The Fickle Finger of Fate

The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate

So, apparently, I have a week.

A week to wait, to worry, to lie awake at night, to hold my breath, to hope for the best, to pray, to be scared to death.

To win the lottery.

A week (give or take) until the men in ties (and let's face it, they're all going to be men in ties and not women in pencil skirts) decide whether or not I am a journalist worth keeping as my employer moves to the digital age, to decide whether or not I have kept up enough.

A week to ask, do I want them to keep me, even though this venture is filled with uncertainty and, some say, doomed to failure? Or do I want them to let me go, so I can try something new, break my mold? Even after 25 years.

This certainly has been an ever-changing job. I went from part time clerk in the sports department, putting together agate pages, answering phones (and really stupid questions) to full time clerk who made all the travel arrangements for the "real" reporters and answered phones(and really stupid questions).

But I got to write a story or two.

Night golf with Morten Anderson (the pins glowed in the dark).

A local softball team that went to Russia to teach them how to play.

How to become an umpire.

Then I went to full time "real" reporter, covering high school sports. Football one day, volleyball the next. Or swimming, golf, tennis,basketball, soccer, track.

Baseball on a gorgeous spring day.

Sending stories from pay phones, borrowed phones, coaches' offices. A Pizza Hut.


I covered some wonderful events -- two Super Bowls, a Final Four, the French Quarter during the Final Four.

I covered a high school game that went through five overtimes (and I STILL got my story in the paper!)

A baseball game where a kid hit four home runs.
 
And some amazing athletes.


Ed Reed.

LaRon and Dawan Landry.

The Mannings.

Ryan Perrilloux.

A whole bunch of former Zephyrs.

The high school kid with a 95 mph fastball and whose teachers encouraged him to quit school and go for the major league baseball draft. He did, and got a $100,000 signing bonus, but didn't make it through training camp.
 
Then a man in a tie decided I was needed elsewhere. I was benched. Turned into a clerk, who answered phones (and really stupid questions), took payments, handed out garage sale kits, ordered the toilet paper, shopped for the annual Christmas party and waited for the Mayhem Guy to strike. At least it gave me time to hone my skills as a social media specialist.

And got to write stories I never would have before.

The inspiring high school principal who danced at her wedding despite losing her feet and her hands to a staph infection.

The high school girl who left her tiny home in Gramercy to travel the country as a red-headed basketball player back in the 1960s. (That one hasn't run yet.)

The woman who had her fund-raising flock of pink flamingos stolen.

The local man I didn't even know about who died in the Pentagon on September 11th.

And some I never wanted to, like the man who murdered his girlfriend, left her body in a car parked at the local hospital, locked himself in a shed and then shot himself.

Or the men who molested children.
 
So now I'm preparing for change again. What shall I do? What can I do? Sell shoes? Clean toilets? Teach children?

I always wanted to live at the beach. I could sell seashells by the seashore.

Or balloons at Disney World.

This is my DREAM job!

But let's face it. All I really want to do is write. That's how this blog was born. Then reborn after my last job change because I needed a place to do it. To tell stories.

And I will continue to do so.

I just don't know where.

That's up to the Fickle Finger of Fate.

To be continued ....
 

Hanging out at YeahWrite... Read and be read.