I’m so excited!! My littlest fan is coming to see me today. I sure hope she brings me a hot dog from Speedway on the corner of Taywood and Main 
I just wanted to remind her that my tail is really big and bushy, but I don’t like people touching it. And make sure I can sniff you first before you pet me, ok? Looking forward to seeing you!!
5. Dogs never ask you how you feel about anything.
4. Dogs charge nothing to listen
3. Dogs will never complain if you run over the scheduled time or take a different path.
2. Dogs are not scared of demons or monsters and will always be there with you when you face them.
1. Dogs will never, ever tell another living soul what you said to them, not even if they get subpoenaed
For those of you who may not know, I was with the Dayton Daily News from 1998-2002. It was perhaps the most meaningful period of my life, in which I learned how to write objectively, think independently, treasure really, really talented people around me, learned how to change the world with little more than a thought and a pen, to learn patience, compassion and humility from greater human beings and learned how to find meaning in a job where I was paid almost nothing and expected to accomplish almost everything. I loved every heartache of the 4 1/2 years I spent there.
Yesterday, I visited the DDN building on Ludlow Ave in downtown Dayton. They were having a public sale where furniture, computer equipment, etc was being sold for whatever they could get. I went to walk the halls for one last time, to hear my friends, colleagues and mentors in my head one last time, to reclaim the same excitement I felt coming into the old newspaper building every morning. I was not disappointed.
Some building have souls. The DDN “bank building” is one such place. The way the elevators and stairs only go up to the 4th floor on one side, the twists and turns of the hallways as the three buildings were forced together when the newspaper grew and merged. The fifth-floor artists space where the “deadman” chalk line was placed, the corner nook where MB Hopkins, the most talented artist I have ever known, hand-drew her illustrations, the old chair in Ted Pitts‘ office, where I spent many afternoons talking when my shift was over and I didn’t want to leave. The drafting table on the third floor where I spent 9/11/2001 updating the DDN web site because nobody else in the building knew how. Jeff Adams‘ office where we spent many afternoons talking about ethics, objectivity and America’s place in the world (Jeff passed away Sept, 2004 at only age 50…) Derek Ali’s desk, the most enthusiast, optimistic reporter I have ever worked with. (Derek was shot dead the same week as Jeff died)
The tunnel in the wall where the paper bundles flew down from the press to the dock, inches from my ear every afternoon. It was silenced in the Fall of 1999 when the PTC opened in Franklin. The smell of paper, the mess of ink. The damp smell of water dripping in from somewhere. The unevenly lit floors, the offices crammed into spaces where there were no walls, no logical cohesion to the rest of the floor.
The only floor where you could tell who had authority was the sixth floor (C-Suite) Everywhere else, editors would work next to reporters, sometimes project coordinators had larger offices than their directors. Privacy was a luxury that nobody seemed to need. But nobody seemed to care; it was all about the work, the passion of creating this newspaper that had meaning, that made us somehow a little bit better for having survived and reported another day.
There are times in a career where you feel that you are the very best at who you are and you are playing on the very best team around. 2000-2001 was that season for me. I was working with the best reporters, the best thought leaders, the best illustrators, the best photojournalists and my director, Sandy Eichhorn-Hilt, was the best NIE visionary there ever will be.
Yet, the DDN has managed to destroy the newspaper’s soul. They first started by moving printing to the PTC and the presses went silent. Then, last year, they moved out of the old bank building and into a newly renovated, very modern building away from downtown Dayton. All the chairs match, all the desks are modular…. the building has no soul. It could be any corporation in America, but it will never again be a newspaper. And the final blow is the public sale where they let anyone in to rape the building like a common street walker. Small business owners looking for cheap furniture, kids looking for cheap mic stands, geeks looking for some mismatched computer parts.
I sat in the third floor newsroom and watched them all. I hated them at that moment. But most of all, I fought back tears as I watched a rich, vibrant, talented, lusty soul being brought to her knees in despair.
I recently had the opportunity to take a ride through Red State America along Hwy 35 through southern Ohio, West Virginia and onto Interstate 64. The ride was a bit odd as I emerged from Dayton, the rich, white, mall-laden Beavercreek into the hills, holler and trailer-park homes that lined 35 for miles upon miles.
I listened to Obama’s speech again and again (we dogs have pretty good hearing) with his “bitter” and “cling” comments. In context, they make sense. Out of context, he sounds like an elitist.
