40 years later, and I’m still trying

Armchair mayor column for The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, July 31, 2010

Upstairs on the cavernous second floor of our building, among stacks of old bookkeeping records, spare coin boxes and various other odds and ends, are several pallets of what we call our “bound files.”

Once a month, we send out copies of each day’s edition of the paper for binding. Nowadays, electronic storage is a lot more efficient, but we still keep newsprint copies so future generations can see and feel the real thing.

Fittingly, I suppose, those bound files are almost directly overhead my main-floor office — within those old papers are 40 years of my life.

This coming Tuesday morning, Aug. 3, will mark exactly four decades since I reported for my first day of work at what was then the thrice-weekly Kamloops News Advertiser. I’m feeling a little morose about it, possibly because I could never have imagined 40 years would go by so quickly. Nobody else who worked at this paper then works here now; quite a few are dead; many current employees weren’t born yet.

And what have I got to show for it?

Well, a majorly rewarding career, for one thing, one that has allowed me to become more connected to my community than most people ever have an opportunity to do.

For another, I have this newspaper to thank for the love of my life, Syd. She, and many other people most important to me, came into my life through my work here.

I’ve had the joy of working in an ever-changing industry and a constantly evolving newspaper, and have made a decent living at it.

So, really, I have much to be thankful for and nothing to complain about.

The pages in the bound files from 1970 are yellow and ragged now. One of those editions, July 6, includes a front-page announcement that I’d soon be coming to work for the paper, and it sounded as though I was quite the catch.

“Mel is well-qualified in the newspaper field,” the story said. “He has a degree in Journalism from the University of Washington in Seattle and he has a number of years experience with B.C. Weekly’s (sic) throughout the province, including Prince George and the Vernon News.

“Mel is an avid curler and is looking forward to his new appointment.”

The story explained I would be the new city editor and senior reporter, and would be covering City council meetings.

The picture shows a guy in his mid-20s with heavy sideburns and clunky glasses. My “number of years” of experience in the business at that time totaled three and, actually, I hadn’t finished my degree yet.

Though I later took a couple of breaks from the paper, teaching journalism to college students for awhile (including a bright young woman named Susan Duncan) and then trying my hand at politics, most of the next four decades would be spent right here behind the editor’s desk.

The owner and publisher was Harry Francis, the best boss I’ve ever had before or since (no offence intended to bosses past and present). Newsroom staff included Norm MacDonald, reporter Dennis O’Rourke, sports reporter Tony Parker, photographers Lou Armstrong and Neil MacDonald, and Bette Lumsden, who wrote a column called Would You Believe and put together a page called Women’s World.

That was when newspapers still published pictures of cheque presentations and ran weddings and anniversaries as news items. We used to publish a lot of aerial photos. One of them shows the outermost boundary of development — the top of Columbia Street hill, where the last building you saw heading out of town was a nightspot called Hernando’s Hideaway.

Kamloops was a hotbed of controversy and news in 1970. The issue of the day was whether or not the Greater Kamloops area should be amalgamated into one city. Kamloops wanted to annex the Village of Valleyview, which set off a lingering round of accusations and counter-accusations of lies and damned lies.

It was a civic election year, too, with candidates accusing each other of secrecy, dishonesty and wasting taxpayers’ money. Compared to the early 1970s, today’s council meetings are like having lunch with Dear Abby and Miss Manners.

It was also the year the Thompson Park Mall opened with great fanfare. The big civic celebration was Kami Overlander Days. The Rube Band went to Japan for Expo, and hundreds of well wishers showed up at the airport to welcome them back.

Construction workers were just ending a strike; the posties were just starting one. The “instant” town of Logan Lake was under construction.

We were a city of firsts. Peter Wing was the first mayor of Chinese descent in Canada, Phil Gaglardi was the first provincial cabinet minister of Italian descent, and Len Marchand was the first First Nations federal MP and cabinet minister, all of them representing Kamloops at the same time.

Trudeaumania was sweeping the country. Three days after starting my new job, I headed up to the Cariboo with Lou Armstrong to follow Trudeau on a campaign swing around Barkerville, Quesnel and Williams Lake. I reported that he looked “natty.”

That story, accompanied by plenty of Lou’s photos, included my very first byline at this newspaper. My name was spelled wrong.

I didn’t write my first column till Aug. 24 when I filled in for Norm MacDonald, who penned a weekly tidbits piece called Here and There. I wrote about the opening of a school at Red Lake, suggesting it represented “the growing disenchantment with the closeness and rising disadvantages of suburbia.” (Sadly, that school closed not long ago; I guess disenchantment with suburbia lost out.) A second item took a City rep to task for disparaging comments he’d made about young people in connection with an application for a coffee house permit.

My own column didn’t launch until Jan. 6, 1971. I called it Mel Rothenburger, maybe so I could make sure my name was spelled right.

In that first column, I wrote about, what else, local politics — specifically, the increasingly nasty dissension between local politicians. I noted that City councilors couldn’t even agree on the adoption of the provisional budget at their inaugural meeting. “. . . 1971 could be another unproductive year of bickering among council members,” I predicted.

I promised “to do my best to always write a lively, informative, interesting, accurate and fair column.”

Tall order, but I was careful to add, “I’m not saying I’ll make it, I’ll just try.”

Forty years later, here I am, still trying.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

http://www.armchairmayor.wordpress