18. March 2012 by pat desmond.

Sen. Scott Brown and Pat Desmond talk about Milton.

Earlier this month I spent a few days in Washington, DC, with the leadership of the National Newspaper Association.

I planned to write about the trip right away - but I came back to Milton to find I needed to step up and handle the day-to-day editing of the paper.

The man who handled that work for the past three years, Mike Whalen, is no longer at the Milton Times. He will be missed. So it has taken a week before I can tell the world how interesting the political scene in DC happens to be.

First all politics is local. I had a chance to meet with Congressmen Stephen Lynch and Michael Capuano as well as Sen. Scott Brown.

It was wonderful and amazing to see that they all care about Milton and its 350th anniversary celebration.

There is much more to say but today is the day the MHS hockey team meets Burlington at the Boston Garden in the state finals.

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28. February 2012 by pat desmond.

Tonight I learned the mayoral field has been winnowed.

The latest list of candidates for Mayor of Milton includes: Jayne Goode, Philip Driscoll, and Mike Lynch.

The 350th Committee met at town hall tonight. We did quite a bit of chatting but most of us hadn’t realized we needed to be sworn into office once again. So we put off voting.

The race for the mayor is heating up.

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27. February 2012 by pat desmond.

I try not to work weekends but Sunday evening I spent some time at the first meeting of the candidates in the Mayor of Milton contest.

They are an interesting group.

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18. February 2012 by pat desmond.

A little more than a month ago, the Milton Times established a paywall to protect the content on our web site.

Next week we plan to open a small hole in the pay wall to allow readers to view special pages on our annual reader’s choice contest. We call it “The Best in Milton.”

It will mean the 40,000 plus unique visitors that stop by our web site each month will have a chance to go through the Special Pages we are creating to explain the story of the contest winners.

Let me be clear. There are many winners. I can’t reveal who they are before we go to press next week - but I can say the story and the new special section on our web site will be fun.

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13. February 2012 by pat desmond.

News people from all over New England gathered in Boston last week to talk about the state of the industry and assess the future.

It was the annual New England Newspaper & Press Association convention and I enjoyed the chance to catch up new technology and old friends.

Our readers know the Milton Times has an e-edition that sits behind a paywall.

Obviously we aren’t the first paper to add digital to the menu. Did you know the Boston Globe has 16,000 paid subscribers? We are still learning the backside of our e-edition. And soon we will have our APP on the market.

A very knowledgeable vendor at the convention thinks we should add more content to the free first page of our web site. He was surprised that our web numbers haven’t declined now that little can be read without an e-subscription.

I’m not sure we’ll make any more changes online until we sort through what is working for our readers and find out whether our e-edition has the ability to be financially stable.

Anyway the workshops on advertising sales were sober reflections of the slow economy. Newspapers are seeing a slight uptick that appears to have begun in the fourth quarter of last year.

The convention themes were not new - an emphasis on tight writing, photos that tell a story, and more of the basics of good journalism.

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25. January 2012 by pat desmond.

I spent the last eight nights (nine days)  in Aruba.

Tonight I am feeling fat and happy. The fat part isn’t a metaphor. Aruba is a land of many fantastic restaurants.

But of course, the best part of the One Happy Island is the weather. It’s warm and windy.

I used some of the time in the sun to work on planning business strategy for the coming year. I can’t plan the real news but I can plot out the projects the Milton Times will execute in 2012. I used other time to improve my vitamin D absorption.

My brain turned to mush during the week. One of the major projects the Milton Times is planning in 2012 is The 350th - A Celebration. The project has two parts. The first is a supplement that will focus on Milton history. The second part will concentrate on photos of the celebration.

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7. January 2012 by pat desmond.

My daughter, June, will marry next summer.

I like the man she’s marrying. Her two children like him too.

So all the world is right.

This week we shopped for her wedding gown. She will make a beautiful bride - and the wedding will be designed to fit her hopes and dreams.

