Neglected blog needs action

Look at this poor little blog.

Nobody writes on it anymore.

A few people still read it.

Some are Russian bots, according to my analytics. Some are women who are trying to come to terms with infertility and are just beginning to turn their thoughts to adoption.Some are moms whose daughters have just been diagnosed with scoliosis.

Some are folks thinking about heading down to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras.

Some just googled "big tits."

Yeah. Sad isn't it?

I just haven't had much time to write for "fun." That's because, for the last year, I've had this full time job. And I do mean full time. Today was my ONE day of vacation. For the year. 

One year ago last month, I became the sports editor at this little paper called L'Observateur"  in LaPlace, Louisiana, which is a suburb of New Orleans.

"L'Observateur" is French for "the observer." No one can pronounce it, though. Most people call it "the L'ObservaTOR." Or just "The Lobster." That's easier to say and to spell. If they would make it our email name that would be soooo much easier.

I joined a staff of eight -- an editor, a receptionist, a graphics person, a news reporter who was greener than grass, a circulation person and two ad reps.

A few months in, the news reporter left us. And, suddenly, I became a news staff of one.

Well, that's not completely true. The editor does most of the crime and government stuff. I just do the sports. And the features. And anything else that comes up.

I've covered football, basketball, baseball, golf, track and soccer, grand openings, closings and a sausage eating contest.

I've covered great athletes, old athletes and some that will be someday. I've seen teams win championships and just fall short. I even got to cover a game coached by my own kid.

I learned how to paginate, write headlines and take pictures. Maybe someday I'll learn how to take an action shot. For now, all my athletes have to stand still. Somebody tell that to the basketball players. And could you ask the referees to stay out of my frame. I have more photos of their butts.

I'm lucky that there have been no shortages of stories in my area. In the past year I have written about a former NBA great and Louisiana Sports Hall of Famer who now is coaching girls basketball, a volleyball coach who went on a mission and entered a body building bikini contest, a rock and roll band that just missed getting a Grammy nomination, a young lady who earned a college scholarship for riding a horse and this newish fad called vaping.

I've also covered the aftermath of a tornado, a deadly car crash that took the life of a local fire chief and the various fundraisers our community has organized to help them.

I've been to schools, the Veterans Home and inside people's houses.

I've written about special kids and kids with special needs.

I interviewed a 3-year-old. Well, I tried.

And remember my friend who lost her sheriff's deputy husband? I got to write about her and her new husband -- yes, another cop.

I write a lot, about a lot of different subjects. On week I wrote 10 stories for two editions. My phone contact list includes the local Sheriff, the DA about 60 different coaches and a dozen or so players.

At least I'm never bored. But I am pretty tired.

So I'm sorry that I don't have much time to write about The Teen, who is now a sophomore in high school and excelling at school. She is fully recovered from her scoliosis surgery with little effects except she can't bend over. That means she can't pick up her socks, much to the delight of the little dog who likes to drag them into the living room. She tried golf at school, but that didn't go too well. You know how they say "address the ball"? She had to propose to it on one knee.

The Coach is still a coach, just without a team. He's actively looking for another team to coach and has applied for a few positions. It has to be right, though. In his free time, he drives an Uber in New Orleans and he really loves it. Keeps him busy too.

He is still teaching Special Education at the local school. The emotionally disturbed kids. That's why I rarely complain about my job.

And Mama is still Mama, calling every other day for help with her phone or her iPad. She's no longer reading cards in the French Quarter, I'm sad to say. But she had a little procedure on her heart about a year ago, which has kept her going and out of the Hospital on the Hill. (Knock wood)

And I still have this little blog. I wish I had more time. I wish had more stories.

30 to 360

On the day that the Men in Ties removed me from my post as sports writer and moved me to Bitter and Bored Clerk/Receptionist/Crime Reporter at The Times-Picayune, I posted the news on Facebook with a simple: "I am no longer a sports writer."

Word spread quickly.

Soon, dozens upon dozens of my friends, family and peers were there to express their shock and anger, then to offer their love and support. And more than a few told me, "You will always be a sports writer."

I guess they were right.

