This edition marks the Sun Day’s 10th anniversary, and every time I’ve attempted to start writing this piece in my head (which I’ve been doing in one way or another for months but only running into roadblocks these past few weeks), I keep circling back to the phrase “it’s a bitter-sweet celebration.” On one hand, there’s cause for huge celebration. We’ve successfully, sometimes very successfully, published a community newspaper for ten years running. That’s an accomplishment in print media all by itself nowadays. But it doesn’t feel like much of a celebration because we’re surrounded by extraordinary circumstances that are presenting us as a world with great challenge. And the Sun Day is not immune to these challenges. We’re hurting along with everyone else, and what I feel is most crippled by the times is not the paper’s profit margin but its ability to bring you important and maybe critical information. That responsibility has always been and will always be my and my staff’s chief and primary concern. It’s what’s kept us running for ten years.
Our first edition, published April 7, 2010.
Amidst the pandemic, the cheers are quieter, the claps are softer, the hoorays are little more than a whisper. But they’re still there.
In the midst of trying to form this editorial against the whirlpool of my thoughts, I’ve found myself continually circling back to something my grandfather used to say when I was growing up: “Don’t worry about nothin’ because nothin’ ain’t ever right.”
Perhaps you immediately understood what he meant, but it took me very near my entire life to “get it.” I’m 41, and it’s meaning clicked with me literally only a few years ago.
My grandfather, who died when I was a freshman in high school, was always a rather optimistic man and these words never sounded right coming out of his mouth. They were fatalistic and sad. My grandfather was a happy man.
Before I go any further, let me take a minute to catch you up on my grandfather.
He was born in Chicago to an immigrant mother in 1903. He was kicked into a wall by a horse in 1906 and almost died. He quit school at seven years old, started chewing tobacco (a habit he kept up until his death at 89 year old) and began working in the sweatshops of Chicago during the meet-packing industry’s heyday—which if you read The Jungle, you know wasn’t so much a heyday but a death march. He saw WWI, lived through the Spanish Flu, The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl Era, was associated with John Dillinger (though he was NOT a criminal). He saw WWII, Korea, and saw a son off to fight in Vietnam. Before that, he raised three kids during the Polio pandemic. He saw Kennedy assassinated, Watergate, Nixon resign. He lived through the AIDS pandemic, and a couple recessions.
In his 89 years, my grandfather met every hardship the 20th Century threw at the world. Not to mention all the personal turmoil and upheaval anyone faces throughout their lives. Yet my grandfather lived it, made it, came out on the other side of each catastrophe without becoming mean or resentful. By doing so, he built the foundation on which my family stands today. On which I stand. On which this newspaper stands. (He read the daily newspaper cover to cover, by the way, every day.)
So I’ve been thinking about my grandfather a lot lately and applying his words to the Sun Day’s anniversary.
Is this anniversary bitter-sweet? Yes, in many ways it is. There’s a lot to celebrate and a lot to be sad about at the same time. Would I have liked to throw the huge party I’ve been planning for the last year for my staff, family, and friends? Yes, very much. Would I have liked to deliver you a happy edition adorned with celebratory graphics? Absolutely. Would I have liked to have shared the joy of ten successful years with our advertisers who have helped build this paper and who the Sun Day, in turn, has helped build their businesses? Definitely. Would I have liked to have done all this without any turmoil or upheaval or hardship or strife? More than anything. But was that a realistic want? Maybe. But maybe not. Because “nothin’ ain’t ever right.”
So with that, I’m taking what I have, what I’ve been given, what I’ve earned, and am celebrating it, nonetheless. I can honestly say that I would rather not have it any other way. Anyone can celebrate and feel good during good times, but it takes a special kind of commitment to one’s life to celebrate each moment no matter the exterior circumstances. Celebration at these times is so much sweeter. It might be reserved and more contemplative but it’s no less a celebration. And at the bottom of it, the Sun Day is a newspaper. It’s a newspaper’s job to operate in all conditions to keep people informed. So I’m personally proud that during the Sun Day’s most trying time in its ten-year history, we’re doing it. We’re doing what we’re meant to do and that alone is celebration. We’re celebrating our efforts, your dedicated readership, our advertisers’ loyalty by continuing to operate no matter the conditions.
There is a finish line to this current challenge. We don’t know where it is but it’s out there, and like everyone, we will cross it. We might not cross it running full tilt with our chest out. It might be a limp or a crawl or we might be dragging our body behind us by our hands, but we WILL cross it. We WILL get up. And we WILL continue.
Take care, Everyone. Thank you for your readership these ten years and for all the years to come. Thank you to our advertisers. I am personally humbled by the value you put in this community newspaper. Thank you to my staff who I am even more humbled by because, well, I don’t even have the words to express my thanks for your dedication and commitment. I honestly don’t. Thank you, Sun City. Just…thank you.
Stay safe. Be well.
