The Geographer's Library

True it is, without falsehood,
certain and most true.
For a journalist at a weekly paper, especially one as small as the
Carrier, The Day the Paper Comes Out is a day of rest. I usually
strolled into the office around eleven, caught up on correspondence,
read all of the magazine articles I hadn’t been able to read during the week,
made some long-distance personal calls, pretended to start thinking about
next week’s pieces, and left at five sharp. If I was feeling virtuous, I’d file
some of my week’s notes and clear a landing strip on my desk, but usually I
saved that for when I was on deadline and needed mindless industry to clear
my head. Not that a deadline really mattered all that much: Lincoln, Connecticut,
like many small towns, specialized in news with a long shelf life.
Anyway, nobody was going to lose a job if an article detailing the controversy
over the high school’s mascot—the Fighting Sioux: culturally insensitive,
respectfully traditional, or traditionally respectful?—didn’t make it. First of
all, the debate would recur next year, probably in the fall, right about the time
ambitious seniors wanted to polish their agit-cred for college. Second, we
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