Not wanted any more -- no pun intended

The BJ Alums blog posts items every day about newspapers cutting huge numbers of their staff, but it is more than just numbers. People–friends–are involved. They call it buyouts or layoffs or some other puzzling words. If you want to know what it really means, ask someone involved.

When we heard an old friend and veteran reporter Terry Oblander was among 27 let go by a phone call from his editor at the Plain Dealer on Tuesday, we sent an email asking “Is it true?”

Here is the answer from Terry:

Yeah. Editor Susan Goldberg called me Tuesday morning to tell me I wasn't wanted any more.

I sign severance papers Saturday.

It's hard to be told that you're not wanted any more. But, not as hard as that might sound.

While I will miss reporting, I'm afraid I won't miss my job and the current state of journalism and newspapering. I did not enjoy going to work every day, particularly the tortuous drive to Cleveland every day from Medina.

My wife Linda, who is recovering from double knee replacement, returns to work on Monday at the Akzo-Nobel Paint Co. (former Glidden Co.) in Strongsville. Her job will pay the bills and provide health care.

My severance pay will carry me to my 62nd birthday in July when I will either roll around in all the money I'm making with ventures I'm toying with or take early retirements from the BJ and the PD.

I will continue to produce Public Squares Puzzle for the paper. I've produced about 2,300 of the pun-based puzzle for more than seven years. It started the day before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. I asked and got a moderate increase in the
amount they will pay me for the puzzle six days a week.

I'm going to use my "celebrity" in the local puzzle community to market my puzzle skills online. Plans are to develop a web site that will combine a local news blog, free puzzles, a page filled with links to other puzzles, serious word sources, etc. I plan to
use the web site to sell custom-made puzzles and time capsules. I've done several of these for retirements and guys wanting to use the puzzle as a way of proposing to their girls.

I'll tell you about the time capsule idea another time.

Thanks for asking about me. I gave you more than you'll ever need.

ob

About Oblander:

Oblander was part of the Beacon Journal staff that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for its coverage of a threatened corporate takeover of Goodyear and has won several Ohio and regional journalism awards.

Oblander is a lover of words–especially words at play. That explains how he got started doing the pun-based Public Squares Puzzle for the Plain Dealer. He collects books about words and about baseball history and has a baseball card collection of Indians players. Dabbling in family history, he also became interested in Germans from Russia who migrated to the U.S. in the mid to late 1800s.

A 1965 graduate of Olmsted Falls and Cuyahoga Community College (1967), he attended Kent State University through 1969, worked for the Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier from 1969 to 1971 and at the Beacon Journal from 1971 to 1990 when he joined the Plain Dealer.