The same parts of America that will never vote for a [insert racial term here or use the term "black man"], that believe the unions are in their corner, that believe that when bad things happen, singing “God Bless America” will make things ok and when things go well, sing the praises of God and thank him are who need the message of hope the most. But they will reject it for things they “know” to be real. Guns, God and Government.
Before you can change, before you can grow, before you can hope, you MUST start from a truth. The truth is that when the economy goes badly because our market shifts to making things in China instead of America, small towns who depend on a single source of manufacture are devastated. Lifestyles that were thought to be solid are disrupted. And people need to find a cause. Governments can’t be the cause, certainly you can’t blame God; that according to faith, would be despair, a deadly sin. Small town America struggles for understanding and “clings” to what it knows to be true. God is everlasting, omniscient and ever-present. Guns will protect you from someone else’s desperation. And government will bail you out with food stamps and medical care for your kids.
That is the truth that this country NEEDS to accept for us to move forward. Instead, Clinton, FOX and other “thought leaders” pounce on these comments as elitist. They should be looking inward and asking themselves if perhaps Obama hasn’t driven along Hwy 35 in southern Ohio and West Virginia and looked out the windows more often than they have.
You can’t pay your mortgage with HOPE, you can’t feed your children with HOPE. You can’t pray to HOPE. But HOPE is what will fuel a movement for change because hope — combined with the kind of desperation that is felt when things are as bad as they get — will cause people to change, to stand up, clinging to their guns and God and use that power for change. There is a reason God is in the First Amendment and Guns are in the Second.
But, what do I know. I’m only a dog who only want to cling to walks three times a day, sniffing butts and checking out the cute puppy chicks on the corner.
Driving through West Virginia and Virginia on my way from Dayton to Williamsburg and this family was outside “eating” lunch at an Arby’s. By the time I had gotten to take the photo without being suspected, five kids had left the venue…. anyway, this is Obama’s “Other America” that he needs to convince to vote for him and there is more “other America” than not. Enjoy.
In June, I will be 8 years old, which in human years makes me about 56. I am becoming a dog of “a certain age.”
My most favorite thing to do is to curl up naked at the foot of the couch, with my owner’s toes against my tummy, my head on his leg, staring into his eyes. If I were to die right there on the sofa, I would die a happy puppy. I ache terribly when he is gone.
But, I also like taking walks. Lots of them. I like sniffing around in my neighborhood, but I also like the excitement that comes with finding new smells, greeting new dogs. Mostly, though, I hang with a group of dogs where I am the “middle aged” mutt. There is the younger dogs with lots of energy, whose goal on a walk is to consume as much walkway, pee on as many trees and bushes as possible and munch his way through life.. quickly. Then, there are a couple of older ladies who, on occasion, have been known to just sit and take a rest when they need to. Sometimes in the middle of the street.
For the most part, the younger dog becomes impatient. Old dogs drag him down. But, I usually find a shady patch of grass and hang a bit. If she doesn’t move for a while, I’ll go back and gently nuzzle her nose. She eventually starts up again and all is good.
The younger dog gets impatient with me. “What if the school door is closed and it doesn’t smell as good when we get there” or “The leaves will have fallen from the bush if we dawdle.” Well, I tell him we’ll still get there, and if things are different when we do, then we embrace that change as something new, something discovered. He snorts. In a few years, he will probably understand, but for now, it is all about conquest.
The best part about my walks is coming home, but the worst part about my walks is also coming home. Home is comfortable, safe. But home is where I can’t experience new things. Perhaps that is the middle-aged puppy struggle. I’m sure in a few years, when I am the old dog who just plops, sits and rests in the middle of a road when things get too fast, this post will seem all very silly, a desperate cry of “youth” to understand; a youthful boast about understanding age. And I will smile at my younger self and know that I really did not know what I thought I did.
I like my puppy friends and I will miss the older ladies when they can no longer walk with us. I hope when I am older, someone will always be there to reach back, wait for me when I need to rest and nuzzle my nose when I need it most.
High blood pressure, that is. I have found that my Friday morning walks consist of picking up bits of trash strewn about by the careless, lazy and stupid monkeys working for Rumpke. I know that you probably have unreasonable trash pickup quotas to meet, but the goal is to get the garbage IN THE TRUCK, not all over the curb, gutter and lawns.
Oh, that’s right, City of Englewood! We’re saving over a $1million a year!! Well, then never mind. I don’t mind living in a city dump as long as there is money being saved.