I married once myself - but I didn’t have the chance to design my dream wedding. It was fun anyway. But it was really my mother’s design. She didn’t have a big wedding herself since she and my father decided to marry right after he was drafted during World War II.

My daughter has been planning this wedding for more than a year now. It will be lovely. I wish I could post a photo of June trying on The Dress - but the future groom as internet access and we don’t want him glimpsing the dress before the big day.

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11. December 2011 by pat desmond.

This weekend I saw “Tower Heist” with my son.

It surprised me that Hollywood was months ahead of the Occupy Movement in calling out Wall Street.

It defined a class war worth the battle.

Hard to believe this film actually was conceived in 2005 and shot a year ago. Who knew how popular it would be to trash stockbrokers in 2005?

I enjoyed the political humor.

Loved the initiative on the part of the service workers .

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12. November 2011 by pat desmond.

My blog posts have been less frequent in 2011.

It was this time a year ago when I began to cope with a diagnosis of cancer.

They tell me I’m cancer free right now. But every morning I swallow a small white pill that my oncologist prescribed to block estrogen from being absorbed in my body.

I have been led to believe the small white pill protects me from ill health.

Yet I don’t seem to find comfort in the tiny pill. And every day it reminds me that my body made a space for cancer. It did that without my permission.

When I began coping with the diagnosis, I floated in denial for quite some time.

I thought about what I needed to do to rid myself of the evil cells. And I moved through each of the steps to eradicate the disease.

My cancer was discovered through my regular mammogram. At first I was sure nothing was wrong except the radiologist’s eyes. And so I scheduled a second opinion.

Moving through those nights and days, I tried not to think about worse case scenarios. And yet I contacted a newspaper broker as I thought about what might happen.

The reason I chose a bilateral mastectomy is that I never wanted to experience this sense of helplessness again.

It was a good choice. The pathologists at Faulkner Hospital found tiny cancer cells in the breast was hadn’t shown problems.

As my oncologist said, the second cancer was so small, it might not have ever become what he called a “real cancer.” One of those was enough for me.

Breast cancer affected my grandmother and aunt. It’s shadow has always touched my memories.

And now I have my own experience and I’ve moved from denial, anger and compromise into acceptance. I know I skipped the depression stage. Perhaps I am just starting to experience that part.

I haven’t wanted to think about my cancer. And yet there it is every day as  I look in the mirror and notice that my body is shaped like a plump pear. I think about escaping cancer as I swallow the estrogen-blocking pill. I haven’t had any trouble remembering to take the pill, unlike my cholestrol drug.

I think about cancer as I move through the food market, purchasing only organic foods, avoiding water in plastic bottles.

My cancer, which has been cut out of my body, defines much of what I do these days.

I sit and watch the water flow by the windows of my life. I smile with friends. I sleep more. I plan to continue flooding my life with joy and beauty.

It seems to be time to move beyond thinking about cancer. It is time to move back into life. I want to erase the dis-ease. But the truth is I am grateful cancer came and brought me the realization I am a time-limited being. I need to make the most of all the minutes.

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1. October 2011 by pat desmond.

It’s nearly time for Celebrate Milton!

The event began 18 years ago as a celebration of the community - its spirit - its diversity.

George Welles, former pastor of the Church of Our Saviour, and I will both receive Lifetime Achievement Awards from the organization.

It humbles me to prepare for this honor.

In 1997 I won a community builder award which proudly hangs on my office wall at the Milton Times.

The paper was young back then and I was much younger than I am today.

My daughter, June, had nominated me and I was thrilled to know she wasn’t upset about the long hours she was working to help the paper grow. 1997 was a good year for my whole family. My son graduated from Milton High. My daughter had her first child, Hayley Bradford. And I joined a small group of Milton people called community builders.

I was living on Willoughby Road that year and I spent most of my days and nights connecting with people in the community.

Building a weekly newspaper is all about helping the community find its voice.

The town of Milton has a strong and vibrant voice.

I continue to enjoy being part of the community. And I am grateful for all the community provides.

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