IF YOU WEREN'T THERE YOU MISSED A LEGENDARY GATHERING OF BJ FOLKS

                 SEE HOW MUCH FUN IT IS TO BE AT THE MONTHLY BJ GATHERING? 

                 BILL O'CONNOR, JOAN SALISBURY, JOHN OLESKY

 

                           BJ TRIFECTA: JOHN OLESKY, BILL O'CONNOR, MIKE WILLIAMS

My, oh my, what a GREAT time YOU didn't have!!!

 

If you missed the October BJ Gathering you blew your chance to have a rollicking good time!

 

The revival of the BJ Gathering, held for decades at Papa Joe’s in the Merriman Valley, is at the Missing Falls Brewery, 540 S. Main Street, Akron.

 

Even though I sent email reminders to maybe 30 people the only ones who showed up this time were former BJ features writer Bill O’Connor, former Advertising Department layouts guy Mike Williams (who provides Tower Topics articles to me with the name of the person I tell Mike I’m going to write an article about for this blog), and John Olesky, former Television Editor/assistant State Desk editor, former Managing Editor Scott Bosley’s problem-solver that once included reorganizing desks and seating for everyone in the newsroom, former technology coordinator with Ken Wright in Composing and in other departments to keep the new-fangled computers from overwhelming everyone and John’s Tallmadge condo lady friend, Joan Salisbury, formerly of Glen Burnie, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb.

 

But what a riotous, non-stop laughing time we had!

 

Bill, who visits his wife’s Switzerland when they’re not in their sumptuous Summit County home where they throw parties to rival Perle Mesta (Hostess With the Mostess from the “Call Me Madame” movie), regaled everyone at the table with tales of tumbling merchandise that scared nasty management types.

 

Mike, who the late Johnny Grimm handed layouts with the ads marked in them for Mike to turn over to the newsroom to plunk stories around, had memories of life with his wife and high altitude adventures where she spent years with her first husband.

 

John recalled whirling dervish and newspaper master guru Pat Englehart, the overseer and driving force and #1 reason the BJ won a Pulitizer for its coverage of the 1970 killing of 4 and wounding of  9 Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard for having the temerity to give their opinion opposing the Vietnam War, a mistake people in power made before vamoosing from the country in disgrace.

 

John also told of the late assistant State Desk editor Harry Liggett, who double-checked every fact in a State Desk reporter's story quietly without being noticed, then loudly and with the legendary Liggett gruffiness calling out the reporter’s name and challenging the errors.

 

Harry’s tactics were so legendary that when Harry, after finding holes in one story he was reading, shouted “Cindy!” the woman who wrote the story began bawling as if her family had perished in a home fire because she knew she had been caught not being accurate. 

Neither Harry nor John allowed reporters to stray from the facts because they knew Pat would be on them like a Tasmanian Devil if they were sloppy about enforcing Pat's penchant for accuracy. 

As Bill pointed out at the BJ Gathering, even though the Cleveland Plain Dealer had much larger circulation it was not a pleasant place to work while the BJ was a family ruckus every night, nose to nose disputes and laughing and drinking at the Printer’s Club once we successfully got the latest edition of the BJ rolling on the presses.

John also revealed, as Scott Bosley's problem-solver, that Scott told John, in rearranging desks and personnel locations, to "make sure you have at least 3 walls around Fran (Murphey, the columnist with the bib overalls and papers on her desk that were piled so high they touched the ceiling) and that one of the walls is placed so that visitors who get off the (third floor) elevator (to the newsroom) can't see Fran" with her calamity-inviting pile of paper.

Remarkably, if you asked Fran for some information she would reach into the 6-foot mountain of papers and pull the exact information you needed from about 3.7 feet above the desktop.

If you don’t want to miss out on a fun time AGAIN, much like the ones we had across the street from the 44 E. Exchange Street BJ at the Printer’s Club (OK, bar) after we had put out another product, show up at the Missing Falls Brewery, 540 S. Main Street, Akron on the third Thursday of every month – November 16 next month – or stay home where you will hear the uproarish laughter from people who cared about and enjoyed being with such a magnificently talented group.

Bears never enjoyed bear-hugging as much as we did at the BJ. I loved working at 44 E. Exchange Street so much that I ran to work every night.

So, show up or miss the fun the third Thursday of every month at the Missing Falls Brewery where BJ folks pick a spot almost out the door and away from the rooms with raucous bars that prevented us from hearing each other’s tales and laughing and having a warm, warm feeling in our hearts!