Three years of newspaper havoc — including a walkout, a three-way newspaper war in a town of 20,000, and, in a stunning reversal that left me dizzy, a sale of the original paper to the people who walked out to start their own — have resolved into something that I have described as double deja vu. Once more, I am working with newspaper folks I’ve known for ten to 15 years. The Times, which was a daily publication when I arrived in Liberal many years back, my clothing safety-pinned together and my fingernails dirty, has survived a sojurn in the thrice-weekly netherworld and is daily once more. It’s got a new name, Leader & Times, and so does my little piece of print real estate on the Opinion page.
My weekly Sunday column, which never stopped, has been renamed (by me). No longer “A Word in Time,” it’s “Gravity & Stars.” The name alludes to the way this part of the world, with its wide-open, circular horizon, lends itself to an acute awareness of just how small we are, how huge the world, and how important it is to stop and consider it all. Easy to do with that sky tented endlessly above. Plus, after all the helter-skelter swoops and reversals of the past few years, I feel the need to remain, well, grounded.
