cmyer@newsandsentinel.com
I don’t know where to start. And the man I used to call when I was stuck is not at the other end on the phone, now.
I don’t have the right words. But he did. For 46 years he poured words onto the page for readers as a reporter, an editor, a columnist … there were times in his career when he had to do it all for the smaller newsrooms where he worked. And he did.
My dad had me roped into the newspaper business as early as I can remember. Some of it’s a jumbled blur. Pulling pages off the big machine that spit out wire photos and handing it to someone to be marked up with a grease pencil; pulling film off the drying line in the back … just standing there listening to the clack, clack, clack of typewriters and old phones ringing. The smell of pipe smoke, ink, dark room chemicals and paper in a tiny office in Sistersville. Men like my dad and Adam Kelly rolling around on their office chairs asking big questions and doing important things.