A sordid past

Blissfully unawares at my node of the rabbit warren …

Once I worked as a reporter for an agricultural weekly newspaper published by the California Farm Bureau. Among my many mismatches in life and work, this reached the pinnacle (or the abyss?): Uninteresting work (for me, anyway; I think you have to be born into farming to really appreciate it, and I am an Air Force brat); horrible boss (pictured — he chose to rule by bullying, waiting until he had staff members around, like an unwitting — or half-witting — posse, to enumerate your flaws, personal and professional). The job was a placeholder until I launched my career as an editorial cartoonist. Eight years later (yeah, I know) I finally figured out how to move on, though not as an editorial cartoonist. A co-worker helped me, a mysterious stranger/friend who may or may not have been a foreign mercenary in his early life, who told me frankly, "If you don't get out of here, you will die here. Get going, or I'll kick your butt!" Hard to refuse the suggestion of a maybe mercenary.

Some evidence of my escape plan appears in this sketch, scribbled on the little pad I used to copy phone numbers: The Envision 20 poster tacked on the wall to the upper left referred to the graphic design conference that the Art Directors and Artists Club of Sacramento used to stage each year (I became president and an Envision co-chair the next year; it was my secret identity, because I certainly didn't let the newspaper staff know I had interests outside of cotton prices and star thistle eradication). "The Van" by Roddy Doyle, besides being a good book, kept me busy at the moment between assignments, which were as interesting as cotton prices and star thistle eradication.