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What was, and what’s left

Nancy Crowe 2 Comments
Indianapolis Star photo by Greg Griffo

Indianapolis Star photo by Greg Griffo

This is the Indianapolis Star building, which until a few weeks ago stood at 307 N. Pennsylvania St. The newspaper called it home for some 100 years before moving to what used to be a department store at Circle Centre mall downtown. For a relative snippet of time, I called it home, too.

My dad, Tom Crowe, worked there from 1960 to 1990, as an ad salesman, advertising director, and finally as vice president and general manager. Long before Take Our Daughters to Work Day was a thing, Dad was taking me with him to “the plant” with the rich, sharp smell of newsprint and ink and the inky footprints in the first-floor hallway. I peered over the desks of God knows how many poor souls trying to get their work done as I followed Dad around the building. He almost always whistled. The place reminded me of a Chutes and Ladders game, with ramps, steps, and corridors going off every which way. That’s what happens when you morph two or three old buildings into one.

The mailroom was the best, because you could watch and hear the presses running. The stories the people on the second floor had written — wrapped around the ads the people on the third floor had sold — were all coming out on those big sheets of paper rattling through the machinery. The finished, folded papers that came out on the conveyor belt would then go into homes all over the city. People read the paper. They talked about what was in it. Printed words mattered.

Many drawings and homework assignments were completed at the small conference table in the office Dad moved into after being promoted to general manager. It was off the New York Street entrance — just out of the frame in this photo. There were no windows, and while the daylight addict in me hated that, I never felt anxious or claustrophobic in there. Decades later, during an energy healing session, I was asked to picture myself in a place where I felt absolutely safe and at home. I went not to a beach, shady grove, or cozy fireside, but to Dad’s office, puzzling through social studies or perhaps just reading the comics in that day’s paper while he worked.

We were a large, often dysfunctional extended family. Charlie Simmons, one of Dad’s coworkers in the advertising department, sat with Mom and me through several of Dad’s heart surgeries. Other employees confided in Dad about their battles with depression or alcoholism, or their confusion over decisions their own children had made. We went to one another’s weddings and funerals, watched the fireworks together at the Fourth Estate employee park every Fourth of July, and knew at least something about what was going on in one another’s lives.

When I went to work in the business office during the summer as a college student, Don Bates in personnel — a sideline photographer who had taken my baby pictures — took the photo for my ID badge. “No bearskin rug this time,” he said, grinning as he clicked the shutter.

I could not have asked for a more educational, and fun, introduction to the working world. Wednesdays in the cashiers’ office were hectic, as all the circulation district managers brought in their checks, cash, and money orders. Frazzled after totaling everything up and balancing on one such day, we got into a rubber band fight. Without even trying, I managed to loop one over a sprinkler head. About 15 years later, when I stopped by for a visit, I happened to look up and that same rubber band still hung there.

At the News during another break, I got to practice the copyediting and headline writing skills that would become a large part of my career. Bo Connor at the Star helped me get my first full-time journalism job at The Republic in Columbus, Ind.

Dad passed away in 1994, just four years after retiring. The first phone calls I received that day — after Mom, telling me the news — came from 307 N. Penn.

A few years later, the News closed down. Then the Star was sold to Gannett. Then came the move to Circle Centre and the sale of the building. Then came the demolition.

Nothing stays the same, and really, nothing should. Not all change is for the better, and often more change is needed because of it. If we are smart, we learn. Dad, who kept a brick from the old Detroit Times building in his office, would be the first to tell me it’s OK to let go of what was and make room for what will be.

What can we pull from the past and retrofit to work for us now? That’s a question we in print media are going to have to figure out. Most days, I think it comes down to caring about what we do and why, and caring for one another in the process. That’s probably a gross oversimplification, but it’s a place to start.

In the meantime, after we make our next deadline, I just may fire off another rubber band.

Street cat smarts

Nancy Crowe

Unknown-1“My goodness, that was strong talk for an Englishman,” says the Earl of Grantham to his valet, Bates, after a brief discussion of feelings in Season Four of “Downton Abbey.” Though divided by social position, these two Englishmen are among each other’s best friends and allies.

Fast forward nearly a century to two more, very real Englishmen who formed an unlikely and unique bond: James Bowen, a London street musician; and a ginger tomcat named Bob. Bowen tells their story in “A Street Cat Named Bob” (St. Martin’s Press, 2012), subtitled, “And How He Saved My Life.”

Bowen was a recovering heroin addict who, as he describes it, had failed to take any of the many opportunities he’d been given. Then one evening he came home to find a ginger tom curled up in front of the door to one of the ground-floor flats in his building. “There was a quiet, unflappable confidence about him,” Bowen recalled. Having a soft spot for felines, he said, “I couldn’t resist kneeling down and introducing myself.”

