30 - Friday, December 16, 1994 — North Shore News

‘The rel

volumes that were mine before |
was 10, For some blessed reason
which escapes ine, reading for me
was a bit like a duck taking to
water for the first time.

{ could read before ever attend-
ing school. My mother used to tell
a story about ine at the age of five
lounging around in our home with
a copy of the Reader's Digest.
“What are you doing with that?”
she asked.

“Reading,” f said.

“Bul you don’t know how to
read yet.” she said, “Fell me. if you

WHAT?S IT like tobe a
publisher? Well, it’s a mat-
ter of perspective, I guess.
When part of the world is
mad at Doug Collins it’s not
_all smoked salmon and
cream cheese at the top.
_ When the newspaper is
- delivered wet to 40 or 60
- people out of 60,009 it can
seem that everybody in the
‘world has a wet paper and |
‘they want to let me know
about it, personally.
Advertisers come, and
advertisers go, and the pay-
roll continues,

But it’s all relative. I’ve been»
publishing a long time. In the very
early days, when there was no°
money and we bounced cheques
the phone calls were often about
that. I'd rather handle wet delivery
calls any day.

_. And even the bounced cheque
calls from the early 1970s were
relative. We had a cash flow. and
the cheques were made good, and

apologies sincerely tendered and
often accepted. Relationships
healed and life went on. .

In my previous business, an”
automobile radiator repair firm
which I founded in 1962 and went

- broke with in 1966, it wasn’t so

hice. My cash flow was almost

“ non-existent, and when my
cheques bounced they really
bounced. I had stress that gave me

~~ "° ulleers, my marriage broke up and

- to top it off the radiator trade was
hard and dirty work. I got very
tired of anti-freeze in my face and

- burns on my hands. My subsequent ©.
work episodes, as a structural iron-

~ worker and a sewer installer,
handyman and jack-of-all-trades
were equally hard and dirty jobs.

_ Lhave workshops in my life, at
home and on the farm, but now
., when I cut myself or get splinters
it’s more or less by choice, and I
know I can stop tormenting my

' flesh:and watch television or read a
book. ;

~, Publishing, in the main, is -
clean, dry and indoors. That's what

. -I mean by relative.
_ I got into the publishing busi-
ness knowing almost nothing about
it. In a big way, it was a blessing. |
had many lessons, sind some stuck.
“The trouble with learning from
experience is that sometimes the

‘exam comes first and the lessons

* come after.’ summarizes the course
pretty exactly.
E didn’t have a journalistic

_ background or a degree ‘trom a J-

school, Frankly, { don’t know

. many people who have been iu the
business tor some time that have
one, either. Degrees in journalism
svem to be a recent phenomenon.

"That doesn’t mean [ don't have a
big interest in the news. What ds
going on in our communities and
the world has always fascinated
me. I've been a news hound and an

+ avid reader since childhood.
I've been collecting books since ”
{ was achild, and sul] have several

Free Photos*
with ganta.

can read, what is the name of the
article you are reading?"

She said 1 told hee that it was
called “Why Girls Leave Hore.”

So reading and me bave always
been good Iriends. We still are. I
always have afew books on the go.
For some happy reason, [ read
quickly and effortiessly (unfortu-
nately, that holds mainly true for
the things | like to read). f don't
use (or need) book marks. I can
spell without effort or dictionaries.
Clove almost any kind of non-fic-
tion,

The Better Pric

‘THIS PROGRAM Pies:
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You'd think thit would make
ine a goud student, but it didn’t |
would read the textbooks at the
beginnive of the year, get the gist
of the cow. and be very bored: so
bored that when the fine stuff came
along f missed it.

[love the publishing business,
it's especially satisfying when we
do a good job. The North Shore
News, at this stage of its evolve-
ment is very satisfying to run. For
20 of its 25 years, as T grew up and
tearned to manage the newspaper |
had created, many of my ideas

any

(and the ones f pinched from other
papers) did not come to fruition,
The newspaper simply did not have
the resources it has now. Now it
has good people in key roles, and
it is not nearly as difficult to get
things done as it has been in the
past. Not that it’s spectacularly
cusy, either: but as mentioned
before, it’s all relative,

So what's it like to be a pub-
lisher? Very nice, and to quote
Maurice Chevalier (about old age),
“especially when you consider the
alternative.”

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