While still in college I worked as a newsroom clerk at the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the only daily newspaper for the northern California coastal town of – you guessed it – Santa Cruz. I made a whopping $8.88 per hour (big money back then!) and got to work alongside my best friend Cat, who worked as the assistant to the Editor in Chief, Tom.
One of Cat’s responsibilities was to read over all the letters to the Editor and select a few for Tom to review, comment on and publish in the paper. Tom would write his reply on a Post-It note, stick it on the original letter and leave it on Cat’s desk so she could type it into the system for publication.
I remember one letter in particular; it was was written in response to a photo we ran on a local Little League baseball team. The letter was from Kenny, the 8-year-old pitcher of the squad and apparently the paper ran a misspelling of his name. I just wanted to point it out but thank you for printing the photo, I am excited! Sincerely, Kenny. It was pretty adorable that the kid took time to write us the letter and Cat felt the same. She deemed it special enough to leave on Tom’s desk for a review.