Hi, folks--here's some musings on the impending death of The Honolulu Advertiser, where I worked for almost 30 years before retiring in 2003. The last edition was published today, and the paper will be merged with The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, under the name Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
I just awoke from a dream in which I had gone to the paper this morning to say goodbye, found myself sitting at a desk, and an editor, Vicki Ong, had come over and said "the Wallace Foundation is in town again, and since you've done such a great job covering them before, I'd like you to handle this story." This wasn't a goodbye celebration--it was vintage Vicki Ong trying to sweet talk a cranky reporter into doing a "must" story. Another editor, Marsha McFadden came by later to give me some paperwork on the foundation. I put it in a folder and then couldn't find it.
Wade was walking around being busy, and then I left the building with someone, a guy, going out to lunch, maybe, and Sandee Oshiro was there with us, and there was some talk of a running event coming up the next day, and the guy and I were going to do it. I had my arm around Sandee's shoulder as we walked out of the building and I asked her if she was going to run, and she said, "I'd really like to, but I'm not feeling well,"
I gave her a big hug (I know she'll cringe if she ever reads this), and held her, remembering her challenges with cancer and thinking about my own daughter and her cancer battle, and wondering if I should tell Sandee about my daughter, deciding not to. I held her and, with my voice cracking, said, "I haven't treated you as well as I should have." ((Sandee was the first person I worked with at the Advertiser when I arrived from Seattle in 1976. My first assignment, from Mike Middlesworth, was to look into Polynesian Cultural Center's tax situation, and Sandee had been assigned to help this hot-shot investigative reporter from the Coast with some of the research. Many, many years later, Sandee and I had a fabulously notorious run in when she flamed me for making an inter-office text message crack about the photographers coming back from an assignment on kim chee and bearing many dishes back to the newsroom. They invited the staff to sample some as they had, and I had sent a note saying "...and four of the photographers won't be there because they have been hospitalized at Queens after eating kim chee." Sandee was furious and accused me of making a racially insensitive remark, and demanded to know if I had any idea how many people I had offended.))
I left the building, and then I was with Middlesworth, and somehow we got into a place that sold little fantastic rubbery animal toys that talked when you squeezed them. I got fascinated with trying to buy as many as I could--not the broken ones, I remember--and when I looked up Middlesworth had gone on and I couldn't find him, thought about calling him, realized I had left my cell phone in the car. Then I was walking mauka on a much improved River Street with many shops and restaurants like the River Walk in San Antonio, and I saw coming toward me a much older version of Carlino Giampolo, white haired and heavy set. Carlino had been a charming publicity seeker who tried to promote his self-help relationship book through the paper, and once ran a full page ad railing against the new industrial looking street lights installed along Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki years ago.
He came up to me and we talked, and I said "I retired about five years ago, and I don't get into town much any more."
And that was about it, and I woke up with this rich, sad, sweet feeling about the passing of a great newspaper, the memories of so many great people, the things I had done and some I wished I hadn't done, the cameraderie of a staff that partied together and ran marathons together and joked together and sometimes fought together.
I had been thinking about the paper all the time in recent days, not doing or saying much, and the dream just came to me and did a lot of it for me.
So long, Advertiser, and Advertiser staffers. We shared lives and loves and births and deaths (some of them our own), visiting emperors and rampaging elephants, Marcos in exile and swindler Ron Rewald, hurricanes and tsunamis and pseudo-namis, for almost 30 years, and now it is gone. But you will always be there in my memories, and in my dreams.
Aloha,
Walt
On Jun 5, 2010, at 4:43 AM, Tom Kaser wrote:
OUR ISLAND
Star-Bulletin
By Rob Shikina
Advertiser staff packs up on last regular workday
It is a sad day for journalists as the paper's final edition comes out tomorrow
Jun 05, 2010
Ann Miller worked her last day yesterday at the only full-time job she's ever had, which had lasted 30 years.
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Deputy Director of Photography David Yamada gave a lei to staff photographer Deborah Booker yesterday as Gregory Yamamoto looked on.
"It was just surreal," said Miller, who was at a small gathering of employees from The Honolulu Advertiser last night. "It was hard to be there."
"To think that you're not going to see those people again was very, very difficult," said sports reporter Miller, who will be working at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The Advertiser finished its last regular workday yesterday after nearly 154 years.
Assistant Editor Marsha McFadden said about 20 employees will work today on the Advertiser's last edition, but some staff members are planning to drop by to finish packing or witness the "end run."
Tomorrow the historic News Building at 605 Kapiolani Blvd. will be empty, McFadden said.
"Everybody, I think, remains pretty speechless," said McFadden, who will join the Honolulu Star-Advertiser as city desk editor. "It's a very sad day."
With the merger of the Advertiser with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, about 450 employees are losing their jobs with 356 of them coming from the Advertiser, said Honolulu Star-Bulletin Editor Frank Bridgewater.
The Star-Advertiser will have 475 employees -- more than the 300 at the Star-Bulletin and fewer than the 580 at the Advertiser.
Norman Shapiro, an Advertiser photographer for 18 years, said the mood at the paper yesterday was "better than it has been the last few days."
"If anything, it's like a relief," he said.
He was one of eight photographers not offered a spot on the new staff and said it will be difficult finding full-time work as a photographer in Honolulu. He plans to file for unemployment on Monday.
"There's no work in this town," he said, but added he plans to relax.
"I think everybody's happy it's over finally," he said. "It's been dragging out for so long. We can move on."
Holly Amuro, of retail advertising, said former employees came by the office yesterday to say goodbye, and employees had a potluck lunch.
"We kind of had our last hurrah," she said, adding she was hired for the new paper. The new employees will report to the Star-Advertiser at Restaurant Row on Monday.
Miller, volleyball reporter for the Advertiser, said she "was blessed" to be able do to her job for 30 years.
On Monday she will be one of 30 newsroom staff hired from the Advertiser.
She considered the closure of the Advertiser a "huge loss" for the community and worried for her friends who were not offered a spot in the new venture.
"Sixteen of my closest friends are not working on Monday," she said. "It makes me so sad."
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