Insight: Looking back at life in seven-year intervals

Ed Pierce at age 7, June 1961

By Ed Pierce

Managing Editor

I recently noticed a Facebook post by a friend that posed a question about what everyone was doing on a summer night in 1976. That got me to thinking about my past and how hard it would be to pinpoint exactly where I was at any given time in my life and what I was doing then.

To make it a bit more challenging and entertaining, I decided to examine my life in seven-year intervals and jot down exactly where I was and what I was up to.

At the age of 7 in June 1961, I had just completed second grade in Miss Weaver’s class at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Brighton, New York. About a month before school was out for the year, I remember the teacher wheeling a portable black and white television on a cart into our classroom so we all could watch coverage of the flight of the first American astronaut to travel into space, Alan Shepard. Later that summer I played in my first season of Little League baseball.

In June 1968 at age 14, I was excited about moving up to the high school that fall after finishing ninth grade at Carlton Webster Junior High School in Henrietta, New York. I also was happy because the band teacher, Mr. Richard Taylor, talked my parents into letting me give up playing the clarinet and the endless hours I had to spend after school practicing that musical instrument. After school I delivered the afternoon newspaper in my neighborhood.

By June 1975, I was 21 and in my second month of working for United Press International in New Mexico as a reporter. That July I was assigned to do an interview and write a story about a future U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, who was visiting Albuquerque. He ordered BLT sandwiches for us from room service and the Boston Red Sox against the Texas Rangers baseball game was on television as we did the interview. I remember him telling me his favorite Red Sox player was Carlton Fisk.

I was 28 in June 1982 and was serving in the U.S. Air Force as the sports editor of the Luke Air Force Base Tallyho weekly newspaper. Later that same year I was promoted to editor of the paper. I was thrilled to see “Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan” at the theater that summer and marveled at how Ricardo Montalban transitioned from good guy Mr. Roark on TV’s Fantasy Island to portraying the sinister Khan in that film.

June 1989 found me at age 35 working as a news reporter for the Valencia County News-Bulletin and covering county and city government activities, school board meetings and the chamber of commerce. My wife had me videotape three hours of ABC afternoon soap operas for her and after watching some of the plots of those shows, I became convinced I could write bizarre scripts for TV too.

In June 1996 I was 42 and was a sportswriter living in Florida. I covered many high school football, basketball, soccer and baseball games for Florida Today newspaper and spent a good deal of time traveling throughout Florida. That was the same year I bought a stick shift, six-cylinder 1995 Pontiac Firebird, which was one of the better cars I’ve ever owned.

By June 2003, I was 49 and had survived a bout with cancer. I had accepted a desk position at Florida Today and was laying out and designing pages for some of the newspaper’s weekly publications. I had developed a keen interest in photography and had saved up and purchased my first digital camera by then.

In June 2010, at age 56, I was now the Community Sports Editor for Florida Today and continued to write sports and news articles for the newspaper’s weekly and daily editions. My wife and I had purchased a home and we were planning a trip to visit her family in Vermont later that summer.

June 2017 found me at age 63 in Biddeford, Maine where my company had transferred me from Laconia, New Hampshire to serve as Executive Editor of the daily newspaper there. My wife was hired to teach first grade at the Catholic school nearby and we considered ourselves fortunate to have found a home to buy that featured a garage and a fenced-in backyard after looking at dozens that didn’t.

Not sure where June 2024 will find me, but if the past is any indication, I suppose it will include a few surprises, a few disappointments and much to be proud of. <

Insight: Play on words shows subtle differences

By Ed Pierce

Managing Editor

As someone who works with words for a living, I’ve learned that everyone can use specific terms to interpret different meanings and forms of understanding.

Take the word “hope” for example. To me, hope is a belief that a dire situation or an awful time or experience will improve significantly. Yet being hopeful is different from being “optimistic.”

An optimist can dream of a better life and strive to make it happen, while a hopeful individual focuses on a specific aspect of life, such as hoping to someday fall in love and get married or hoping to get a better job.

Optimists can be the most pessimistic of people and yet also detail for you exactly what they hope to accomplish in life.

In some respects, hope can serve as a prelude to the future or function as a self-expectation about ourselves. While being hopeful about a situation, we express a desire to make something happen and it can lead to self-motivation to make it happen.

Being optimistic though requires little motivation, just a sense that something good lies ahead and it’s probably going to happen.

Other words that writers sometimes tend to confuse, and misuse, is “effective” and “efficient.”

When something is considered effective, it typically means it has accomplished a goal and achieved a desired result. An effective solution solves a problem, an effective vaccine thwarts a virus from spreading, and an effective diet helps weight-conscious individuals shed pounds successfully.

If something is considered efficient, it usually involves the conservation of resources to achieve a desired result. Efficient workers get the job done without overtime, a machine is efficient because it uses less energy while performing essentially the same function as another, and a new efficient method can save time when compared to another traditional way of doing the same thing.

Somethings can turn out to efficient but not effective and vice versa. A new roofing material can be highly efficient for savings when used to cover homes, but not effective because it deteriorates much quicker than other materials.

The same principle applies to using word choices of “benefit” and “advantage” because there is a difference between them.

Both words can be used as both nouns and verbs and each can mean a good thing, yet indeed there is a subtle difference.

Advantage is used to favorably compare one feature or another, while a benefit is a clear idea of something being better than another. For example, studying the driver’s handbook can work to your advantage when you take the driver’s license examination. Extra hints contained in the driver’s handbook can be of benefit to anyone wanting to take the driver’s license examination.

And when you get right down to it, there is a distinction between selecting the word “decision” and the word “choice” which are frequently misused by writers.

Opting to reach a decision implies some sort of analysis or process has gone into achieving a final determination. Making a choice means selecting one method, person, place or thing over another to achieve a final result.

When a business hires a new employee, it means a choice has been made. But it doesn’t necessarily mean it was a carefully thought-out decision.

The whole concept of writing can be filled with minefields for those who stop and ponder the endless realm of word choice possibilities. Many times, similar sounding words can also mean the same thing, but also can differ slightly, heightening word-choice confusion for writers.

Take the words “attain” and “obtain.” They each indicate possession of something has been realized, yet they are indeed different and hold different meanings.

Attain means an objective or goal has been reached. Obtain means something has been physically acquired.

Through hard work and hours of study, a student attained a master’s degree, compared to I was finally able to obtain a copy of the new Miley Cyrus album on Amazon.com.

Writers also sometimes struggle to differentiate between “reluctant” and “reticent.”

To be reluctant is to hesitate or be unwilling to do something. To be reticent is to be reluctant to speak up or show emotion.

For example, he was reticent to express his opinions about renovating the attic, compared to because of my fear of rotten floorboards, I am reluctant to proceed with the renovation of my attic.

Every great writer has boundless opportunities when it comes to word choices. I hope I have been effective in displaying the advantages and helping you decide and obtain a greater reluctance when it comes to choosing the right words. <