I’m no longer working solo. Praise creation, Landmark office manager Cindy Rinehart is back from a trip to the beaches of Puerto Rico.
Feels to me like she spent a month there last week.
I’m not saying she takes a lot of vacations but Cindy’s been in more sand than Frankie Avalon.
My favorite moments while working alone in the office are those times when I’m writing a story while also talking to a source on my cell phone as a text comes in as both office lines are ringing as a customer is walking in the door. While really needing to pee.
I don’t know much about Puerto Rico except that Juan Ponce de León has always been my favorite Puerto Rican. No idea what he did, I just like the way his name rolls off the tongue.
Random life observation from Foley at no charge: The five people you are around the most are the ones who are going to inspire your habits.
It’s gonna be a big year for cicadas around here. In fact, pretty sure I’m already hearing some.
Brood XIX, also known as the Great Southern Brood, is expected to emerge in May and June. The cicada experts (in other words that bookworm you knew in fifth grade who really liked science) say this brood is made up of four species of 13-year cicadas, which means they will pop out of the ground every 13 years. The last time this brood was seen in Missouri was in 2011, which of course you already knew if you did the 13-year math in your head or with your fingers and toes.
Time for a little inside baseball talk in regard to mail delivery of periodical publications (newspapers).
Lately, most of the mail delivery drama in these parts, at least as far as periodicals like The Landmark are concerned, seems to be happening in zip code 64151.
Several of you in 64151 told me that you received your April 17 edition of The Landmark on time. So on time, in fact, that it arrived before your April 10 edition did. Yes, some of you in 64151 told me you received your April 17 edition by April 18 but didn’t receive your April 10 edition until April 22. Somebody make this make sense. Mail delivery has never been so haphazard.
While delivery is unpredictable–or in certain areas predictably bad–I’ll also make you aware that the USPS continues to consistently raise the postage costs for mailing community newspapers. They hit us with a 10 percent increase in January. They will be hitting us with another 10 percent increase in July. Yes, that’s two 10% increases in the same year. And this isn’t the first time for two 10 percent rate increases within the same year for periodical publications like ours. The same thing happened in 2023. Twice a year increases for us at 10% each time have become a pattern under United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy with his Delivering for America plan. DeJoy became postmaster general in June of 2020. As far as newspapers are concerned, DeJoy has been a DeSaster.
The bottom line is that the recent rate increases mean newspapers are paying about 50% more for postage than we were just three years ago. It’s astounding and absurd and a lot of other adjectives.
It’s unbelievable, really, especially at a time when delivery service is so unreliable.
It’s a big week around your ol’ Landmark as we’re busy observing the start of this newspaper’s 160th year of continuous publication. Guy Speckman likes to ask me if I’ve been around for all 160 years. I haven’t, but it seems like it to some public officials, I’m sure.
We’re not celebrating too hard, though I am in the process of placing 160 candles on a Hostess cupcake that I found in the break room.
The month of May marks 42 years for me at this institution of mostly fine journalism. In late May of 1982 I stepped into The Landmark office and into Platte County not knowing a soul, not even my fellow workers inside our office. I’m the only Landmark staffer from the summer of 1982 who is still alive, so I guess if so desired I could tell all kinds of office stories without the threat of being personally fact-checked.
Meanwhile, the month of August will mark 32 years at The Landmark for our aforementioned office manager Cindy Rinehart, a now-legendary staff hire. I hired Cindy despite the fact on the day she walked into the office for her job interview her first words were a disbelieving: “You’re Mr. Foley?” I took that to mean she thought I looked like a kid or a douchebag. Maybe both.
Anyway, in the early to mid 90s Cindy willingly took on a growing number of tasks and provided prodding on aspects of the business (such as hey, it’s time to get some computers, ya caveman) that without her help would have been a challenge for me at the time. She became a Landmark Lifer and trusted friend willing to put up with shenanigans and smartassery. She even let’s me poke fun at her in this column. Or maybe she just doesn’t read this column.
We have a vital, informative, entertaining, paid-only-with-compliments stable of columnists in Chris Kamler, Guy Speckman, and Hearne Christopher; important contributors in folks like Debbie Topi, Valerie Verkamp, and Hall of Fame photojournalist/good friend Bill Hankins; my personal proofreader with a smile/checkbook balancer Linda Foley; and the finest distribution specialist/mailroom entertainer that ice cream can buy in the always fun Fred Felix.
Most importantly, we thank advertisers and readers like you who have invited The Landmark into your homes and made us a part of your lives. You’re the real reason The Landmark is one of the longest-running, continuously published newspapers west of the Mississippi.
(You’ll mostly find Foley indulging Hostess cupcakes in the company break room. Email ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
