Jill's Journal: Thank goodness for light bulb moments
By:
Jill Meier, Journal editor
I found myself in full-mode panic last week. It was a Tuesday, which is typically one of the busiest days of the week in my profession. It’s the day we head to the press with the Journal, which means every “I” needs to be dotted and “T” crossed by 11 a.m. that day. That usually constitutes my alarm clock going off somewhere in the 5 to 5:30 a.m. time range and that gives me a solid five hours to dot those “I’s” and cross the “T’s”.
Last Tuesday was no exception to a typical Tuesday. After putting the paper “to bed,” which is newspaper lingo for, “It is finished, fire it off to the press – hurray!” (The “hurray” part is my own addition to the terminology.) Then it’s time to clean up the mess, organize for the next week, deliver the newspapers to the local newsstands, perhaps attend a meeting or more likely, plunk myself on the sideline of a Lynx sporting event or two or three.
And that’s what unfolded during a busy Tuesday night of Homecoming festivities. On the docket that night were boys and girls’ soccer matches outside at the BVHS Stadium, and a rousing volleyball match inside, also against an always-challenging Harrisburg team.
And I managed to tackle them all.
With a full slate of sports at hand, I decided to grab a slice of pizza from the concession stand in between soccer games. That meant a trip to the car to retrieve a few bucks for the pizza. With pizza in hand, I plunked myself down on one of the wooden boxes the football cheerleaders use at the stadium. Then I went back to work snapping photos before heading inside to the volleyball match, which I’m happy to report the Lady Lynx took Harrisburg to task in the five-set victory.
By this time, it was 9 o’clock and I was surely ready to call it day. Unfortunately, when I went to grab my keys from a side pocket of my camera bag, there were no keys to be had. I cleaned out every pocket in the bag. Once. Twice. Three times. Still no keys.
And that’s when panic set in. If I can’t find them, I’d be homeless for the night, locked out of my car and the office, too.
Then my imaginary light bulb clicked: the keys were in the stadium, on the wooden black box the football cheerleaders use, right where I left them. My dilemma, however, was by that time of the night, the stadium was locked up tight and darker than dark.
That’s when I turned to a custodian, who unfortunately, didn’t have a key to the stadium.
Luckily, BVHS principal Mark Schlekeway was burning the midnight oil and has a key to the stadium.
Sure enough, my keys were right where I left them. Thank goodness for the kind custodian, a hard-working principal and a light-bulb moment.
