With love to the Jersey Hills

...and some memorabilia from my first professional reporting job, where I learned how to write a news article in 20 minutes.

As seen today in the Planet Waves office.

Dear Friend and Reader:

A few minutes ago, I got off the phone with my old boss at my first professional newspaper job. That would be Elizabeth Parker, who was actually my editor Flo Higgins’ boss, and who is now publisher-near-retirement of what has become the nonprofit Jersey Hills Media Group. I started at a newspaper called the Echoes-Sentinel.

I recently subscribed to their flagship paper, The Bernardsville News, to be able to follow local coverage of the drones that were not drones right in the region where it was but wasn’t happening. Then the print publication started arriving in my P.O. Box, and truly, it’s amazing. I wonder if there’s a local newspaper anywhere like it — much less a group of them with reporters at every town meeting who actually know what is happening. Actual coverage. No hit jobs or pay-to-play — that’s so Hudson Valley.

Anyway, if you want to know how I can write a news story in 20 minutes, we have Flo Higgins and Liz Parker to thank.

We had a great conversation…we are among the few remaining people on Earth who remember those days, though my old colleagues Jake Perry and Charlie Zavalik still write for the group. Jake had and still has a gift for covering the Board of Adjustment. Raise your hand if you know what that is.

This is Where I First Met Astrology

My time at the Echoes is meaningful for many reasons, though one you may relate to is that my editor, Flo Higgins, was the person who introduced me to astrology. I don’t think a single trine, square or the word “horoscope” has ever made it into the pages of any newspaper in the group, though there was plenty of astrology in the office.

I tell that story here.

To know Flo was to get a crash course in astrology, with the emphasis on crash.

When Flo was within 25 miles, astrology was somewhere between unavoidable and inescapable. Upon her retirement (um, resignation, we could not use the word “retire”), I led her staff at the Echoes-Sentinel to create the Echoes-Echoes, a satire on the newspaper, which we gave out at her resignation dinner.

In this, I was aided and abetted by my then-girlfriend and personal graphic design teacher Virginia Lepley, along with Jim in the printing department who did the job.

On his office door, Jim had the words “DON’T SIGN, DON’T BUY — MERCURY IS RETROGRADE,” which Flo had copied for him out of Secrets from a Stargazer’s Notebook by Debbi Kempton Smith (the funniest astrology book ever written).

I just scanned Echoes-Echoes pages in for Liz, and I’m sharing them with you. That is the occasion of my letter today. By the way, I have written and organized a lot of satire in my day, and my favorite article ever remains “Miss Wellesley Plans to Marry,” written in five minutes by Rikki, the wedding announcement girl who spun these things out all day and let ‘er rip.

In close second place is “Making the Most of Those Useless Gourds.” I still run this routine at farmer’s markets — what do I do with these things? Can you give me a recipe? I usually get back a blank stare. But I think it’s funny, and that’s what matters.

With love,

Your faithful astrologer

Note, the pages are numbered and because it’s an unfolded print magazine, do not display in the correct order. But you’ll be able to figure it out.