From Paperboy to Reporter and Points Between

August 20, 1998

My very first job was at the Appeal-Democrat in Marysville. I remember the excitement and the prestige of the calling. My peers would notice the spring in my step and hear the money in my pocket. I was 12 years old, and a newspaper boy.
It seems that 13 years later, I am still a newspaper boy at heart. The woman on the corner won’t be calling about her paper under the porch, nor will I be running into parked cars as I proudly watch a skillfully thrown paper hit its mark. Instead, I sit behind a desk and write about the happenings that go on around us. To understand me more fully at present, I’ll have to explain my past.
I was born on December 3, 1972 in Yuba City. A couple of years ago a poll came out that named Yuba City as one of the worst cities to live in. I laughed.
My mother was a stay at home mom who later went back to school and got her degree in English. She now teaches journalism, English, and yearbook at Las Plumas High School. She has always encouraged me to write and since the age of eight years, I have kept a journal.
My father is an electrician and so my family moved several times during my childhood. Unfortunately, these times coincided with some major points in my education. We moved at the beginning of junior high, and the beginning of high school. Needless to say, all hopes of popularity and being cool were lost.
My parents inherited a house in Oroville, one that had been in our family since 1927. it sits right across from Ken’s Paint downtown. I am the oldest of five children; two boys and three girls. With three sisters, my little brother and I never managed to catch a glimpse of the bathroom, but I could occasionally hear the whir of a blow dryer and catch the scent of hairspray wafting under the door.
Under the watchful eyes of Mark McKinnon and Jim Grosse I managed to graduate from Oroville High School in 1991. I am honored to be called a student of such wonderful instructors and only wish I could have voiced this appreciation more often.
Right after high school, I served as a missionary for the L.D.S. Church in Milan, Italy. I stayed there for two years and fell in love with its people. Italians are one of the few peoples who will tell you in all honesty that your complexion has worsened and you look like you put on 20 pounds. I took this lightly, but the girls didn’t see any humor in it.
I returned from Italy in 1994 and decided that I wanted to become part Italian. I’ve been back to my second home four times visiting families and friends. Italians expect these visits as part of common Italian courtesy. This courtesy becomes quite a burden, especially when tuition becomes due.
I listened to my mother and such, am an English major at Chico State working on a minor in Linguistics. Aside from the atrocious parking, I enjoy school and am looking forward to graduating and becoming an adult. I don’t know about the adult part, but I should graduate this year.
I have worked moving and receiving freight, selling useless knickknacks and have asked people if they “would like to Supersize extra value meal #7.” I have enjoyed working as a language tutor (French, Italian and Spanish) and in Special Education here in Oroville. I appreciate every experience I’ve had and thing that without them, I wouldn’t have anything to say.
I hope to have a weekly column sometime in the near future and look forward to interacting with this community and informing the public through my writing.
I hope to serve the subscribers as well as I did back in my early years with the Appeal-Democrat. If not, I’m sure the Mercury-Register has a paper route available. It’s been a long time, but I can still hit a front porch from a moving bicycle, keeping a lookout for parked cars of course.