After the TP unceremoniously dumped me and 199 or so other souls in 2012, I set myself up to be a freelancer -- as in, freelance sports writer. And over the past three years, I have had pretty steady work covering games and writing features for anyone who would ask me, namely The New Orleans Advocate, The St. Charles Herald-Guide, Riverparishfootball.com, Sportsnola.com even The Shreveport Times. I even wrote about black market trees for Louisiana Forestry Magazine. It kept me in the game (so to speak) as I sent out resume after resume and my 401K dwindled to nothing.

Even when the library called, telling me they had checked me out and would I like to come work for them, I kept my night job. After 8-hour shifts at the library, I would make my way to football games on Fridays and, somehow, managed to stay awake and alert enough to write up a story and drive home.

Then I got an email from a guy at a newspaper. He was looking for a new sports editor. Did I want to talk?

What do you think?

And after the conversation was over it came down to this: "I just can't make any less money than I do now working three jobs."

He said, "OK."

So two weeks ago, with half a tear in one eye, I informed the lovely ladies and one gentleman at the library that I was checking out. When I told them why, not one batted an eye. Even in the short time I was there, they knew that, in my heart, I was a sports writer. Always have been. Always will be.

Actually, now I am a SPORTS EDITOR (cool, huh?) On Monday morning I will join the staff of the L'Observateur newspaper in LaPlace as its Sports Editor. I'm back covering sports. Full time. In the same place I spent 21 years covering high school sports -- but only half the teams this time.

And just as it was 15 years ago, the response has been overwhelming. But positive this time. People are happy for me and happy to see me again. And I them.

It has been a long, arduous journey from there to here. From prep writer to perp writer to freelance writer to caretaker for cantankerous old lady to wedding invitation writer to slow public relations writer to library lady.

The last three years have been utter hell -- as these blog posts can attest. The doors and windows everyone said would open, didn't. There wasn't much call for a 53-year-old woman who could write real well and parallel park like a champ but had no retail experience. The World War II Museum, East Jefferson Hospital, Nicholls State University, Nunez College, Loyola University, Barnes and Noble -- all said. no. Or nothing at all. (Loyola did give me a very nice part time temporary freelance job which helped me keep my cars.)

There were times I wanted to just quit, give up and run away. There were times I felt so low I didn't think I'd ever be able to climb up again. Fortunately, I have a husband who kept scraping me up and lifting me up in his belief that, it could only get better. It certainly couldn't get any worse.

So I begin this new adventure with high hopes and the love and support of my friends, family and peers.

And I couldn't be more grateful.


Read the announcement here at the L'Observateur

The Coach's Wife

I don't often write about my husband.

Oh, if you're a regular follower of this little blog you know that he's a high school teacher/baseball coach and once was a short-lived volleyball coach, that he has a really bad memory, doesn't do birthdays very well, or DIY projects around the house. That he can remember virtually every pitch of that big win against E.D. White 14 years ago, but can't remember to put his cell phone in his pocket before he leaves the house. That he used to get thrown out of baseball games -- a lot.  That he loves baseball, his convertible, me, his children, his new grand baby, his sofa, his pool, his dogs (probably in that order) and that he always took my side when his mother and I would fight.

In large part because of that last phrase is why he and I have been married 20 years come December, and together two more than that. Yes, we did meet at a bar. We DO live in (the suburbs of) New Orleans, you know.

But I don't often get to write about The Coach. For one thing, I am a sports writer, he is a coach. In journalism circles,  it is extremely frowned upon for a journalist spouse to write about a public persona spouse, whether he/she is an athlete, a coach, a politician or a crime victim. It's just not done. So it made some folks nervous when he went from being the local assistant recreation director to my boyfriend, to my fiance, to my husband, to a coach (again) in the area I was assigned to cover for the then-daily newspaper.

In an effort to thwart that -- and my new stepson's senior season as quarterback at one of the schools in my area --  the Men In Ties moved me from my beat in the River Parishes Bureau to downtown New Orleans. Yeah. That was fun. Not.

Eventually, they saw the error of their ways and moved me back to where I belonged, with the mandate that I could not cover my husband's baseball team. That was fine by me. And we all got along splendidly until 2010 when I was moved from sports to crime (prep writer to perp writer), then 2012 when I was let go in the then-daily's move to "Digital First."

But now I'm a free lancer and the journalism landscape in New Orleans has changed dramatically. Now, the New Orleans paper I used to work for and the Baton Rouge-based paper I now write a lot for are in an all-out newspaper war over territory. I just happen to live in the suburbs between the two (a.k.a., "No Man's Land"). And, suddenly, some folks think it's OK for reporters to write about their husband's team. And sometimes, it just can't be helped.

