins July 1. We continue to open at 9 a.m. at our office in the Jesson Building, 480 Adams St., Suite 208, East Milton.

Summer months are always slow at the paper.

In the past few days most of our staff has been leaving far before 5 p.m. With the 4 p.m. closing, our staff will have more time of their own. We may even keep the 4 p.m. closing on a permanent basis if it seems to work for our readers.

(We will still be closing from 1 to 2 p.m. on Fridays for our staff lunch.)

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NNA Board Met Last Week

17. June 2010 by pat desmond.

The core mission of the National Newspaper Association is to protect, promote and enhance America’s community newspapers.

As the owner of Milton’s newspaper of record, The Milton Times, I am excited about the opportunities that working on the NNA board can create.

Last week I spent a few days in Michigan - it was my first chance to sit with the other members of the NNA board.

I have Cheryl Kaechlele, association president, to thank.

As a board, we spent most of our meeting working on a plan to reset priorities.

It’s always a good idea to take a look at goals and decide if current strategy is working. So we’re moving in a new way to achieve our mission.

We talked about concentrating on the basics. After all, isn’t that what usually leads to success?

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Back in Town

15. June 2010 by pat desmond.

Last week I was in Michigan meeting with the other members of the Board of Directors of the National Newspaper Association.

Cheryl Kaechele, publisher of three papers in Michigan, is president this year and she wanted to show off the interesting side of her state. Ease of transportation is not part of the picture.

What I learned when I arrived at Logan Airport is that the body scanning devices are in place in the security line. Despite the fact security lines move slowly through the body scanners, four TSA people decided to randomly check people at my gate. The plane was heading to San Diego with a stop in Detriot. (Obviously, I was getting off in Detriot.)

I was in Zone 3, which means I wasn’t the last to board the aircraft, but in the time I watched the special screening, I saw several the TSA people go through the carry on luggage of several women in my age range.

Are any of the known terrorists women in their 60s?

Does the government think this makes anyone believe they have a security plan that works?

I remember traveling to Israel back in the 1970s and wondering why there were so many soldiers walking in the cities. Why people were searched before they could board a plane. Why there were fences topped with barbed wire near the sandy beaches.

It seems we are moving back in time.

Anyway I will be doing more airplane travel this year as I finish my year on the NNA board. I head to Omaha in September for the annual convention.

Will the Milton Times improve because I will be traveling more? Maybe. There are some wonderful ideas employed at other small newspapers.

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