He stroked the thin cat’s neck; there was no collar and his coat was in poor condition. Bowen wanted to take the apparently homeless creature home then and there — but his friend said the cat must belong to whoever lived in the flat whose door he was camped outside. Reluctantly, Bowen agreed. After all, the last thing he needed was the responsibility of a pet.

The cat was still there the next morning. Again Bowen stopped to pet him, eliciting purrs. That’s when he noticed the scratches on the cat’s face and legs, and became even more concerned. Reluctantly, he headed out for another day’s work busking at Covent Garden. When he returned that night, the cat was gone — but in the morning, there he was again in the same spot. Bowen finally knocked on the door. “What cat?” the tenant said. “Nothing to do with me.”

Bowen fed the cat, treated the abscessed wound on his leg, and tried to figure out where he belonged. Concerned about the wound — and about fleas, which had been fatal to a kitten he had as a child — Bowen took his new charge to the nearest RSPCA clinic. He went home with an antibiotic and a couple of weeks’ worth of cat food. The exam, medication, and food cost all the money Bowen had. Still: “I don’t know why, but the responsibility of having him to look after galvanised me a little bit.”

The four-legged half of the duo got a name: Bob, after Killer Bob in the TV series, “Twin Peaks.” Like most young felines, he could go from zero to maniac in seconds, but he took his meds well (an easily pillable cat is something special indeed) and understood everything he was told. Bowen, however, resisted forming too strong a friendship, and after Bob was well he tried to send the cat on his way.

But Bob had chosen Bowen, and of course the cat is the one who does the choosing and adopting. He began to accompany Bowen on his daily busking ventures, trotting along beside him on a lead (or riding on his shoulder, as he charmingly does on the book cover). While Bowen played his guitar, Bob sat nearby or curled up in the case. He was quite a crowd-pleaser. There was an increase in contributions, and some people who frequented the area brought gifts for Bob. Bowen learned the name for “cat” in several languages.

One day, a man’s threatening behavior frightened Bob into running away. Bowen searched frantically, fearing for Bob’s safety in busy London and that perhaps his feline friend really didn’t want to be with him after all. Those fears were dispelled when the two were reunited, thanks to two kind shopkeepers who took the cat in.

The busker with the cat also drew the attention of the local police, and eventually Bowen had to find another line of work. He began selling The Big Issue, a professionally-produced newspaper sold by the homeless, vulnerably housed, and marginalized. (I had never heard of this publication, but it’s heartening to hear of a print publication doing well enough to sustain street sales.)

In addition to all the challenges the two faced on the streets, Bowen nursed Bob through a scary, garbage-induced illness. That helped inspire Bowen to take that final step toward getting completely clean himself: getting off methadone. Bob stayed right by Bowen’s side through the worst of the withdrawal. Bowen realized he had reached a level of recovery and stability he’d never thought possible. Bob became known as The Big Issue Cat.

He and Bowen have become celebrities, with Bob making appearances in hand-knitted scarves and obligingly giving high-fives, and it looks like a sequel and one or two books have followed. By all accounts, though, he remains humble, a ginger tom who loves his human.

You probably won’t see James and Bob busking at Covent Garden these days, but you can find them on Facebook.

Unexpected growth

Nancy Crowe 2 Comments

My father gave me this plant, a croton only a few inches tall then, a week or so before he died. In the 20-plus years since, it’s grown and survived several moves, getting toppled by a kitten, and an attempted rawhide bone burial in its soil by an Australian shepherd. Its offspring from cuttings are healthy and lush. The original, now a long trunk/stem with some leaves on top, has hung in there.

We can come to the point where all evidence points to something staying exactly the way it is, and we think we’re foolish to believe, much less hope, otherwise. Things are the way they are — make the best of it. Right? Sure, we hear words about hope and change, but that’s not reality. Not for us.

Then we get an idea for Croton-new growtha new product or creative project. A challenge at work or at home forces us to reexamine the ordinary. We discover an unexpected connection. A gift comes our way, seemingly out of the blue.

In the case of this seasoned croton, a shiny little leaf appears about midway up the trunk. The plant had no apparent reason to sprout new growth here; leaves usually start growing up top with the other leaves. But a new branch in the middle of nowhere?

The reality of the present moment may look the same, but this little green leaf reminds us that reality is, in fact, change and growth. Much of it happens behind the scenes, but when it appears, might we see that reality differently? Might we even dare to hope?

The angel Gabriel — charged with the daunting task of convincing a teenage girl that her unplanned pregnancy was part of a much bigger plan — said it best: “Nothing shall be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)