50 for 50: 1979

YEAR: 1979

AGE: Turned 9 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Chicago, Rascher Avenue

BEARS' RECORD: 10-6

SONGS I LIKED: "My Sharona" by The Knack, "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire

MOVIES I SAW: "The Muppet Movie," "Rocky II"

TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "Challenge of the Super Friends," "Mork and Mindy"

I'm not sure how I became so drawn to the news, but as young as 6 (and maybe even 5), I was watching local newscasts and reading the newspaper. I likely didn't understand much of what I was seeing, but I understood that every newscast started with the important news, included a weather forecast (for some reason, I really appreciated Harry Volkman), and usually finished off with sports.

I also caught on to how the newspaper was situated. When we lived on McVicker, my grandmother (who lived in the upstairs apartment) subscribed to the Sun-Times, although I can remember an occasional Daily News in the house. The weather map was especially intriguing, though on the Sun-Times map, I couldn't understand what a static front was, as opposed to a cold or warm front. I almost wrote Harry Volkman to ask (it's another name for a stationary front). And of course, the Sunday comics page was a favorite -- Grandma and I would do the giant word search.

When we moved to Rascher, we switched to the Chicago Tribune, and I was now reading the newspaper in sections. The sports pages were especially appealing, including the box scores, standings, and statistics. 

I didn't start seriously considering becoming a newspaper journalist until I was about 12. I liked writing, liked newspapers, liked the news, and knew I wouldn't like broadcast news. But around 1979, I began taking my interest in newspapers beyond just reading -- one Sunday, I made my own sports section. I cut out a picture of Cubs manager Herman Franks (who has a park in Salt Lake City named after him where they boys played baseball), taped it to a piece of looseleaf paper, and built a small sports section from there.

That wouldn't be the only time I would try this. I know I took it to the next level, putting pages in a binder, writing recaps and adding standings, and gluing baseball cards as mug shots. I basically started hard-wiring my brain to look at the world as a print journalist -- and perhaps as a sports journalist.

I worked professionally in newspapers for 24 years before walking away. The business wasn't the same when I left, but I feel lucky that I was in the industry when it still resembled the newspapers I grew up with in the 1970s and '80s. There are days I miss it, but again, what I'm missing doesn't quite exist anymore. Newspaper journalism is still important -- unfortunately, there's just not much of future for the physical newspaper. 

That said, one of my favorite parts of vacationing in Chicago is reading the Tribune, critiquing the sports section, and doing the Jumble. You can take the journalist out of the newspaper, but you'll never take the newspaper out of the journalist. I wonder if I already knew that when I was 8.



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