Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells

CONCLAVE OF NE’ER-DO-WELLS

The Keed.

Visible: -1) Marcy Dewey at left, the #1 ne’er-do-well; -2) The so-called Hasidic Jew (AKA Ledley and Dave Wheeler), across from Marcy. Wheeler is the Sunday-Editor at the mighty Mezz; -3) Bryan Mahoney (AKA MaHooch) — the best reporter the mighty Mezz ever had; -4) The back of the vaunted Webmaster (Matt Ried) of the mighty Mezz; and -5) Kris Dreessen; outdoors editor at the mighty Mezz; the one who edited my “mighty Curve” story. (Not in picture: me [“Grady”], the photographer.)

And so concludes a recent conclave of the naughtyist and most reprehensible of the vaunted ne’er-do-wells (pictured).
Friday (August 17, 2007), while delivering excess produce from our garden to the mighty Mezz, I was accosted by lovable kindred-spirit Dave Wheeler (Houghton 1991), also known as “Ledley” and the so-called “Hasidic-Jew.”
I’ve always felt Wheeler had the most potential as a writer — a fabulous and extensive vocabulary (more extensive than me), combined with an appropriately jaundiced viewpoint.
No doubt the almighty Bluster-King will take issue, since Wheeler reminds me slightly of myself; a self-gratifying expression of ardent selfishness my brother-in-Boston perceives as a challenge to his self-proclaimed greatness.
Wheeler and I would exchange comments at the mighty Mezz that had people rolling on the floor.
Wheeler remarked that faire Marcy and her beau Bryan (the best reporter the mighty Mezz ever had) were going to be in town (they now live in Boston), and that I might want to attend a get-together.
The gathering was to be held at MacGregor’s, a dive of sorts in an old restored lakeside building in Canandaigua.
-Marcy is my number-one ne’er-do-well, the person who for whatever reason (I can’t remember why) I began sending copy/pastes of my posts to FlagOut, the first of which was a description of the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade Linda and I attended with our two dogs a few years ago in Rochester.
I observed all sorts of fatuous insanity, and strung together a description of same.
We’ve lost track of that original post, came across another of a later St. Patrick’s Day Parade, but it’s not the first.
Marcy wanted me to keep sending stuff. She created a folder on her ‘pyooter at work, and started putting everything in it.
Word got around, and soon others were clamoring to receive my stuff, including the infamous Wheeler.
Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles, and Marcy also worked next to Matt Reid, Webmaster at the mighty Mezz.
Together we’d generate a torrent of snide remarks. Marcy also had a jaundiced eye, as did the Webmaster.
Yet despite that we produced a class act.
So many were clamoring to receive my stuff, I decided to make an e-mail list, which I called the “Ne’er-do-Wells.”
The list grew as others got added, including a long-ago ex-employee and kindred-spirit a few years ago.
“Do I keep sending you this junk?” I asked at a recent party.
“By all means. So tell me what ‘the mighty Curve’ is.”
-MaHooch (AKA Bryan Mahoney) is Marcy’s fiancé, and together they live in Boston. MaHooch and Marcy are about a year apart; Marcy a year-or-two older.
I call him “the best reporter the mighty Mezz ever had” because he had the moxie to try different things, like the giant water-slide at a nearby water park that recently opened.
He’s not that young, but as far as I’m concerned it’s extreme stuff like that that generates the best writing — combining your talent for slinging words together with your reflections on an extreme event.
-The Webmaster is another person that rode the bucking bronco that was the mighty Mezz when Marcy and I were there; namely producing a class act with minimal staff.
He regaled us with tales about how things have got much worse since Marcy and I (and MaHooch) have left; and since the papers were sold by the Ewing family to Gatehouse Publishing. (Reid and Wheeler and Dreessen still work at the mighty Mezz.)
Gatehouse has a pennysaver-type local weekly in the same market as the mighty Mezz, yet the two are competing for display ads.
In a few months the pennysaver and the mighty Mezz will be combined, and the Messenger ad-reps will probably get fired for not meeting goal — which is to be expected when all the display ads are being funneled to the pennysaver.
And apparently the head honcho, an ex-Messenger bureaucrat Gatehouse appointee, got recently written up in the local police-blotter for harassing an ex.
Nevertheless, what this is all up against is the fact that mighty Mezz is still a newspaper; Linda tosses the pennysaver as soon as it arrives. Gatehouse also has a slew of other newspapers, but all we can do is cross our fingers.
“I sure am glad I got out when I did,” I said.
Among this disreputable crowd, I am easily the oldest; but apparently valued as a ne’er-do-well. “Remember Marcy, you’re young only once, but can be immature all your life!”
The others are in their early 30s; MaHooch perhaps still in his late 20s.
“Pardon me, but this 63-year-old geezer has to go home and take a nap,” I declared.
With that we adjourned.

“The mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired.

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve,”) west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use.

“Houghton” is the college I graduated from in 1966.

“The almighty Bluster-King” is my blowhard macho brother-in-Boston, who badmouths everything I do or say.

“FlagOut” is our family's web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome; now dead) who loudly insisted the flag be flown. “Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down!”

RE: “Since the papers were sold by the Ewing family to Gatehouse Publishing......” Messenger-Post Newspapers was owned by the Ewing (“YOU-ing”) family of Canandaigua, but they recently sold to Gatehouse — no one in the family was willing to invest what was necessary.

“Linda” is my wife.