Ah, memories! TL staffers tour former building

Mary Therese Biebel, The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
·2 min read

Aug. 14—King's College now owns what was once The Times Leader building at 15 N. Main St., and as a group of about 20 current and former TL staffers toured their old stomping grounds on Monday, college leaders told us we should return for another tour — when the place is ready to open as the home for King's first doctoral program, in occupational therapy.

They're right. It will be great to see the building all spiffy and ready for a new chapter.

At the moment, it's a gutted, dusty shell. But it was still interesting to see.

"I hesitate to say that I was seeing 'ghosts,' " TL history columnist Tom Mooney said via email after the tour, which had been organized in response to his request. "But I will say that the memories were so strong that from time to time I felt that I was reliving those wonderful years."

As soon as Tom mentioned "ghosts," an image of our late managing editor Bill Griffith popped into my head. Griff tended to bark rather than speak, and I can still hear him barking at a 22-year-old obituary clerk (me), telling me to type into our computer system the contents of what I recall was a 17-page letter to the editor, written in cramped penmanship by a convicted child killer.

Of course I would have to touch the letter itself to proceed from page to page. Which is why Griff added the fatherly advice, "and then wash your hands!"

That spot where the obit desk used to be is also the spot where, about 18 years later, I walked into the newsroom on a Monday, and suddenly found myself surrounded by about six co-workers, each of them intently curious about my weekend. As my co-worker/ husband Mark Guydish later admitted, he'd confided in former managing editor Dave Iseman that he was going to ask me to marry him that Sunday. Dave apparently spilled the beans.

No doubt everybody who worked there has a wealth of memories — good, bad and, well, unusual, because a newspaper isn't an ordinary business. At its best, it can be the lifeblood of a community. And, even though, as Mooney mentioned, a lot of us seem to be feeling "nostalgia tinged with sadness" for a place where the walls seemed to shake when the presses ran, we don't have to be sad.

We have a new building. We have our memories to build on. And we have each other. And every day we can still strive to be the lifeblood of our community.