“What’s that Moon doing up there?”

One of my duties at the mighty Mezz was as the keeper of the vaunted weather almanac information.
I didn’t actually do the weather-page; but I kept and supplied the information that appeared on it. Sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, etc.
I inherited this job from Peggy Carroll (“Carol”) when she retired; the whole kabosh was dumped on me.
Part of the information was -a) local precipitation the previous day, and; -b) the height above sea-level of Canandaigua lake.
The Canandaigua city sewer department was on Canandaigua Outlet, and they had a rain-gauge, and also a gauge that showed the lake-level.
Every morning they’d call this information to me, although occasionally I had to call them.
Rarely there were times those two values weren’t available, so we’d just publish “not available.”
The page deadline was 9:30 a.m. or so.
If there was no information, and it was approaching 9:30, I’d call them. “Not available” hardly ever happened.
For years it was a guy named “Al,” but then Al retired. Regrettably, I never met him; much as I wanted to.
The suggested lake-level varied over the year, up in summer, down in winter. But it was only a few feet.
We had a chart of lake-levels suggested by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The sewer guys regulated the outflow to try to meet these suggestions, but a good rainstorm could throw a monkey-wrench into their best laid plans.
They couldn’t dump a whole lot into the Outlet, since that flooded the Outlet.
One time we got a phonecall from an angry shore owner; the lake-level was so low he couldn’t dock his boat.
The call got directed to me.
“Um, we don’t regulate the lake-level,” I said. “We just report it.”
The astronomical events (sunrise, moonrise, etc.) were gleaned from a Farmer’s Almanac.
I was shown factors to add to the Almanac times, that were apparently Boston.
I never liked it; felt it was imprecise.
One afternoon I walked out of our garage at our house in West Bloomfield, and.....
“What’s that Moon doing up there? I had it setting three hours ago.”
The factors and the Farmer’s Almanac were imprecise.
I set about Googling astronomical events, and hit the Naval Observatory site.
VIOLA! I could plug in “Canandaigua,” and it gave the times of sunrise-sunset-moonrise-moonset specific to Canandaigua.
I threw out the Farmer’s Almanac — never again. Naval Observatory site from now on.
At last the sunrise-sunset-moonrise-moonset times were precise.
Toward the end of my employ, they wanted to make the weather-page an advance page; done the night before publication.
Okay up to a point.
I could supply all the information needed except -a) the publication-day’s lake-level, and -b) the previous day’s precipitation.
Around-and-around we went.
I suggested holding the page until I got those two values, and then just plugging them in.
But, of course, that made doing the page the night before impossible, so the previous day’s values ran with a slew of qualifications and explanations. (I.e. the lake-level was a day old, and the precipitation two days old.)
Don’t know how it was resolved — I retired about then — but our readers were angry. Loud blustering phonecalls, and Granny at the receptionist-desk with her Uzi.
Similar to the time we inadvertently left out the Lottery.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had. —It was a post-stroke job. (I had a stroke October 26, 1993.) Started as an unpaid intern at first.

An “advance page” was a newspaper page done well in advance of publication, usually at least the day before. Often the inside pages, that were mainly calendar items, could be done in advance. The lake-level of the day of publication could not be gotten a day early. (The lake-level and precipitation of the day before were only two numbers — a potential plug-in of seconds.)

RE: “Granny at the receptionist-desk with her Uzi.......” —We got this a lot. Angry grandmothers at the receptionist-desk spouting flames. (“Uzi” is the Uzi assault rifle.) We also got loudly castigated over the phone by the so-called “grammar-police.”

One time the newspaper inadvertently left out the N.Y. state Lottery results, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. (The most important thing we published in that newspaper was the Lottery results.)