Retired BJ printer Sid Sprague, who moved to Loveland, Colorado with his second love, Nancy, after Sid's wife, Sandra, and Nancy's husband passed away, has been cruising through life . . . literally.

As in sea/land cruises to Alaska where he actually got to see Denali, for years called Mount McKinley (Paula and I didn’t see it because it was obliterated by clouds the day we were there, as it is most days being 20,310 feet in elevation).

And inter-island cruises out of Seattle that include Vancouver, British Columbia and its  beautiful miles of flowers in 1,000-acre Stanley Park, which Paula and I enjoyed immensely during our meandering through northwest Canada. Stanley Park is the 3^rd-largest park in North America.

And Caribbean cruises, one to Eastern Caribbean and another to Western Caribbean. Including a stop in Puerto Rico.

And the “Mexican Riviera.”  Riviera Mayo stretches from the fishing village of Puerto Morelos to the biosphere reserve of Sian Ka'an. It is 1,320 miles from Mexico City on the Yuatan Peninsula. Think Cozumel, the island where cruise ships dock before you take a tender to the mainland and the “Mexican Riviera.”   

Sid’s Nancy is from Canton and Sid lived in Cuyahoga Falls. But they never met till Sid and Sandra moved to Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Sid knew Nancy and her husband about 9 years before Sandra passed away. After Sid's Sandra and Nancy’s husband both passed away, Sid and Nancy mourned and moved in together in 2005, as 25% of American couples do these days.

Sid moved from Cuyahoga Falls to Pawleys in 1997 or 1998. BJ Accounting Department retirree Harold McElroy and wife Linda joined them in 1999. Retired printer Dick Latshaw, who passed away in 2018, and Dick’s wife for 57 years, Pat, joined them in 2000. They all lived on the same street, which is only three blocks long. It was BJ south.

Harold and Linda joined Dick and Pat in Hawaii in 2011 for the Latshaws’ 50^th wedding anniversary. BJ friendships are, indeed, golden.

Sid and Nancy moved from Pawleys Island, where Sid and Sandra lived for 9 years, to Colorado in 2005.

Incidentally, when Sid and I were talking on the phone, it was snowing in Loveland and Tallmadge at the same time!

Sid said:

“We had to evacuate (from Pawleys Island) every time there was a hurricane and that was a disaster. So I told myself, one more time and I’m out of here. The next hurricane came, a big tree fell on my house. As soon as I fixed the house, I sold it and we moved to Colorado.”

Sid’s daughter, Suzanne Sprague Rutherford, lives in Costa Mesa, which is 37 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Sid’s son, Jeffrey Sprague, lives in Greenwich Township, on the southwest tip of Connecticut. Another son, Steve, passed away in Middleburg, Virginia at the age of 38 in 2010. He died two weeks after being diagnosed with cancer.

As for Sid, he has recovered from a bout with prostate cancer a year ago and “doing well.” It’s a slow-moving cancer that hits men. I had it about a decade ago. Sid, like me, got external radiation treatment.

In my case, these two blondes told me to drop my drawers and plopped me on a table . . . for weeks. Strangely, years later, when I went to our Tallmadge mailbox cluster at the end of our driveway, there was one of the blonde nurses getting her mail because she had moved into the same Hilltop Terrace condo complex off Thomas Road as us. She recognized me, even with my pants on.

Sid’s daughter Suzanne, son Jeffrey and Sid “have visited each other back and forth across the country.”

Sid and I used to run into each other often at Nicky’s Place on Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls, where we both lived at the time, long after we both were retired. IF I remember right, Sid is 85. I’m 87. Nicky’s was a Greek restaurant in the first building next to the current Falls concert venue at Front and Broad.

Sid is among the 45 retired BJ printers who benefitted from the successful healthcare lawsuit that the late Dave White filed against the BJ that restored retirement day medical coverage.

 

I piggybacked on Dave’s lawsuit by filing on behalf of retired BJ Guild newsroom members but unfortunately only 5 of us qualified because of the different language in the retirement-day letters. The lawsuit has saved me about $40,000 so far in reimbursement and restored healthcare benefits. Thank you, Chandra Law Firm in Cleveland . . . and Dave White, who wrote a $2,500 check on a Florida beach to get the ball rolling. Dave's widow, BJ composing retiree Gina White, still lives in the Sarasota area. 

Sid said he hasn’t heard from any BJ folks since moving to Colorado. His email to me was to ask for the names of former printers who passed away and who still are alive.

So I emailed Sid the BJ Memory Wall that you see on this blog, which gets new names added far too often. And when we talked on the phone I ran some of the names past Sid. There were several that he didn’t know had passed away even though Sid checks this BJ Alums blog regularly, as so many do.

And when I do a Catching Up With article like this one, the hits to the blog spike to double the usual hits per day. Since the late BJ State Desk assistant editor Harry Liggett created this blog there have been 1,113,188 pageviews. That’s right, 1.1 MILLION! BJ folks love to keep track of each other and come aboard this blog every day. It’s my pleasure to be a conduit to keep BJ folks informed about each other.

If you want to phone Sid and catch up on each other’s lives, his phone number is (970) 613-1914. Fair warning: Because Sid does NOT pick up the phone unless Caller ID tells him who it is, he lets the call go to his Voicemail, as he did with me.

So he will call you back once you tell him you’re not a telemarketer or a scammer but a friend from his Ol’ Blue Walls past. Be patient. Leave your name and phone number on Voicemail and Sid will get back to you.

He promised me. And nice guys don't lie.