My daughter, a junior at Toledo High School, spent a morning earlier this month in The Chronicle newsroom doing a job shadow with Editor Eric Schwartz and Natalie Johnson, assistant editor.
She’s an excellent writer, but I’ve told her she should add computers to her skillset if she wants to earn much money. The average wage for reporters is about $45,000, while a computer science graduate can start at $60,000.
Yet money isn’t everything. As I drove to Rosburg, Wash., for a writers’ retreat with some colleagues, I passed through my old beat as a reporter for The Daily News and recalled stories I had covered decades ago, both in Lewis and Cowlitz counties.
I thought of the Puget Island farmer I interviewed after a federal Appeals Court hearing in Tacoma where a man faced 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine for killing a Columbian white-tailed deer, which was listed as an endangered species. The farmer told me when deer eat the food in his garden meant for his family, his motto is to “shoot, shovel, and shut up.”
A longtime mail carrier found her route between Cathlamet and Skamokawa disrupted after a slide wiped out a section of the Ocean Beach Highway, State Route 4, forcing her to drive along narrow, dirt logging roads for months to keep the Postal Service’s promise to deliver the mail. I passed the Duck Inn at Skamokawa and remembered writing about the owner’s daughter who won the state lottery.
When I drive south on Interstate 5, I often glance to the right and see what was once the Peavey Grain Terminal, now the Kalama Export Co., and recall standing on top of those towering grain silos to snap pictures for a photo page about the number of Korean ships arriving in Kalama on their maiden voyages.
When I drive along White Pass Highway through Glenoma, I remember the toddler who fell off the family’s tractor, which ran over him. He survived.
Rainier, Ore., reminds me of the woman who was killed in a head-on collision with a school bus on her son’s birthday, a tree toppling onto a car and killing a man driving beside his wife, and a pregnant mother and two children whose bodies were found in the woods. Just north of Castle Rock, a woman sitting in the passenger seat died when an elk jumped onto the freeway and struck her vehicle.
When I drive down Yew Street in Centralia, I remember Floyd Carpenter, an elderly gentleman who lived on the corner of Locust and Yew at a time when the city considered creating a one-way couplet. I interviewed this kind man about the proposal. A year later, a young man who broke into his home shot and killed him during a burglary. I covered that murder trial.
In Tenino, I always remember Toni Antonelli, a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered near the water tower by two men. When 36-year-old Nancy Moyer went missing from Tenino March, 6, 2009, I thought she looked like an older version of Toni, both petite dark-haired pretty women.
Those were the only two murder trials I covered. They gave me nightmares.
Before I ever flew in an airplane, I found myself as a Chronicle reporter taking to the skies in the Goodyear Blimp, and even had the opportunity to push the rudders and steer the airship.
I covered a horse logger outside of Randle, took photographs of turbines beneath Centralia City Light’s Nisqually River hydroelectric dam, and skied with Giles Thompson, a double-amputee and one of only two people who survived the Oregon Episcopal School’s disastrous hike on Mount Hood in May 1986. Another time I skied with three young men who spent their summers fishing in Alaska, their winters snowboarding on Mount Hood.
Through my years in journalism, I’ve met fascinating people and heard amazing stories. Each day brought surprises, breaking news, and new adventures. So while the pay may not be outstanding, the intangible rewards are well worth remembering.
•••
Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
