{"id":48428,"date":"2021-06-27T02:20:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T02:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=48428"},"modified":"2021-06-27T02:20:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T02:20:40","slug":"time-of-my-life-part-59-still-in-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=48428","title":{"rendered":"Time of My Life, Part 59: Still in the game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By John Kanelis<\/strong> \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

I was an angry dude for some time after my daily journalism career ended abruptly in August 2012.<\/p>\n

The anger has vanished. I decided some time ago to write a blog series highlighting all the good years I had reporting on and commenting on the communities where I lived and worked. I have done so.<\/p>\n

This is the 59th edition in that series but I want to tell you briefly about why I am still having “the time of my life.” You see, I am a freelance reporter who gets to write news stories for two media outlets here in North Texas where my wife and I have lived for the past nearly three years.<\/p>\n

I write for a weekly newspaper in Farmersville, a community about seven miles east of us in Princeton along U.S. Highway 380. My bosses at the Farmersville Times allow me to cover city council and school board meetings there. I also get to write occasional feature stories about the people who live in Farmersville.<\/p>\n

This gig represents a return to where it all began for me. My first part-time reporting job was in Portland, Ore., working for the weekly Community Press. I covered sports events there. I don’t do any sports reporting these days, but my task is straightforward: attend the city council and school board meetings and report on the decisions that affect the community.<\/p>\n

In short, I am having a blast.<\/p>\n

I also have a second gig. I write a blog for KETR-FM, the public radio station at Texas A&M University\/Commerce. That freelance gig is a freewheeling affair. My boss there allows me to write blogs in which I get to express my opinions on issues of the day. He also asks me to write what he calls an “original reporting” piece for the website, ketr.org.<\/p>\n

The best part of all of this is that my wife and I get to take time off whenever we want. We recently returned from a nearly monthlong journey out west. My bosses at the Farmersville Times knew I would be gone. No problem, they said. We’ll cover the meeting in your absence, they assured me. And so it goes.<\/p>\n

I have told folks many times in my retirement years that “separation anxiety from full-time work is greatly overrated.”\u00a0<\/em>I believe it now more than ever. I have been blessed to have been able to stay “in the game” with these part-time jobs.<\/p>\n

Thus, I continue to have the “time of my life.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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By John Kanelis \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com I was an angry dude for some time after my daily journalism career ended abruptly in August 2012. The anger has vanished. I decided some time ago to write a blog series highlighting all the good years I had reporting on and commenting on the communities where I lived and … Continue reading Time of My Life, Part 59: Still in the game<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9128,2587,8436,8344],"class_list":["post-48428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-farmersville-times","tag-journalism","tag-ketr-fm","tag-texas-am-commerce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48429,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48428\/revisions\/48429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}