Editor, Daily Nexus:
Some days I really hate my job. It’s an easy job. I just deliver newspapers. You know, like the Daily Nexus.
I hate my job when the maintenance guys blame me for newspapers blowing around the campus bus stop. Hey man! I just deliver.
I still have not forgotten the front-page photo of the L.A. Times the morning after a major earthquake in Afghanistan. The picture was of a crumbling church with a stack of black coffins, of varying sizes, in the cold morning mist. My heart ached each time I tossed a paper into your driveway. I hated my job that day.
Another day, I was sorry to deliver the Daily Nexus when I read that three co-eds, under the influence of whatever, on a joy ride down Gibraltar Road, careened off the road, over the mountainside, killing themselves.
They were our friends and daughters, sorely missed. That was years ago. I am still recovering from the images of a dying Jennifer with me helpless to intervene. I hated my job that Monday morning – what a sad story to deliver.
Last Monday I hated my job more than ever. The news that day told of some maniac who murdered four of our friends and neighbors on Friday night in a self-indulgent, under the influence of whatever, driving spree!
I wonder whose smile is missing today. How many more?
BRIAN, THE NEXUS DELIVERY GUY