Who, what, when, where, why and how. Affectionately known as the five W’s (and one H), they represent the core of any journalistic effort. They are the key questions every card-carrying journalist seeks to answer in every piece of writing.

Sometimes, however, as simple as these pieces of the puzzle seem, the answers themselves aren’t all that clear.

I know what you’re thinking. That I must be talking about the why’s and how’s of it all. But in Chenango County, sometimes the where is the hardest to define.

Two weeks ago, I trekked to the northeast corner of our fair county to cover a fire at DuBois Welding on County Road 13. Yes, I actually went to the fire. So, you’d think it would be easy for me to pinpoint its location for the subsequent story, right?

Wrong.

The business was in what is generally considered South Otselic, but it happens to be – at least technically – in the Town of Lincklaen. I tried to cover my bases, and initially referred to the shop as a “South Otselic business,” but listing the dateline as the more technically accurate “Lincklaen.” This disparity did not escape the attention of my esteemed editor, Mr. Jeffrey Genung, who bellowed his displeasure from the cozy confines of his office while I sat shaking at my desk in the newsroom.

Pained by the thought of causing my usually mild-mannered boss such angst, I scurried to settle the matter once and for all. By Googling it.

Unfortunately, rather than providing a solution to our little locational conundrum, the result of my Internet search only proved to further complicate the issue.

See, according to the U.S. Postal Service, the business’ address placed it not in South Otselic or Lincklaen, but in DeRuyter!

I didn’t even bother relaying this little tidbit of info to You-Know-Who. No, I figured it was safer to keep it to myself. And then I used an age-old, time-tested method to reconcile the matter. You may have heard of it, or even employed it yourself a time or two.

It’s called “Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe.”