That's Mr. Greensheet, not Mr. Greenjeans, thank you

“It’s Mr. Green Sheet,” said an older man talking to another older man as I walked by on my way back from picking up a few groceries the other morning.

“That was a long time ago,” I said, in reference to his comment.

“Not if you’re an old-timer around here,” he said.

I thought, the Green Sheet has been dead and gone for eighteen years this August. By any standard, that’s a long time.

From 1977 to 1994 the Green Sheet (officially titled the Comox District Free Press, but to the community it was the Green Sheet. Ironically, though, staffers invariably, due to some sort of respect I suppose, always accorded the name Free Press) was my life and my income source. There was a time-out in 1980-81 when I lived and wrote in England, but otherwise it was all about the Free Press/Green Sheet.

Though I freelanced for larger dailies and sometimes – especially in times of frustration or when I believed my ‘monumental’ journalistic talents weren’t being appreciated sufficiently – I toyed with aspiring upwards as some colleagues did over the years.

Yet, there was a security in the old Green Sheet, and a freedom, and the pay wasn’t too terrible, so I stayed. In fact, prior to 1994 I fancied I would probably retire from there, and that would be OK, all things considered. I realized I actually -- in a kind of bittersweet manner -- loved the old girl.

The Green Sheet was 103-years-old at the time of its demise. Oh, by the way, the ‘green’ part in the popular title had nothing to do with some sort of proto-environmental-consciousness but because it was actually green. At least the first two and last two pages of the front section always were. People often wondered why, and there was never a clear-cut answer. Some people said it was because they once ran out of white newsprint stock but had a surfeit of green, so they used it and the public liked it, so the idea stuck. The other, and maybe more feasible reason is that former publisher, the late EW Bickle Jr. was travelling in the US and happened upon a green daily and it struck him as a good idea for his own paper. One green American paper is the San Diego daily whatever, and it was suggested that might have been the one.

I won’t go into the reasons for the decline and fall of the Green Sheet, and actually will add that it didn’t decline at all (just threw in the Gibbon allusion for the sake of being scholarly when it wasn’t actually needed) but continued right until the bitter end on August 19, 1994 to be an award-garnering paper. I actually managed to nab a few of those awards myself – ahem.

Why the ‘Mr. Green Sheet?’ I don’t really know. At the time of its end I was assistant editor and had been for a few years. Otherwise, in my desultory career there I had been court reporter, cop reporter, arts reporter, editorial writer, and a columnist.

I think the reference to me by that gentleman the other morning stemmed from my weekly column. My face was there staring residents of the community in their respective faces every Friday morning. My musings were eclectic in nature, sometimes pertaining to the community, sometimes to the world at large. People seemed to like my column, and I loved writing it, and miss it to this day. That’s just one of the reasons I write this blog.

And, while I acted as editor periodically, like when my actual editor, my talented workmate and my early days mentor, Debra Martin went on vacationl, I was quite content to not have that greater responsibility. As for her predecessor – the guy who gave me my job initially (and for which I remain grateful) – the less said about him the better. Therefore, I shall say less, as in nothing at all. It’s better that way.

In the end, it was a small-town paper, much like small-town papers anywhere. When I worked in England, for the Great Yarmouth Mercury, I found its similarities to the Green Sheet to be more profound than its differences.

Years ago, when I was early in the business, I read an autobiography of Monica Dickens (Charles’s great-granddaughter) called An Open Book, in which she recounted her experiences at the Herts Express in the late 1940s and I found the parallels amazing and could relate to virtually all her experiences in a small rural paper.

Oh, I could go on and on about this, but will refrain. Suffice it to say that the "Mr. Green Sheet" reference gave me some sort of odd validation in my life and I appreciated the comment more than I thought at the moment it was uttered. So, be careful what you say on passing, you might just make somebody feel good.