Take last year, for instance. Mother Nature, who apparently dislikes the high school baseball playoff season immensely, decided to drop buckets of rain on the New Orleans area last spring. But my husband's team's playoff game had to be played. So it was moved -- from one day to the next, from one time to a later one, then to three different potential sites before it finally began at nearly 9 p.m. on a Thursday at a field no one ever heard of, and finished at nearly midnight. There was no way the Baton Rouge-ish paper would get a reporter there. They knew I was there as The Wife, so they asked me to write it up as The Reporter. And while, normally, I would never interview my husband after the game, the circumstances surrounding it were so unique that I was pretty much obligated to get a comment from The Coach about how his team handled all the adversity.

It was weird. We both hated it. And people took pictures.

So, we both decided it's just best to separate. No, not like that. But we do try to keep The Coach's Wife separate from the The Reporter. That's how we like it. That's how the world likes it.

Then his happened.

My darling husband, The Coach, decided he was going to give up being The Coach. He says he's ready, he's old, he's tired, he needs a new knee (that's true), he's ready to do other things. That all may be true, but I'm sure that does not include building me a gazebo in the backyard. He does want to take me to California and Chicago (why not Hawaii???) and spend some time with our fast-growing daughter and his new grand baby.

Whatever his reasons, the news created a stir in local sports circles. His announcement -- which initially came on his own little blog Coach Speak, became Front Page and 5, 6 and 10 o'clock news. (And the local newspaper is put in the unusual predicament of writing about one of it's former sports writers, married to the headliner. So many blurred lines...)

Then this happened.

On Thursday, my husband's team traveled across the Mississippi River to face its biggest rival, the Hahnville Tigers. They're pretty good, now, and just came off a glorious weekend in which they went 4-0 against some of the top teams in the area. They started it with a HUGE win against the then No. 2 team in the state, Brother Martin, which was then-undefeated. Hahnville scored in extra innings to win. I know, because I was there. I covered it. I wrote about it Here and Here.

And while I was there, The Other Coach, whom I've known for a long time and like very much, told me he had a plan. He decided he was going to give my husband, The (Retiring) Coach, a rocking chair to send him off into the sunset.

"Will he get mad?" he asked me.

"Hell no," I replied.

Now, ever being the journalist, I knew this was news worthy. So, I set about letting my friends in the news media know about this event. It also was coming on the heels of a day organized by my stepson (with my assistance), in which we invited all of The Coach's former players over the past 25 years to come to the game and line up with him for the National Anthem as a surprise. Nearly 30 of them showed up. That also made the news.

So after  I let friends and family and a few news media types know what was going down on Thursday, I set off to take care of me, cashing in the FREE King Cake body scrub I won from the local salon. Yay me!

Just as I was about to strip down to my skivvies, I get a text from The Other Coach:

Him: Can't find rocking chair anywhere.

Me: Want me to help?

Him: Yes. You can get to more places. Just bring me the receipt.

Me: I'm on it. Right after my massage

I then spent the next two hours smelling like a cinnamon bun, getting scrubbed and rubbed, and trying to think of a place in our neck in the woods that has a rocking chair for sale.

Then it hit me.

The local thrift shop! It's just a few doors down from my house, it's rarely if ever open, and it now contains a whole bunch of my belongings which we have put curbside for trash. The owner just picks it up and puts it in his shop to sell when he feels like it. I used to own a Bentwood rocker. I hoped I wasn't about to buy it back from him.

Nope. But I found this beat up old one, loaded it in my car and went back to relaxing.

Then, just before game time, I drove into the parking lot, texted The Other Coach, who sent two of his players to my car to get the rocking chair for his team to give to my husband as a gag.

Really.

And it went off without a hitch. With cameras and reporters from both newspapers there to document it, The Coach was surprised, humbled and honored. And I got a lovely bouquet of red roses -- from The Coach. No, The Other Coach.

I then spent the next two hours munching sunflower seeds and trying not to watch the action on the field in what turned out to be a very tight, nail-biter of a game. I try very hard to maintain my reporter face while watching these games. I don't want to be hollering and cheering against a team one day, then have to interview them the next. So I watch. I don't root. I don't cheer or clap or yell. I watch the crowd, the game, my husband, wonder when he's going to bunt and hope he doesn't try to steal home again.

