Look, everybody! A blog!

Earlier this month, I said goodbye to a dear friend. After nearly 11 years, my old Ford Focus started showing his age. He creaked when I turned the wheel, squealed when I cranked the ignition. One day he gave up as I hit 70 on the highway. I guided him to an exit, and he shuddered in resignation.

It was time to get a new car.

I was 22 when I bought the Focus. Sept. 11 had just happened. My first significant relationship had just come to an end. I’d taken a job in Kansas and needed a way to get there from Minnesota. Focus was pretty. He gleamed on the showroom floor. I took out a 36-month loan and made him mine.

Oh, what a ride it was.

Focus took me over the flat highways of Kansas, through the icy roads of a Michigan winter, up and down the hills of Cincinnati. After I was laid off, he gingerly carried me to Columbus. He never faltered, even when he took a beating, and he took a lot of beatings. One hundred cigarettes were smoked in Focus. Twice, someone threw up inside of him. More than once he charged down the freeway with an unsteady, sobbing driver behind the wheel.

Giving up Focus was giving up a million memories of road trips to the Outer Banks and job changes and first dates and last dates and all the sadness and drama of a woman in her 20s. I slept in Focus, a few times, one time nestled in the back seat beside a man dressed like a hot dog.

I didn’t treat him well. I let stains sit. As I chased one newspaper story after another, I let the garbage pile up. Once I left an unopened Dr. Pepper sitting in the cup holder, and as the sun beat through the windows the can exploded inside of Focus like a sticky grenade.

When I cleaned it for the last time, I found a bikini top of my sister’s. I found my Michigan license plate. I found a book of drink recipes given to me by an ex-boyfriend. I found a picture of the man in the hot dog costume.

And then I gave it away. I forgot to look back. After 11 years, Focus had become a burden, a threat, something I’d grown to disdain. I drove off the lot in my new Honda Civic without so much as a goodbye honk.

Civic, you’ve got a lot to live up to. Here’s to a new decade filled with adventure, excitement and no vomit or cigarettes.

If you live anywhere from Indiana to Virginia, you know about this storm. It was brutal. It ripped huge old trees from the ground like they were carrots. In downtown Columbus, I didn’t see a lot of the damage. It wasn’t until I got to Newark last Monday that I saw scenes like this:

Worse than the blown-over trees and knocked-down signs (and yes, that’s an upside down plane) was the fact that tens of thousands of people were without power in Ohio. The temperature soared into the 90s. There was no gas, no milk, no sign of life at nearby convenience stores.

Every night, I went home to air conditioning and microwaved meals while families like the Haynes sat on the porch in 90-degree weather, hoping for relief.

I’ve never felt so guilty reporting a story. I had just one day at the office without power. I hauled my two camping lanterns into the building and made phone calls in the eerie light. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people couldn’t even take a hot shower. They were so desperate for power that they left tokens of gratitude to the utility company, which at times might have felt like their greatest enemy.

The utility workers, meanwhile, were sleeping here. Life wasn’t much better for them. They retired to a trailer after a 16-hour work day.

Some people made the best of it. These sweet kids in Granville, Ohio, set up a lemonade stand. They offered me a glass for free, but I declined. They weren’t hurting for customers. Most of the village didn’t have power for a week.

As I type this, it’s Sunday night. Thousands of people, many of them in Licking County, where I work, still don’t have power. So far, three people there, all elderly and suffering from health problems, have died in this heat. I can’t stop thinking about them.

OK, this is actually from last week’s Memorial Golf Tournament in Dublin, OH, where I wrote features while all the real sports reporters merely tolerated my existence. Oh, and I ate a lot of candy. One day I ate four Tootsie Pops. My mouth is still raw. Here come the Instagrams!

And here are the stories I wrote. And this one. P.S. I still don’t get golf. Too much standing there and losing sight of the ball.

OK, so it’s been awhile since I last posted, and I figured I’d show you why. Because I know you — and by you, I mean the four people who no doubt find my blog each day by Googling something obscene — care.

Here, I present to you: Life Through the Eyes of a Bureau Reporter. Location: Newark, Ohio.

Morning. Here’s the door. Open the door. Smack self awake. Crank up the police scanner.

Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Jim Cotter and the volunteers who were painting over the damage in their hometown of Glouster, Ohio. Yesterday, CBS News did a piece on it. If you missed it, here it is.

Well, kind of. I won’t really be blogging anymore, but I will be updating the site with new stories I write. And I promise there will be no more talk of the blue people of Kentucky.