Before becoming a newspaper editor, I held conventional jobs— retail clerk, receptionist, library aide, marketing and communications manager and customer service representative. Unlike here at the Cook County News-Herald, most of those jobs fell into traditional office hours. Some included weekends, but generally, I worked week days and I was home by dinner time.
I didn’t work late into the evening, with a few exceptions. For a brief period in the 1980s, I worked at the Spur, which was in the building that now houses Gunflint Realty.
Working at Spur was fun. It was only really busy at lunch time when a mob of teenagers would hurry in to buy junk food or to put $2 or $5 of gas in their cars. After the noon rush, it would slow down to just be the local customers—probably some of the same guys that hang out at Buck’s or SuperAmerica nowadays—filling up work vehicles or getting bait for an afternoon of fishing.
Spur closed at about 8 p.m. so there wasn’t really a night shift. Except for the first few weekends of fishing season. For a few nights in the summer, Spur stayed open all night to sell gas and supplies to the steady stream of fishermen heading up the shore. I didn’t mind chatting with the vacationers who were happy that there was at least one business open in our tiny town.
It was a challenge to stay awake in the lull between customers. But finally, I would be rewarded by a lovely summer sunrise. I’m not an early riser, so it would amaze me to see the beautiful pink clouds hovering over the bear in canoe and voyageur signs across Highway 61. As I headed home, it was a treat to hear the songs of the awakening birds.
When I worked as a retail clerk for a large chain department store, I pulled an occasional all-nighter during inventory. There was no quiet visiting with friendly customers and no enjoying the sunrise on that job. There was counting, marking, recounting—over and over again. It wasn’t very enjoyable, although I had some cheerful co-workers who joked and made the time pass a little quicker. There were pizza and treat breaks too, so I survived.
I never thought that I would have a job that included a night shift on a regular basis. But working at a newspaper, at least our small town newspaper, means just that. All of us at the paper work odd hours. There are meetings and events at night, so on any given night of the week, we are heading home at 8 or 9 or 10 p.m.
And then there is Wednesday. After covering those meetings and events during the day and into the evening, we have to get the information written up. We have to get the photos downloaded and captions written. We have to work with our designer to get it all laid out on the pages properly. We don’t get it all done on Wednesday, but we give it our best shot, sometimes staying at the office until the wee hours of the morning.
I don’t mind it too much. I’m more of a night than morning person. And my night shift cohorts— primarily Designer Laurie Johnson and Associate Editor Jane Howard— are fun to work with when the rush of day-to-day business is done. We get a lot done when the phone is not ringing and people are not walking in with news items and ads every few minutes.
But the best part of the night shift is leaving the office when the city is sleeping. Grand Marais is a lovely town all of the time, but there is something magical about it on a cold, dark night. Dim lights are on in the shops, showing off tempting merchandise in the windows. The street lights illuminate icicles in the winter and the flower boxes in the summer. The lighthouse blinks as I drive by, reassuring me that it is still there.
Leaving the lights of town, it’s always a wonder to see the stars appear in the dark sky. Even though I’m tired from working the night shift, I can never rush into the house. Even when the weather is cold and the wind is howling, I always stop for a moment to take in the heavenly array of stars or the shimmering moon—or the roiling dark clouds obscuring them all.
Sometimes working the night shift is a blessing.
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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