He didn't. And his team won, 1-0, with the lone run scoring on a bases-loaded balk in the third inning.

After the game, I made a big production of running up to The Other Coach to hug him and thank him for my flowers. After I kissed The Coach, The Other Coach and I filled him in on the rather unusual events of the day. He laughed hysterically.

Then I put my husband's new rocking chair in my car and took it back home.

Later, we laughed about the whole thing. I made sure he wasn't mad, not that The Other Coach had given him a rocking chair, but also my part in in. He wasn't. He took it in the spirit in which it was intended and thought it was great fun.

"I thought it was great," he said. "But my team wanted to know why they got me such an ugly old chair."

Really?

Click Here to see a terrific video about The Coach and The Game.

Adventures in sports writing

Many, many moons ago, one of the five prep sports editors I had at the veritable Times-Picayune newspaper sent me on the road to cover a high school basketball game in the teeny, tiny town of White Castle, Louisiana.

There isn't much in White Castle. There is a lovely Louisiana plantation home named Nottaway, where my BFF spent her wedding night. And there is a high school that is has been both good and not so good in sports over the years.

Not wanting me to be on the road alone in the middle of the night, in the middle of the winter, my husband (or he may have been my boyfriend) elected to accompany me on this trip. My job was to go to the game, take notes during the game, add up stats after the game, get a quote or two then use my trusty computer to send this story back to the newspaper in New Orleans. All by about 10:30 p.m.

The Toshiba 1100 was one of the first laptop computers. All bulky and plastic, it was standard issue for newsroom reporters back in the 1990s. It really was just a word processor, used only to type a story. There was no World Wide Web back then (that we knew of). And it had no games or apps. Not even Solitaire.

 Some of us were lucky and had one with a flip up screen.

Lucky. Until mine was stolen.

Others had to make do with the one with the little window on top of the keyboard that showed a word or two at a time.

Not so lucky

I couldn't tell you today any details about that game. Who won, who lost, who played well or didn't. I just know what happened afterwards, when it came time to send said story. Then, as now, reporters need a way to do this.

Our Toshibas had these fancy, dancy things called couplers:



To send a story using these, you would dial the number with your fancy dancy phone, wait for that screechy fax/dial-up/nails on a chalkboard sound you may remember, then stick the receiver into the couplers.

The problem, often, was finding the phone.

Not, not one of these:



One of these:
 

Oftentimes, reporters carried one around with us. Really. Because we needed a telephone line. And it couldn't be on those multi-line phones you might have at your office. It had to be one line. One phone. With that kind of receiver.

Good luck finding one of those. In White Castle. In the middle of the night. The coach's office didn't have one. He had one of those multi-line phones. Couldn't use that.

So, while I typed frantically on my Toshiba in the car, the boyfriend/future husband drove up and down the main street in White Castle, searching for a phone -- a payphone, an open business, anything.

Like, the Pizza Hut!

Good boyfriend/future husband that he was, he went inside and found the manager of the Pizza Hut, explained the situation and asked if they had such a phone we could borrow.

"Sure."

So, in we went. And I, professional female improvising sports writer that I used to be, sent my little 12-inch basketball story while sitting on the floor of the kitchen of the White Castle Pizza Hut, being observed by a fascinated group of teenagers flipping pepperoni, and a pizza-eater or two.

Yes, I made deadline.

Then we ordered pizza.

My now-husband and I were reminded of this little long ago adventure Friday night and had a nice little laugh. You see, my new prep sports boss had sent me to the teeny, tiny town of Abbeville, Louisiana, to cover a football game. My husband, not wanting me to be on the road alone in the middle of the winter, in the middle of the night, decided to accompany me on the trip. Plus, now that his mother is living with us full time, we're excited over any opportunity to get out of the house. Together. (Read the mother-in-law stories. You'll understand).

After the game, during which I kept my notes and after which I did  my interviews, we got into his car. And while he drove, I wrote my story on my fancy dancy new laptop computer. And when it came time to send this story story, I simply pulled out my phone.

This one:






Then I hooked a wire to it, hooked the end to my computer and sent my story via gmail.

We never stopped. He never even slowed down. There was no screechy noise. It took less than one minute. I even checked my Facebook page and my Twitter before I disconnected.

God we've come a long way. And he's still a good boyfriend.