BJ reunion at Akron Arts Expo

There was a BJ reunion at Akron’s Hardesty Park today, site of the Akron Arts Expo, which was ending a four-day run.

Roger Mezger and wife Ann Sheldon Mezger, Paula Tucker and John Olesky bumped into each other and chatted about the impending PD slash-and-burn newsroom personnel cuts, due any day now.

From left: Ann Sheldon Mezger,
Roger Mezger, John Olesky

Ann once was in charge of the BJ Features Dept. Roger was among about two dozen BJ folks who switched to the Plain Dealer. Paula was a 1970s State Desk reporter. John was her assistant  State Desk editor.

Ann and Roger are accustomed to encountering BJ folks. 

In 2010 they vacationed with former BJ reporter Charlene Nevada and her husband, former BJ Art Dept. chief Art Krummel, and Sue Reynolds, newsroom administrative assistant for decades before her retirement, and her husband, Roger Reynolds, a retired history teacher and coach from Green High, in Garden City Beach, south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The sixsome bumped into retired printer Dick Latshaw, who lives on Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

There were a lot more BJ folks vacationing together in the decades when former printer Bill Gorrell had his rentals across the street from the Siesta Key, Florida beach, famed for its cool sugar-sand and often listed among the top beaches in the nation and the world by various travel magazines.

About the only ones left from those gatherings are retired printer Gina White, who lives in Venice, Florida, and is the widow of former Composing foreman Dave White; Hugh Downing, who lives in The Villages, Florida, and John Olesky, who lives with Paula in Tallmadge. 

Most of the others, unfortunately, have passed away.

Ann and Roger are planning a train trip to Glacier National Park, which covers a million acres in Montana.  The Blackfeet and Flathead tribes roamed the land before the white man came along.

The nearest Montana city is Kalispell, which has about 20,000 residents, depending on how many elk and moose are included.