Surviving another birthday

Fifty-four.

That’s the age I turned Thursday, although the day itself aged me considerably more than that. It was almost comical. It WOULD be comical if I hadn’t been the one going through it. But since you’re not the one who went through it, maybe you WILL find it comical, and that’s why I’m writing about it.

It wasn’t a good week for someone to be entering his mid-50s. I kept reading about people in their mid-50s suddenly dying. Mosi Tatupu, who played football for the Patriots and USC, dead at 54. Yipes. Therese Rochette, the mother of Winter Olympic figure skater Joannie Rochette, died suddenly in Vancouver of a massive heart attack at 55.

I had to work on my birthday this year, which isn’t all that unusual in my job. I’m certainly not complaining; I had two days off before my birthday and another after it. But Thursday was crazy.

I started writing my TV-Radio sports column for The Star as I usually do on Thursdays at about 7:30 a.m. I had to kind of rush it this week because I had a dentist appointment scheduled for noon. Whatever possessed me to schedule a dentist appointment on my birthday I don’t know, but it was one of the few days my hygienist had open, so I did it.

This week I was writing about the Universal Sports network. It’s a cable channel NBC owns part of, which has recently become based in our circulation area, in Westlake Village. The network is doing some Winter Olympic programming from both Vancouver and Westlake. I got invited to tour the facility and meet its president.

I had also hoped to talk to David Michaels for my column. He’s the executive producer of Universal Sports, directs NBC’s Olympic figure skating and gymnastics along with other things. He lives in Westlake Village, which makes him local — and is also the brother of NBC’s Al Michaels, which makes him even more interesting. David’s always been great to me and treats me like I work for the New York Times or something. But I knew he was busy — the women’s figure skating final was that night — so I wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer the e-mail I’d sent him.

I finished my column, and the TV notes that go along with it, without Michaels and scurried to get ready for my dentist appointment. I was almost literally out the door when my cell phone rang. It was David Michaels. I took out my recorder, put my phone on loudspeaker and did a quick interview. It was really cool that he called me and I think my wife Karen was kind of impressed that he would call me back like that and she also heard the friendly way he talked to me. You can always use some points like that with your wife!

Of course, there was a traffic jam on the 101 on the way to the dentist, making me about 10 minutes late. But I got there and found, to my chagrin, that everybody at the dentist’s office knew it was my birthday. The dentist, after telling me that before long I might need to have a wisdom tooth taken out (I’d rather leave them in if I can; I need all the wisdom I can get! Who knew wisdom came from your teeth?), brought me back two birthday “gifts” she found in her office: a little model airplane and a bottle of what she called “manly” body wash with the office’s logo on it.

This is all going on while I’m in the chair with the hygienist cleaning my teeth! The dentist noted that one of the ingredients of the body wash was goat milk. The hygienist then said something about how male goats attract female goats by peeing on themselves, so she wasn’t sure how good this “manly” body wash would be. Again, all this is going on while my mouth is wide open with instruments in it and the suction thingy hanging out of it. My eyes were getting wider with every comment, moving from one of them to the other.

I finally got out of there. They gave me a little bag for my stuff (toothpaste, toothbrush, floss, model airplane, “manly” body wash) and I headed for the office.

When I got to the office, I discovered a deflated Mylar birthday balloon and a stuffed monkey on my desk. Apparently, somebody was given this gift a long time ago and it has since then shuffled from birthday person to birthday person. It was nice, unless you’re sorta kinda trying not to draw a lot of attention to the fact that you’re now 54 years old.

I had to get in a little earlier than usual, partly because of stuff I had to catch up on, partly so I could incorporate David Michaels’ comments into my column. I got everything set up, then took out my recorder. To my disgust, I found that when I had put my phone on loudspeaker, it caused interference on my recorder and most of Michaels’ comments were unintelligible. I was able, however, to salvage a little bit of it and make it work.

With our staff being cut through sudden layoffs (our copy desk is being outsourced to Texas, which means I’ll be losing my job in May or June, and our sports editor was laid off effective immediately last week) and the Winter Olympics going on, our shifts have been pretty stressful recently. We were almost a half-hour late in getting the section done. By the time I left the office at about 11:45 p.m., my neck and shoulders were very sore.

Eesh. It definitely hadn’t felt like I’d had the previous two days off, but I’m really happy I have today off. As I write this, the plan is for my wife and son to take me out to dinner tonight and I’m thinking there will be some Wood Ranch beef ribs in my future.

The best thing about my actual birthday on Thursday? The amazing number of people on Facebook who wished me a very happy birthday. It was even more amazing when I went back today and counted them up.

Fifty-four!

Laid off

As some of you already know, I found out last week that my job is going to be eliminated in May or June. Although people may know that I write for The Star, my job is basically to be a copy editor. The E.W. Scripps Co., the chain that owns our paper, is consolidating all the copy desks (i.e., the people who design the pages and put the stories and photos on them) for the papers it has in the Western states into their paper in Corpus Christi, Texas.

What is happening is that in order to cut costs -- something all newspapers are desperately trying to do these days -- Scripps is eliminating all the copy desks at its papers in Ventura, Redding and Bremerton, Wash. The people being laid off are being offered jobs in Corpus Christi, but as you can imagine, few if any will decide to move to Texas.

It is definitely a shocking and rather incomprehensible move. Local reporters will be writing their stories here in Ventura County. Editors on the city desk will edit them and then tell people in Texas how they are to be laid out. It sounds so strange and so desperate.

On top of all this, we found out this week three more are being let go as well, including my boss and our sports columnist, who has been at the paper for 25 years.

This, obviously, is going to be a traumatic thing for our family as well as the 17 other people losing their jobs at The Star and I'd really appreciate your prayers. I've been at The Star for 26 years. We're fortunate that we've been able to save some money through various means over the years. We're not like a lot of other people who are living from paycheck to paycheck. But anything like this is very scary. The job market is very thin and even more so for journalists/writers.

A year ago last November, we had some other layoffs and at that time, I sent out an e-mail to the whole newsroom (a unusually bold thing for me to do) and told them "The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God can't keep you." I still believe that and know good things are in store, even though it may be difficult to see how now.

I'll write more later about the day it happened and feelings I have about all this. Not that you're necessarily dying to know all this, but it'll help me with the grief process (and isn't that one of the things a blog is for?). That process right now is still a little too raw to express, especially after the additional cuts this week.