Published: August 06, 2008 11:27 pm      

HOPKINS: No reason to feel timid

Are you nervous?”

If only I had a nickel for every time I heard that question during the last six weeks.

It’s never easy starting a new job, but throw in losing a job and searching for a new one six weeks before your wedding, well, talk about tough. Worse yet, my fiancee lost her job as well. The aforementioned question started many a conversation.

Fortunately, as the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens. My fiancee (now my wife) Colleen found and started a new job within 10 days, and I started here at the Tonawanda News on June 27, four days after Colleen. Thank God for open doors!

So, was I nervous? What was there to be nervous about? I had a fiancee who I am madly in love with and I knew she felt the same about me. No worries about commitment. We had a few financial concerns, going without paychecks for a couple of weeks, but they worked themselves out. And my bride never turned into the dreaded “Bridezilla.”

I was confident that we would find employment. We both have strong work ethics, and I felt it showed in our resumes. Colleen ended up with multiple offers and I knew, with my local communications background that I would find something in the area.

When I accepted the night city editor position at the Tonawanda News, I recalled an observation an editorial cartoonist once shared with me. “The stories are pretty much the same in every town,” he told me. “Only the names change,” he added, sounding somewhat like the tag line from the beginning of a Dragnet episode.

The cartoonist works in Western New York, but also provides local-themed cartoons for out-of-state newspapers, even though he’s never stepped foot in their towns. He draws his cartoons after visiting his clients’ Web sites. But, his long distance observation is correct. In the six weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve seen criticism of school boards and local government, complaints about summer entertainment, criticism of church mergers, environmental concerns, heinous crimes, and more. Just like I did at my last job.

The next thing I did was take mental notes on what I knew — past and present — about the Twin Cities, the town, Kenmore and Wheatfield.

Wurlitzer. Melody Fair. The canal. Summer music. The Riviera. Three hockey rinks, a golf dome and a multiuse sports complex. The T-NT rivalry. Don’t speed in Kenmore. Enjoying ice cream along the Niagara River. An airplane at Kenney Field. My longtime auto mechanic. My brother-in-law’s house. The nauseating odor along the 190 as you pass the landfill and oil tanks.

Four times more than I knew about Cheektowaga, the last town I covered, where on my first day of work back in 2001 I only knew how to get to the airport, Galleria and two hockey rinks. Within two months, I could drive anywhere without getting lost. Within two years I could direct you, from memory, to almost any obscure street. After seven years, it abruptly ended and I found myself facing a new challenge.

Nervous? Nah. As long as I was learning along the way, I felt, I was confident that I would do all right. As it turned out, I learned a lot over my first five weeks. I’m still learning, but the great staff here is making my new job easy. I’m still adjusting to the layout of the cities. So far, the job hasn’t required me to drive much, so it’s taking me a while to figure out how to get from point A (the News) to point B (usually a take-out place). Adjusting to the police and fire scanner is taking longer than I expected, and I have to look up most locations on a map, but I relish the challenge and am beginning to feel at home.

By the way, the wedding turned out great and we’re looking forward to our honeymoon.

John Hopkins is the night city editor of the Tonawanda News. His column will appear Thursdays. Contact him at john.hopkins@gnnewspaper.com.