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Happy Radio New Year by Nikki Knight
New Year’s Day is my favorite holiday.
It’s not the joy of welcoming a new year, or the excitement of a clean slate and fresh starts, though that’s definitely good thing.
No, I love New Year’s because it’s the best day with my work family.
For the last twenty years, I’ve been a weekend and fill-in anchor at a top New York City radio station, part of a small but dedicated team that covers when the full-timers are off. We’re the folks who keep the station going at the same high level while our colleagues take vacations, celebrate with their families, or recover from illnesses. And we’re just as good as they are, because the expectations are the same.
Most of us weekenders and freelancers have other lives. I’m a stay-at-home mom Monday through Friday, and several of my colleagues have small children or other family responsibilities. Others are semi-retired after storied careers. Still others have full-time jobs – my regular on-air partner is a teacher.
We come from all races, faiths, backgrounds, and experiences.
But we’re all news people.
And we choose to spend our holidays with our colleagues. Yes, for family or professional reasons, but also because we love the work and the team.
And that’s why New Year’s Day is so special.
From Thanksgiving to Christmas Week, regular staffers take a lot of time off, whether it’s holidays, family events, or just burning a few leftover days. So we fill-ins get a lot of work. By New Year’s, we’ve all been working straight out for weeks. We’re exhausted, but we’re in a groove together, dealing with whatever this year’s huge story is (there’s always one holiday tragedy/controversy/disaster) and getting the news out.
Now, on January first, the work is almost over. We’re just about ready to go back to our lives outside the newsroom, and we know we probably won’t spend much time together again until the summer fill-in season. And being journalists, we know how much can happen in those six months.
All of which makes New Year’s a fun – and very precious – day. One more shift, knowing it won’t happen again for a while, if ever. Enjoying the bond, the shared dark humor, and the feeling of being part of something bigger and more important than ourselves.
It’s not really a party, but it’s not NOT a party, either. Folks bring leftover holiday cookies and candy, and everyone’s running on the darkest-roast coffee and highest-caffeine soda we can find. And at some point, we’ll raise those paper coffee cups and soda bottles in a toast to each other that’s a little jokey, but also very real:
One more year under our belts…and another started the right way.
Together.
May your year start so well!
LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD: Vermont DJ Jaye Jordan’s Green-Up Day ends in murder when not one, but two, bodies turn up in an old park — and one of them was much too close to both her ex and her current man when it was alive and bodacious. Now Jaye, with the help of a colorful (and diverse) cast of townies, will have to clear her men’s names, unravel a World War II-era mystery…and get Grandpa Seymour to the Senior Prom on time.
Nikki Knight describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York City’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Weekly, online, and in anthologies – and been short-listed for Black Orchid Novella and Derringer Awards. Active in writers’ groups, she’s served as Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and is currently Co-Vice President of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime. As Kathleen Marple Kalb, she writes the Ella Shane and Old Stuff mystery series. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.
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