Visit to the Mighty Mezz

The other day, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, I happened to visit the Messenger newspaper (“the Mighty Mezz”) in nearby Canandaigua, from where I retired almost seven years ago.
The Messenger was my post-stroke job. Often stroke-victims are so addled they can’t hold a job, but I wasn’t.
The pay was peanuts, but it ended up being the best job I ever had.
Previous to my stroke, I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the provider of transit-bus service in Rochester and its environs.
It paid well, but I was tiring of the clientele, who could be challenging.
Transit was a stupid meaningless job.
My going with the Messenger was a result of my doing a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union. I found I was a word-slinger, that I really enjoyed it.
I worked at the Messenger almost 10 years. Count my time as an unpaid intern, and it was over 10 years.
My official job-title was “typist,” but I never typed anything.
What I did were computer-tricks instrumental to the production of the newspaper.
I thought of myself as an “editorial assistant.” Higher-ups were always amazed at some of the computer-tricks I developed.
In the end I was doing the newspaper’s web-site.
Their current web-site is perhaps four-five iterations beyond mine.
By then I was only part-time, and mine was version number-three.
I liked to run as many photos as I could, and I’d get in trouble for it.
To me, a web-site is a visual medium — it needed photos.
Processing a photo might take me 10-15 minutes.
I had about five-six hours to play with.
How many pictures could I fly without exceeding my hour-limit, and still get my other work done?
The scuttlebutt was I was always flying too many pictures.
I had taken my dog to a park in Canandaigua right up the street from the Messenger offices.
The Messenger wants to run this blog on their web-site, but to do that they needed a signed “freelancer-agreement,” legal mumbo-jumbo.
The “freelancer-agreement” had been e-mailed to me as a Microsoft Word© attachment, but apparently I vaporized it.
I couldn’t find it.
Yet here was the Messenger right up the street.
I decided to visit to try to sign that “freelancer-agreement.”
I hadn’t visited the Messenger for some time. It’s changed owners, and many of my coworkers are gone.
Dog left in van, I recognized their receptionist, but she only faintly recognized me.
The guy needing the freelancer-agreement wasn’t there, but I strode into the old newsroom.
There was Julie Sherwood, still there, a fellow-employee from my filmy past.
I suggested she visit my house to harvest the berries from our currant-bushes when they produce. She makes currant jelly.
She suggested a Messenger tribute to my recently deceased wife.
Others appeared.
“Where’s my vegetables?” asked one.
I used to deliver him fresh vegetables from our prolific garden. We always had excess.
And there was “Obit-Sally,” the Messenger obituary contact.
Old coworkers were still there.
I pulled out my SmartPhone to look at my calendar.
“Oh, a techy! My cellphone is only this,” said Julie. It wasn’t a SmartPhone.
“He was always into that techy stuff,” smiled Obit-Sally.
“But only to a minor extent,” I said. “I’m not your computer-guru.”
They wanted to meet the dog.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Bring her inside,” they said.
The interview for the tribute was held outside at a picnic table.
My 10-minute visit was stretching into an hour.
But that was okay; I hadn’t seen these people in years.
Finally I signed the freelancer-agreement and left.
There was a line for my signature marked “journalist.”
“Journalist!” I cried. “Are you kidding?
What I do is sling words.”
“Sign your life away,” said veggie-man.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.