Captain’s Log – Important work

Saturday, sitting at the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame lunch, looking around the room, I quickly grabbed my phone and made a note.

“Captain. People who are really good at what they do. Sitting in a whole room full of them.” 

It was pretty inspiring to be surrounded by the people in the Nevada media industry who have been doing this, together, for so long. I was overcome just a little bit, realizing that we were sitting there with them, listening to their stories and their teasing, getting just a little taste of what they’ve lived. 

It seemed like something worth writing about, something worth noting. 

And then the real life of a rural Nevada newspaper publisher intruded on my best-laid plans. 

Here we are — 56 minutes from our deadline — now 42 minutes, because I had to stop and record a quick meeting, and then have my handy computer tools transcribe it. I’m late, late, late because yesterday during production I had to drop everything and go get my dad’s truck and then go all the way out to the Boyer Bunny Ranch and get a sick goat and load him in the back of the truck in a huge dog crate just in case he felt good enough to jump out of the back of the truck and haul him over to the vet’s office so they could work their magic with slimy stuff in a tube down his throat. 

Then back to newspapering when other people go home or to the gym and then driving home in the dark again, watching the waning moon and thinking how beautiful it is this time of year. 

This morning Duane the errant goat was again ailing, so I did my chores and administered mineral oil down his gullet in between editing stories for Lovelock and researching the depths of the funding maze for the North Lyon County Fire Department in Fernley. As I walked to my car, clean and tidy in my Johnny Cash black outfit, I noticed Duane still in distress. 

It was time to try the baking soda, so sleeves rolled up and straddling a hugely swollen, mohair-clad Angora goat trying his best to gore me with a healthy set of horns, I managed to administer a couple tubes of baking soda solution and, after an honest effort, heard my first-ever goat burp.

I don’t know why the Hall of Fame lunch flashed through my head at that moment, and the thought of all those fancy people, but I started laughing as I considered the plight of a small-town publisher. It made me think of Mike Mackedon, an elegant, intellectual giant of a man if ever there was one, who used to refer to himself as a “small town lawyer who hung a shingle.” 

If I ever manage to live up to the example he set, a humble man doing small, daily things of great impact to his clients and his community, it will be a life well lived, a job well done, and those important people in the press association, I will continue to admire from afar. 

So, as we laugh at the whatever that is dried on my pant leg and hope like heck the goat is on the mend, we’ll always be right here…

…Keeping you Posted. 

Rach