So it's been a year

I'm sure that's not long to some of you sixtysomethings out there, or maybe even you thirtysomethings. But for a 24-year-old guy who still misses the college life, one year is a long time.

And that's how long it's been since I started working at The Times. I woke up this morning trying to remember what day it was. (That's really not unusual, but not for any crazy reason. Newspaper people are just always labeling files with the next day's date--for print--so it's easy to get a little confused in the wee hours.) But when I looked at a calendar, it hit me.

Some days it feels like I've been here longer than a year, and on others it seems like I just started. But missing that college life style means expecting a whole new schedule every three or four months. That just doesn't happen out here in the working world.

That's OK, I guess, and part of being a bona fide adult. Or wait, would that be mountainous debt? (Another topic, I know.)

I've certainly learned a lot since last April. I know my way around parts of Shreveport I'd never visited before. I go to the Caddo Correctional Center almost every day of the work week (didn't know where that was either). I've seen dead bodies that weren't in a funeral home. I've been reminded of the responsibility we journalists have by controlling the flow of information. And that part may be the scariest or most disturbing of all the things this year has taught me.

So here's to being an adult and trying to keep track of all the crime-related happenings around these parts. And to good journalism. And to the Buckcherry show I'm missing to have a working anniversary celebration.