Out of the shadows

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

~ George Bernard Shaw

***

“Don’t even try to outwork your mother. You’ll never be able to.”

It is the first weekend in April and I am bringing an end to my workday by having a beer, or several beers, with a former Saratoga Sun reporter. One Tom “Ted” Dixon, beer in hand, is advising me to work smarter, not harder. When he says the bit about my mother, I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped. I think I very nearly dropped my beer.

My mother, in her time at the newspaper, left an unmistakable mark on the Valley and on those who worked wi...