empty shelves

Didn't seem like long ago when shelf space in the Union-Tribune newsroom was more difficult to find than an affordable flat in Manhattan. On the rare occasion when someone left the paper, reporters and editors would swoop in like vultures rushing to a corpse, slapping their business card on the vacated space, claiming it as their own. We even instituted a shelf-space protocol to ward against the bogarts - you know who you are - intent on monopolizing what was available.

No more. There's plenty of shelf space today. A veritable abundance of newsroom cabinetry. Nowadays, there's a run on boxes for the packrats who accepted the latest buyout offer to cart off the books, magazines and files that were stuffed into those shelves.

They arrive on the weekends, when it's quiet, when there won't be as many questions about their decision, when they can pack in peace, alone with their thoughts. And, suddenly, 20 years or more of reporting is gone from the newsroom. Decades more of institutional knowledge lost.

It may be a Pyrrhic victory, but I finally have some space to put my stuff.