More than a quarter century ago, my father-in-law, Pete Lauters, made an innocent comment one cold Iowa Sunday morning while we were driving into town for Mass.
?The trouble with Marcus (his hometown) is the drifters,? Pete said, navigating a huge green Pontiac Catalina along the highway lined with snow piled high in the ditches.
?What do you mean by drifters?? I asked, a little puzzled since I had always thought of their little town of 1,200 souls as a very nice place to live and rear a family.
?You know,? he said without blinking, ?the guys who come to town and stay 10, 15 or 20 years and then move on.? They are around, he said, long enough to stir things up, rattle cages and then leave everyone with a mess to clean up.
To my hard-working father-in-law who has lived all of his 70 years on the same section of prime farm ground (except for two years in the military), that amount of time spent somewhere showed a distinct lack of commitment.
I have often thought and chuckled about that comment as Debbie and I worked hard to make life better for ourselves and our neighbors although we aren?t Sweet Home natives. Were we considered ?drifters? by some around us?
And now, exactly 20 years after we landed here, five Pauls stuffed in the cab of a Ryder moving truck, pulling an old red Pontiac (our down payment for The New Era stuffed in the sock drawer safely hidden behind all of our other belongings in the truck) we become like so many other drifters who have come and gone through this wonderful community. Little did we know that we would spend portions of three decades living and working here, worrying each day about the survival of this little logging town at the foothills of the Cascades.
We?re actually only drifting out of the business community here, since we have no plans to relinquish our roles as Sweet Hometowners. We just won?t be spending six or seven days a week at 1313 Main Street.
It?s all part of a set of life goals put in place while I was a teenager and realized that owning a country newspaper was exactly how I wanted to live and rear a family. By age 30 I wanted to be a publisher and by age 50, I wanted to be able to make a life change. I reached the half-century mark in December. The time for change is now.
Does that mean I plan to retire, grow a beard and pony tail and be a hermit at Oak View Ranch? Never.
It just means that after 33 years of deadlines (20 as an owner/publisher), 1,040 issues of The New Era alone, countless meetings, hundreds, if not thousands of sporting events?many in the pouring rain, and preparing millions of newspapers and inserts for mailing each and every week, it?s time for a new adventure.
What that will be exactly isn?t known. I trust the Good Lord will show us what?s next. Our kids are grown and doing well. They each have solid foundations developed from living here among so many caring people. Our lifestyle is pretty simple; we really don?t have fancy ways. Although we have worked hard and done very well, money was never the driving force behind our choices. Being together as a family was our number one goal.
Deb knows she wants to devote more time to development of her growing cattle herd, fixing our old house with its rattling windows and developing a beautiful country garden and orchard. I?m sure some of my time will be spent helping her reach those goals. I also plan to get back into the newspaper game in time, devoting more time to reporting and photography, perhaps in a foreign country for a time.
We want to take a couple trips that we just couldn?t manage while owning the paper. The weekly deadline is something most folks don?t understand. There?s no fudge factor. When Tuesday morning comes, that newspaper had better be on the press or the world around us gets pretty ugly.
Perhaps what we will miss most about no longer being publishers of The New Era are the wonderful relationships we have so enjoyed. Business owners, everyone in our schools, government staffers and elected officials, the many dedicated employees of the Postal Service who have lugged our papers and inserts ? approximately 15-20 million pieces or so ? and our many friends.
We will especially miss working with the kids of the community. We have tried to spotlight the many good things our young people do each day. We have truly enjoyed working with the students from the Huskian and Timber Echo over the years. Our office, at times, seems like a three-ring circus with persons of all ages dropping by to leave payments or to chat. That?s just how we like it and it?s something we will definitely miss.
Owning a community newspaper is unlike any other business in town. Our bread and butter is advertising but the news is the heart and soul of what we do. Sometimes, that means writing things that rile both our readers and our advertisers. It?s easy to write something harsh about someone if you work at a large metro paper because you may never see that person again. It?s not so easy to write those same words and know you will meet that person the next morning at Mollie?s Bakery or at church. But, it has to be done if you are to succeed as a true country editor.
We have never knowingly backed down from a story for fear of what others like or don?t like. We?ve been threatened many times and have had the doors broken out of an office by a disgruntled felon, but we stood our ground. It?s those times when we?re glad diets have never worked for us. Sometimes being a big guy has its advantages. We?ve also never ?sold? a story, favoring an advertiser in a news story. We could have made a lot of money that way, but it just isn?t our style.
Scott and Miriam Swanson will make this community very proud of The New Era in coming years. Scott is a real newspaperman and loves his work as much as I have. This will be a new adventure for Miriam but she?s up for the challenge.
My bride Debbie had no newspaper experience when we leaped into business either and she has done an outstanding job. She?s highly respected around the area for her ethics and skills in advertising and marketing and through the Oregon Newspaper Publisher?s Association circles statewide.
?Just a few hours a week, until we get our footing?, she was told 20 years ago, and a lifetime later, she?s still plugging away at it. Without her, this adventure could never have happened. The same holds true for our three now-grown children, Angela, Amy and T.J. Thank you all.
The Swansons bring with them three beautiful daughters who will get to enjoy growing up as newspaper kids. They will meet many interesting people in years to come and the skills they learn here will blossom for them as they enter the adult world.
They will get to be like family farmers, together every day after school and at community events. Few families can enjoy that relationship today. They will soon learn that their life revolves in part around that Tuesday press run and getting the paper ready for the mail. Our oldest daughter, Angela, can still recite the zip codes of nearly every community to which we send papers.
We hope you will help the Swansons grow this newspaper, not only as the historical medium it is, but also as a business. That means subscribing and buying advertising. When you consider where you?re going to spend $5 for a classified ad, think about all of the things a newspaper does for the community that many other advertising mediums don?t. You won?t see any of the fly-by-night gimmick guys who come through town selling ads attending any of our late night or weekend community events, but I guarantee you Scott or Miriam or one of their employees will be there.
The New Era is your hometown newspaper that tells about your children?s ballgames, your husband?s successful hunting trip or your fund-raiser at the local elementary school. Every week, not just now or then.
None of our success could have been accomplished without our fine employees and a community of loyal advertisers. Our employees know what being tired really means. Our advertisers have been the economic engine that allowed us to cover the subjects that make your hometown newspaper unique among any other in the entire world.
Concluding this column, born on a typewriter at The Corydon (Iowa) Times-Republican in 1978, we hope that over the years it has caused our readers to think about issues large and small, serious and funny. It has, in ways, been a chronicle of our family as much as our community. Ultimately, we hope it has helped bring our community together and to pull forward, despite some abysmal economic times.
As we close this chapter on our life?s story, we leave this little newspaper knowing we have done our absolute best to make it one that reflects accurately the happenings in and around Sweet Home for generations to come and one in which both we and our readers can take pride.
We also hope our readers know that Alex and Debbie Paul have tried each and every day of the last 20 years to promote Sweet Home as the truly wonderful place it has been for our family.
Thank you so very much for allowing this country boy from a poor southern Iowa coal-mining community to fulfill his life?s dreams for so long. Scott and Miriam Swanson have those same dreams to fulfill here. God bless all of you.
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