“The city is a state – of the mind, of taste, of possibilities. The city is a marketplace – where ideas are traded, opinions collide, and eternal conflict can lead to eternal truths. – Herb Caen
Yesterday I took Lulu, my Bijon Frize, for a little walk around the orchard. Our conversation went like this:
“How come you mentioned the movie girl and the farm girl, the college boy and the farm wife, but you still haven’t given me, your most faithful companion of 12 years, a starring role in your Thursday column?”
“Well, Lou, I can’t,” I explained as she sniffed a nearby squirrel hole, hoping to find her next big chase. “There is a man named Minch who has been writing about his dogs for over 60 years. I can’t just copy it.”
“You mean dog years, right Shan?”
“No, Lou. I mean human years. He wrote about me in the Observer when he had his dog Murray. Now he writes about conversations with his dog, Jazz. I’m sure there are a few more, but I don’t remember their names.”
“Why do I change dogs so often,” Lulu asked innocently.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I mumbled and changed the subject, pointing to a large cluster of squirrels next to the woodpile. “Go get them Lou!”
And off she went, tail wagging and ears flapping in the wind.
I hope my fellow columnist has ended his long tenure as Friday’s scribe and joke teller in much the same way. Congratulations on a job well done, Robert. Now you have more time to spend with your dogs and plenty of time to keep your hole stalls sparkling.
My history with Robert Minch dates back to 1991, when I took over from Walter Dodd as editor of the Corning Daily Observer. I was 20-something and my goal was to compete with Bill Goodyear’s Red Bluff Daily News for subscribers. My popularity plummeted when the publisher (aka my dad) did the math and decided that Corning’s historic success as the smallest daily newspaper in the United States would now only be published three days a week.
Back then, Corning was a big football town, so Friday’s sports article had to be published in Monday’s paper, much to the dismay of many local high school sports fans.
To fix that, I hired a great sportswriter and another talented beat reporter. The three of us traveled around Tehama County writing feature stories, hard news and highlighting area athletes with personal interviews and giant photos. I spent hours in that little darkroom on Fifth Street printing extra photos for the athletes’ families. Back then, local sports coverage often took up four full pages.
The community began to take notice and subscribers began to sign up for our three-day newspaper. My big break was when Sidney Lindauer sent a personal note congratulating our paper on its excellent coverage and becoming a lifelong subscriber and friend. Within two years, we increased our circulation by 3,000 new readers, mostly from northern Tehama County.
Shortly after we took the Daily off the Observer, I got a call from Robert Minch. We set up a time to meet and agreed on terms for his column to be published in the Corning Observer rather than the Red Bluff Daily News. Believe it or not, we even paid journalists in those days. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make them feel appreciated.
The 1940s to the 1990s is what I call the glory days of journalism. Newspapers were the only place where you could read who was born, who married and who died. Obituaries were often on the front page, while engagements and births were reserved for page 2. We even had a section on the community page with photos of all the young men and women who joined the military.
The Opinion page was always page 3, the first page facing the reader straight after they opened the morning edition. This is where Robert Minch’s column, I Say, lives, and where we both began criticizing the decisions of three Tehama County Boards of Supervisors in the mid-1990s.
Minch (correct me if I’m wrong, Robert) coined the phrase “Gang of Three” in one of his opinion columns and called out the insane decision-making by three former executives, Shirley Marelli, Kathleen Rowan and JoAnn Landingham.
This time period gets confused because I started a family, Minch parted ways with the Observer and the three supervisors were actually recalled, all because the papers were popular and people read at least two of them.
Like Herb Caen, Minch’s wit was sometimes too unpleasant for our readers, and I was tasked with making phone calls and occasional office visits. I believe I edited out too many profanities in Minch’s column, and that’s the real reason he came back to write for the Daily News (sorry if I overdid it, Robert).
It’s been a great run, Robert Minch. Thank you for sharing your time and talent and sprinkling it with a little criticism and bad humor to make Fridays fun and exciting.