CARLTON FLETCHER: When loyalty to a friend trumps human nature

Those drifter’s days have passed me now, I’ve got so much more to think about: Deadlines and commitments, what to leave in, what to leave out.

— Bob Seger

It’s probably more human nature than anything else — with a heaping helping of selfishness thrown in for most of us if we’re honest with ourselves — but no matter what tragedy we or people we know/love are confronted with, we tend to look at that tragedy in the light of how it impacts us.

With overwhelming and far-reaching natural events like the hurricane, floods and tornadoes that have impacted our community in recent years, it’s understandable that we would do a self-inspection post-event, see how we, our closest friends and family, and our property were impacted before we start concerning ourselves with communitywide implications. (Unless, of course, we’re the Salvation Army or Red Cross or some of the other amazing nonprofits whose personnel immediately start reaching out to others … and God bless them for their unselfish service. Support them!)

My long-time companion here at The Albany Herald, reporter Terry Lewis, is at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital today. I’m not going to get into his personal business, but Terry has some health issues that he’s going to have to confront. But the people who love him — most especially his kids, Sarah and Troy — are with him, and that’s a good thing.

When you’re in charge of overseeing the publication and digital output of one of the state’s major newspapers, and you have a limited number of employees responsible for content, the loss for any period of time of a veteran employee can be devastating. Deadlines never take into account human frailty of any kind, and they don’t quit coming.

There are meetings to attend, features to write, stories to edit, management duties to take care of … and all of it is relentless.

I shamefully admit that when Sarah called and told us Terry was at Phoebe, all of those everyday elements of doing this job came crashing in on me. There was no real need to panic — I have every confidence that the other members of our team will rise to the occasion — just a realization that things are going to be a lot harder without a key cog in our system for whatever period his recovery takes.

But as I called Tuesday morning to check up on Terry and heard the concern in his daughter’s voice, it overwhelmed me how selfish it is for me to worry about the impact that my colleague’s health issues will have on me when he’s the one in the hospital and facing treatment. Yes, it’s more of that human nature, but it also makes me feel like less of a person.

Terry and I go way back. He was at The Herald when I came here, both of us working with then-Sports Editor Paul McCorvey. I’d left The Tifton Gazette to come here, and The Gazette was one of the last daily papers in the state to quit using typewriters and implement a computer system. They made the change after I left, so I came to The Herald with no computer knowledge at all. I was scared witless.

But Terry was key to teaching me about all this new-fangled technology and in getting me up to snuff on the sports teams in metro Albany that we covered. Both of us eventually went separate ways from The Herald, but in that funny way that life works, we ended up circling back and for the last several years have found ourselves here where we started.

Terry has had issues with his health over the last several months, and during one of our frequent frank conversations, I told him that as important to me as it was that he produce copy for the newspaper, I was more concerned with him taking care of himself, even if that meant taking some time off to focus on himself and to get away from the daily pressure that this business engenders.

He told me something that I’ll never forget:

“Fletch, I could walk away from this right now and take things easy for the rest of my life. But I love this business and I love you, and I don’t want to leave you to do this without someone who has your back.”

Terry and I have often butted heads about stories, schedules, those relentless deadlines … all the minutiae that this job is built around. But never have we not talked things out and reminded each other that, as long as we were Butch and Sundancing it here at the paper, we needed each other.

And, yeah, I need Terry’s valuable experience and his formidable writing skills every day. But, way more than that, I need him to get better. The rest, as we say, will take care of itself.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.