The Sandusky Experience: My Unhappy Family
From James Donahue’s Journal
While I liked the arrangement I had in Sandusky the rest of the family was not very happy. Doris, who gave up what she remembered as “the best job I ever had” in a large and advanced hospital in Kalamazoo to take a position at Sandusky Community Hospital felt out-of-place. Because it was a small facility her evening and weekend job not only involved lab work but she was forced to learn to be an X-ray technician, something she was never trained to do. She said the lab was outdated and the director refused to consider many of the new tests and techniques she brought with her into the labyrinth she now was forced to work in.
Our children were removed from a great school system in the middle of a school year and plunked down in what turned out to be a more archaic education system. Looking back on it, the move was wrong for my family, but I was not sensitive to what was happening to them. I was deeply involved in learning a new job, a new and broader news beat, and enjoying the freedom once again to write about just about any topic I wished.
I suppose it is natural to think back on decisions like the one made at this milestone and wonder what would have happened if I had just bitten the bullet, followed the spiritual direction I had been given at the time I prayed for a sign that I could leave the Gazette, and stayed on that job. While I was extremely unhappy in Kalamazoo, and feeling confined on a job that was becoming increasingly boring by the day, and working for a narrow minded managing editor that was unwilling to allow the newspaper to report what was really going on for fear of losing the image of All American City, it was a secure job. Before I left the editor took me out for a cup of coffee and expressed his regret that I was leaving.
As it turned out my wife gave up a great job and our children, all of whom turned out to have higher than average IQ;s, were ripped away from a school system that might have brought out the best in them. And worst of all, we moved so far away from the colleges and schools of higher education that none of them had the opportunity to go directly from high school into college.
It was not long after arriving in South Haven that I began discovering that the corruption I disliked in Kalamazoo was even more blatant in Sanilac County. It seemed that every time I picked up a stone the snakes hiding beneath it were slithering off to hide in the nearby grass.
From James Donahue’s Journal
While I liked the arrangement I had in Sandusky the rest of the family was not very happy. Doris, who gave up what she remembered as “the best job I ever had” in a large and advanced hospital in Kalamazoo to take a position at Sandusky Community Hospital felt out-of-place. Because it was a small facility her evening and weekend job not only involved lab work but she was forced to learn to be an X-ray technician, something she was never trained to do. She said the lab was outdated and the director refused to consider many of the new tests and techniques she brought with her into the labyrinth she now was forced to work in.
Our children were removed from a great school system in the middle of a school year and plunked down in what turned out to be a more archaic education system. Looking back on it, the move was wrong for my family, but I was not sensitive to what was happening to them. I was deeply involved in learning a new job, a new and broader news beat, and enjoying the freedom once again to write about just about any topic I wished.
I suppose it is natural to think back on decisions like the one made at this milestone and wonder what would have happened if I had just bitten the bullet, followed the spiritual direction I had been given at the time I prayed for a sign that I could leave the Gazette, and stayed on that job. While I was extremely unhappy in Kalamazoo, and feeling confined on a job that was becoming increasingly boring by the day, and working for a narrow minded managing editor that was unwilling to allow the newspaper to report what was really going on for fear of losing the image of All American City, it was a secure job. Before I left the editor took me out for a cup of coffee and expressed his regret that I was leaving.
As it turned out my wife gave up a great job and our children, all of whom turned out to have higher than average IQ;s, were ripped away from a school system that might have brought out the best in them. And worst of all, we moved so far away from the colleges and schools of higher education that none of them had the opportunity to go directly from high school into college.
It was not long after arriving in South Haven that I began discovering that the corruption I disliked in Kalamazoo was even more blatant in Sanilac County. It seemed that every time I picked up a stone the snakes hiding beneath it were slithering off to hide in the nearby grass.