The milestone and the glitch

I passed another major milestone in my life a couple of months ago. I have been the official religion editor for The citizen for 10 years — one seventh of my life. Before that, I was a graphic artist here at The Citizen, starting in 1993.

And before that? Well, those of you who have been here a while know that I, like many of my colleagues here at the Citizen, used to write for the “other” paper. I was a reporter, editor and managing editor there for several years.

In June of 1999 (I’ll bet most of you didn’t know this) I dropped to part-time status here because I was getting married and moving to South Carolina. Cal needed someone to do the religion, weddings, anniversaries and births. It was temporary, could be done in two days, and was perfect.

However, life took a tragic turn. In July, the gentleman I was to marry went in for surgery, did great, but passed away a week later from complications. I was devastated and inconsolable. I had not felt emotional pain like that in years. I suffered alone because no one had even had a chance to meet him except my mother. He lived in Seattle. It was awful.

It took years to recover from that blow, but when I did, I realized that I should be grateful that God had given me two wonderful men in my life (my husband passed away in 1972) and I was luckier than most. And so, I took my memories and recuperated, thanks to Cal and this job that started out as temporary and turned into permanent.

The reason this milestone is so major is that, as a former military wife, I have trouble sitting still for more that three years at a time.

However, I have been here for 16 years, in my home for 21 years, and in a working relationship with Cal that goes back to 1983. I feel like he’s family -— something that came close to being true when Joyce and I discovered that her cousin had married my cousin. We like to say we’re sort of “cousins in law.” So, Cal and I laugh and occasionally call each other “Cuz.”

The other milestone I passed this year was a big one — my 70th birthday. That means I’m well past retirement age and should start slowing down. I’m trying, honest I am. Although Cal doesn’t like to talk about it, I’m a short-timer around here and hope to retire fully in a couple of years. I’m down to one day a week at the office. The rest of the time I “work” at home, reading and answering your emails and gathering the religion news for the coming week. And playing a lot with my new-found hobby, gardening.

Speaking of your emails brings me to the second topic of this column — the glitch.

The email address for Citizen religion news recently changed because of a glitch in technology. The new email address is my personal address, JodieK444@aol.com. I’ve had that address since I first went on the Internet 10 years ago and it has served me well.

My name is not Jodie. That was the name of my very special German Shepherd, the last of my “show” dogs, who passed away in 2003. Her real name was Kilwood’s Jekyll Island. Her father was Destino’s St. Simons. Cute, huh?

How did the email change come about? For years, the Citizen’s server had faithfully forwarded my jkilgore@thecitizen.com mail to JodieK, so I could receive all my mail at home — until about three months ago when we got a new server. This one refuses to cooperate, forcing me to try and get my mail at Mail2Web, not always the most cooperative website. I was not getting some mail and sometimes it would not let me in.

So, we decided to just change the address. You may find some places on the website where the old address is still there but we have tried to catch them all and change them.

Remember... JodieK444@aol.com. And I’m Judy, not Jodie. Your religion editor at least for a few more years.