Farmers Weekly Review

Nick Reiher

Time doesn’t just fly; it’s supersonic.
Unless it’s the last day of school, or you’re waiting for test results.
Hard to believe it’s been 38 years since I drove from my home in Chicago to my new job in Joliet: I-90 west to 294 south to 55 south to 52 east.
Since it took about an hour and a half in morning rush-hour traffic, it’s also hard to believe I was able to routinely wake up on time to be there by 8 a.m., sometimes, 7. But I had to. Our deadline at the Herald News was 9:30 a.m. in those days. Presses rolled at 10.
See, the HN was an afternoon paper then, meaning you got your paper delivered in the afternoon. You could get home from work, eat dinner and then relax with a broadsheet paper that if you were lucky, would leave some ink on your hands and new information in your head.
The paper was printed on-site at the old building on Caterpillar Drive, now the home of the administrative offices for the Joliet Township High School District. Quite a building, with a moat where a small rowboat floated that was used to clean the pond once in a while. Theoretically.
I guess looking at it now, maybe that building is an example of brutalism, too, just like the old courthouse. Concrete with large windows through which we would watch during tornado warnings. Hey, we wanted to see the storm!
April 15, 1985, was my first day there, a week after the elections. I didn’t want to leave my employers at Lerner Newspapers high and dry, so I started a week after.
Oh, the people I would meet and work with: Lea Kerr came over and introduced herself as the “office bitch.” That was novel. I would learn she very well could be, but she also had a wonderfully kind heart.
A sinister laugh came from the other side of the room, from a dark-haired guy chain-smoking cigarettes and washing them down with endless cans of Coke.
“Is that laugh for real?” I said to no one in particular.
“Oh, yeah, that’s Hawk.” Or Don Hazen, as his parents christened him. Despite the outward appearance that longtime WJOL personality Frank O’Leary would describe as “looking like a gargoyle,” Hawk also was one of the kindest people I ever met.
Working at the Herald-News led to meeting many more people and going on many more adventures, including one very special person with whom I continue life’s adventures to this day.
My co-worker Cindy Wojdyla Cain’s husband Lonny was managing editor at the Ottawa paper. They wanted me to meet one of his copy editors.
Tammy Olson and I met during an alleged “blind” date at a Northern Illinois University newspaper banquet in April 1987. We would marry in her little church in southern Minnesota on April 30, 1988; Jillian came along in May 1989, and Andy in January 1991.
Tammy would come over to the Herald News as a copy editor just before we were married. Working together could be an adventure, as was working apart when we were on separate shifts and had to do a “prisoner exchange” with the kids in the HN parking lot.
Jillian is a doctor of psychology now, and Andy is working toward being an auto mechanic. She loves working with kids who need help with their behavioral disorders; Andy loves working on cars. I pray their careers come to mean as much as mine has to me.
These days, the newspaper business often tears at my heart; not only because of what I have to cover, but because the industry to too many has become a joke. People tell me they love my paper, but I wonder how much longer we can hang on when many prefer to get their “news” from social media.
Journalism in most cases does not pay well. Yet, my career led me on a path to having a wonderful family and many friends in and outside of the business.
My career has not made me wealthy, but I am rich. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.