It’s
been a long time since I first stepped through the doors of the Journal Tribune. I was wide-eyed as a speckled hawk owl and twitchy with shot
nerves; up to that point, the most pressure I’d felt professionally was
meeting sales goals while peddling long-distance calling plans as a
telemarketer. Now I was tasked with writing articles for the sports
department of an honest-to-goodness publication, and I’ll admit, I was
scared. My first assignment was covering a Thornton Academy lacrosse
game, and I just about gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome jotting down
every last detail, feverishly trying to get it right.
Eight
years later I’m still trying to get it right. I’m better at it; you
learn these kinds of things. But you also learn when it’s time to move
on.
Today’s
my last day at the Journal, and I have to say, it feels a little
anticlimactic. Almost a decade of my life has gone by – a blurry,
unending train of effort and struggle, of pouring myself into my work –
and then, poof. See you later, guys. Thanks for the memories. It’s
weird.
In
a few days I move onto the next effort, the next struggle, and while
there’s a part of me that’s excited about the opportunity, I’ve got this
built-in mechanism whose sole purpose is nostalgia: clinging to the
bittersweet aggregate of my life’s experiences and wringing from it
every last sentimental drop. This is by turns rewarding and painful –
rewarding because it gives me a long memory, and a deep well from which
to draw, and painful because I get attached to old times. I recognize
this, and so I hate it when an era of my life becomes appropriated by
the past. To take on something new you often have to ditch some ballast,
but I like my ballast. It makes me, for better or for worse, who I am.
So while I look to the future, I have to knowledge the Journal’s role in making that future possible.
You
don’t get rich doing this kind of thing. I’ve become rich in
experiences, though. I’ve photographed several American presidents, a
gaggle of senators and state representatives, and the odd sex criminal
or two. I’ve sped from one side of the Saco River to the other in a
makeshift ferry boat the size of a porcelain bathtub. I’ve toured
hollowed-out husks of mill buildings transformed into three-dimensional,
living art exhibitions, and I’ve been there when heartbroken dog owners
were reunited with their wandering K-9 companions. Maple syrup
producers have felt my lingering presence as I shadowed their efforts to
collect sap from tree taps. Children’s librarians across the county
once knew me on a first-name basis. The level of my penetration into the
community has been deep and varied, and yet I was a wraith, barely
registering in peoples’ minds before blowing out the door on a breeze
and carrying stories and photos, images and words, to readers of the
news. Talk about squeezing a lot of living into a short amount of time.
One
of my more treasured memories came when I was still a green, tentative
sportswriter. The first editor I ever worked for, John Nash, decided to
send me to Fenway Park to interview a former Sanford High School
baseball player; the SHS alum was taking part in a collegiate all-star
game at the venerable Major League venue, and my assignment was to turn
his experience into a story, maybe grab a photo or two. I arrived at
Fenway on the train, camera bag slung over one shoulder, and entered the
stadium where legions of childhood heroes had left cleat marks in the
dust.
What
struck me was the silence. It was mostly friends and family of the
players who were in attendance, and while there were perhaps 1,000
people packed into the prime seats, the rest of the park was empty –
usually a roar of activity and emotion, the only sounds in Fenway that
evening were a handful of cheers and the occasional clink of a ball
struck by an aluminum bat. I found my man, got my quotes, and then
realized I had some time on my hands.
Photography
was a burgeoning hobby then. I never thought I’d be able to do it for a
living at that point; I just liked shooting. With a nearly empty park
waiting to be explored, I grabbed my primitive little Kodak and toured
the grounds. I found the lone red seat in the outfield stands, so
painted to commemorate a long home run hit by legend Ted Williams in the
1940s, and sat there. I grabbed twilight-infused landscape shots of the
park from the first- and third-base sides. And to cap things off, I
worked my way up to the seats on top of the Green Monster in left field,
looking down at the basepaths from a perspective I’d previously only
seen in dreams. It was a stunning night for photos, an egg-yolk sunset
painting streaks of crimson and purple across a dying sky, and standing
there on top of the Monster, I closed my eyes and breathed in the smells
of cut grass and deep history. Alone in near-silence, with a lit field
below me, I thought, “This is what it’s all about. This is all right.”
At moments like that, it’s hard not to think you’re the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth.
Time
ends all things. It won’t, however, be ending this column – at least
not for the time being. I started this thing in August of 2012 and
haven’t missed a week since. It’s a streak I’m proud of, but I didn’t
consciously set out to monopolize Friday’s
editorial page; I just like writing, and so I do it. Most of these
musings have been nothing more than a dreamer’s whimsy, but I’d like to
think I occasionally had something substantive to say, and that there’s
more to say still. There are uncharted depths in the well, and if you’ll
continue reading, I’ll continue exploring them. The Journal and I have
arranged to keep this thing going, and I’m glad. It scratches an itch,
and hopefully makes people smile. That’s all I ever wanted to
accomplish.
A
follower of my work once told me I was “a bit of a maverick.” I guess
that’s true. It certainly was an unconventional route I took to get
here. It’s probably pretentious to ponder any kind of a legacy, but if
I’ve got one, I hope it’s that I brought a fresh and unique perspective
to my work. Something with an original stamp on it. As Frank Sinatra
might have said, I did it all my way.
Oh, but hell. I’ll let ol’ Blue Eyes say it himself.
For what is a man, what has he got
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.
Yes. It was my way.
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