Blur of a weekend
Nothing like a quick 38-hour trip home and too many beers with old friends from college to mess with a guy.
Touched down at Will Rogers World Airport -- still the only major airport I know of named after a man who died in a plane crash -- @ 4 p.m. Friday. Lifted off for Portland @ 6 a.m. Sunday. (Got to spend two lovely layovers in Houston, where they're putting a Bass Pro Shop in one of the terminals because, really, you never know when you'll need to buy new huntin' or fishin' gear between flights.)
Two reasons to go:
One, to see my little sister, Chelsea, graduate with the first of her degrees. Glad I could be back for that. And congrats to her. When she finishes the rest of her counseling psychology work, someday, she'll have a helluva lot of expertise to draw on from our family. Maybe she'll be able to straighten us out.
Two, to see my old college adviser retire. Jack Willis, simply put, is the man who taught me how to be a journalist. A legend of Oklahoma journalism, he worked at the Muskogee Phoenix for years, eventually becoming its editor. Then, in 1993, he came to Norman, where he oversaw the campus paper, The Oklahoma Daily, until this month. He's in the state journalism hall of fame, but more importantly, he's in the hearts of the generation of journalists he molded in his career.
His students - including Amy and me, who met in his newsroom - couldn't feel more privileged to have come up under his leadership. He taught us lessons of journalism, and he taught us lessons of life.
Jack gives a farewell speech. His voice cracked a few times as the emotion of the moment hit him, which just about sent us all over the edge. This was right after three former students -- Nick Jungman, I and Sarah Ganus, representing the early, middle and late eras of Jack's tenure, respectively -- had the pleasure of speaking to the group about what Jack means to us and to The Daily.
Here we say goodbye, for now, in his old office, where we sat and had so many career talks. It's where he talked me into applying for my first internship, which took me to Wichita. It's where we talked through whether I should try to go to Portland or St. Petersburg. It's where I learned so many of the intangibles that I rely on daily now. Jack's old-school response to the "How long should my story be?" question always cracked me up while saying it all. "It should be like a woman's skirt," he'd invariably explain, in his typical deadpan style. "Long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to be interesting."
Although I always wanted him to give me answers to my career questions, he always would say, "Well, Seth, what do you think?" And then he'd lead me through a conversation in which I'd figure things out for myself. It helped me not only then, but also years later in ways I'm still figuring out.
As I said Saturday to the group of alums who came back for Jack's sendoff, it's not that you just don't want to disappoint Jack in whatever you do and wherever you go in this business. Instead, it's that you want to make him proud.
Here's hoping we do.
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