Nothing productive is happening when a daily newspaper reporter’s phone stops ringing. It means that you aren’t wanted for anything, which should hurt because that in turn means that you so obviously haven’t been roaring loud nor leaping far enough in your articles. Somebody entrenched on at least some remote tentacle of a particular story should have felt challenged or pleased.

So you know it’s time to leave the job when hearing a dial tone in the morning instantly reverses your body’s sympathetic nervous system, and you welcome it. For most of the past nine years, my morning office routine played out like this: flip up light switch, toss purse, tap on desk lamp, turn on computer, hang up coat, sit down, click three icons and, finally, (wait for it) pick up the phone. Dial tone? Ahhh. Beep, beep, beep (message indicator)? Cringe.

That was even before a blank screen challenged me to regurgitate something that I most likely just learned. I gave myself 1 to 2 hours to fill it and then get a source on the phone to verify details and get quotes, all by our 9 a.m. deadline. It could be anything from methane producing cows, gas wells or swamps, to ash bores or the swine flu, to the death of a prominent member of the community or money matters of all kinds, including a small business loan for a start-up Greek yogurt company. On good days, I would already have the lead and several paragraphs written from the day before, and even enough time left after deadline to proofread the young cubbies’ articles. On bad days … well it was a rush, and not in a good way.

While peeling away post it notes pinned to the bulletin board in my office and uncovering the bare walls underneath old county road maps, timely statistics and financial reports, I’m reminded of the many people who called and were both pleasant and helpful. Many Chenango County-loving people gave me ideas for stories, and scoops that resulted in a number of articles. A few praised me. Others cried about the injustice dealt them, and I tried to help.

But remembering the angry calls from a senator, two county sheriffs, a fire chief and one extremely irate county supervisor still puts me right under the desk. I knew going in that laying my name out in public, getting into other people’s business and taking the risk to get the facts fair and straight, all while keeping the English language intact, wasn’t for the meek nor fainthearted. I handled the humiliation respectfully well enough to keep on typing from the ages of 45 to 51 (and even mended fences with most of the above officials). However, the last two years of deadlines and fear of the 9,000 people who have the right to criticize me every day (as my editor so eloquently describes our faithful readers), have admittedly thinned my skin.