A new transition

Here's the start to my moving-on column the New Haven Register Jan. 3 and online Dec. 31, 2020 and a link to it:

Article in Register

It’s been a wild and quip-filled ride in news    and features; now it’s time to stand up

It’s been a wild and quip-filled ride in news    and features; now it’s time to stand up

By Joe Amarante

After years at The Journal-Courier and New Haven Register - and all the publications that Hearst Connecticut Media has brought with it in recent years - I decided recently to leave the Register Dec. 31. Maybe this challenging year convinced me it’s time for a bit of a change.

Or maybe, in my 60s, it’s just too many hours sitting down, since I have worked from my home during 2020. Health experts will tell you that sitting and typing for long hours is more than just a pain in the butt. It will move up your expiration date.

It’s been a long, strange trip, this job. But I will miss it, partly because journalists are the coolest people I’ve known — curious, funny, more than a bit testy and part of a club with a glorious, ink-stained, booze-soaked past. But also because it’s worthy and even crucial in a democracy.

Most journos are trained to gather and present verifiable truth and attributable assertions, so the last four years it’s been tough to listen to a president call us “enemies of the people.” My affection for news folks doesn’t include the time-killing blowhards on partisan cable TV or syndicated radio; it’s more a reference to local journalism.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the news was guided into print in historic New Haven by solid editors such as Bob Granger, Jack Sopko, Jon Ainsworth, and the late Bill Cotter, Dick Roy and Don Sharpe — all longtime poker buddies of mine until the last couple of years.

As a young copy editor for a decade, I memorized the AP Stylebook and spent part of my shift in the union-staffed composing room and press room, where the paper would miraculously emerge with a growing roar from the monstrous presses sometime after midnight.

There were several deaf employees in composing whom I enjoyed, and one day Mario got me as I entered the second floor from the elevator, glanced over my shoulder and saw him mimicking an animated conversation on the pay phone there, like Harpo Marx. He enjoyed my double-take.

When I got into features as TV editor, a department member kept a list of funny comments. And being features, the conversation often was lively and ... a bit nutty, as Austin Powers would say.

Arriving at my messy desk one day, I said, “I went to see ‘Sally Jessy Raphael’ (at WTNH). She had on a woman with 92 personalities.” Arts editor John Roberts didn’t miss a beat: “Did you get her autographs?” ...