Recipes for Living Chris Dorsey

When I think back on my life, there are certain people and situations that I recognize as having shaped who I am. I was born in Ottumwa, but I was and pretty much still am being raised everywhere. I spent much of my youth in Corydon, with my mother and father, Magee and Tom Dorsey. I always joked around that my name is Dorsey and my dad and his brother are Tom and Jim. Grandmother must have been a fan of the Dorsey brothers in the ''big band era," because that is their names.

Dad was kind of a nomad. He didn't stay put. He farmed when I was little, then drove a semi from the time I was eight until I was seventeen. He had a pattern of doing one thing for awhile then would switch to something else. One time, Mother told me, he wanted to be a pig farmer, so he bartered one of his coon hounds for five little shoats. He brought them home in a box, and for a time they had baby pigs running around the house. When I was about four, I wanted a horse. The child's version of the story was that one morning I woke up and here was a mule tied to the fence. Dad said, "There's your pony." I said, "That's not a pony." He said, "I didn't get you a horse, I bought you this. Since you wanted it, you take care of it, feed and water it. This is your responsibility." I thought it was great, and one day it went away - to this day I don't know where.

As an adult I know what happened. Dad was also a coon hunter. Apparently they had packs of stuff to carry, so they rode mules, and trained them to jump barbed wire fences. I have no idea what he traded for it, but he traded something for this jumping mule. The bottom line was that I took care of his jumping mule so he could coon hunt. That was the sort of thing he did.

When he was tired of being on the road, he opened a little bar and restaurant. That was a wild experience. Good things happened there and bad things. From time to time he'd find a dog that people brought and let it sit in the corner. It never bothered anybody. When he was tired of the restaurant business, he ran a used car dealership, and then went back and bought another restaurant. There were times when he just needed to get away, and I'd go in and tend bar, play pitch, and drink coffee with the customers because I knew them all. If I ever get out of the newspaper business, I'll probably run a restaurant.

There were some pluses to all this. Growing up was fun. It was never boring because I never knew what was going to happen next. I could never match my father in orneriness, but it was all a playful type of fun, and I inherited his great sense of humor. Dad being gone all the time, I grew up quick, and by moving around from school to school, I learned you either fit in quickly or you don't fit in at all. That is probably where I developed my knack for being able to talk to people so easily.

My mother was the key cog in our existence. From her I gained the moral and compassionate side of my nature, and it sank in deeply. Dad and Mom divorced when I was 17. He came off the road and was ready for a whole new life. They've been divorced for 20 years. Mom never remarried, but Dad married one of his waitresses. As a child, I didn't like her very much because she was only about five years older than me. When I had my daughter, she took good care of her, and I saw something in her I'd never seen before. Mother is still in Corydon. We had a printing business together and sold it, so now she is back to cutting hair, which she had done since before I was born. ·

I have a sister, Dee, five years younger than I. Growing up, we had a typical sibling relationship. We drove each other crazy. She was the sister who was always getting in the way, wanting to be involved in everything I was in. It wasn't until we were both adults that we came to appreciate each other. She is a social worker. I never imagined that would happen. Because of what I do for a living, we actually can have pretty good work-related conversations about what I see on a regular basis. She lives in Chariton, and we talk nearly every day. She called today and asked about going to lunch.

That's about it for my childhood. We moved around a lot. I did all the stuff normal kids do - played ball, rode bikes, got scars on my knees and broken bones. I learned one of the most important lessons in life in kindergarten, which was to work and play well with others. We were graded on it. But it seems to be one of the first things we forget when we turn 18. Mine is a selfish generation in some respects. We forget what is important.

I started delivering papers when I was eight years old. Now at 36, every Wednesday I am still delivering papers. When I was 12, I had a paper route and I was the world's worst paper boy. If it snowed a foot during the night, getting up at 5:00 to deliver the Des Moines Register wasn't high on my priority list. I was going to wait until the snow was cleared or the weather warmed up. One of my customers was the newspaper publisher in Corydon, Hugh Doty, who became an important person in my life.

I was tinkering around with photography in high school, and the editor of the newspaper was my baseball coach. I asked if I could borrow the camera and help him out. I got lucky and took the best picture of my life. The editor spent two days trying to persuade the publisher to let me work for the paper. He was pretty reluctant because he remembered that I wasn't most reliable young man he'd ever known, but he gave me a chance. The editor left not long after I started, and the publisher and I developed a strong father-son kind of bond. His wife, Ronnie, was of the same nature. She was very mothering, very nurturing.

Hugh took me under his wing and taught me a lot about the newspaper business, including how to make money at it. Out of his own pocket he paid for journalism camps for students. He sent me there for two summers, which was a big help, because Mom and Dad didn't have extra cash. It was awesome! I learned a lot there. Hugh had a heart problem, and when I was a 19 year old freshman in college, he took some time off. I came back for the summer and helped out at the newspaper. He had taught me so well I knew exactly what needed to be done. He died about 15 years ago. That hurt. The editor and I still keep in touch, and he gives me a hard time, asking, ''Do you have any young kids at the newspaper now? Do you go to the high school and talk to kids about the newspaper business? You remember what I did for you? You have to give back."

Probably the biggest influence of those on the staff of Wayne High School was the principal, Dick Pyner. He and I had a great rapport. He didn't talk to me like I was a kid. He afforded me some of the luxuries that a lot of students didn't have. If I had a study hall or free time, he let me go to the newspaper office, which was right across the street from the school, to develop film or print pictures. If I needed to leave early to take a picture of a ball game or something, he let me do that. It was one of those mutual trust things. He was a good man and I tried not to do anything to screw up his trust.

I started working for the newspaper when I was 14. Additionally, in high school I was on the Student Council, and I played football, basketball, and baseball. I was on the line at football because I wasn't fast. I couldn't outrun anybody. In baseball I played first and third, which is odd because I am left-handed. I was a guard in basketball. I couldn't score but I was a good defender. We had really good teams when I was in high school. I think we lost four football games all my four years, and we made a couple trips to the state basketball tournament. Corydon was in one of those eras when we did well.

I graduated from high school in 1986. During the summers of my first two years of college, I came back and worked at the newspaper office. I took an unexpected detour in my plans and started college at Arizona State University School of Journalism. Through the journalism camps, I earned a one-year scholarship to attend the University of Iowa. I spent nearly all my senior year planning to attend college there, but after Dad and Mom split up, Dad shut everything down and moved to Phoenix, where my grandparents lived. Sisters of my best friend, Matt Davison, also lived there and he and I decided we would spend our spring break visiting them.

One day, I was sitting by the pool waiting for Dad to get off work, when my friend called to say his sisters were going to take him on a tour of the Arizona State University campus. I went along, and saw the most beautiful campus I'd ever seen. I went to the admission office and grabbed a catalogue, thinking it would help me fill a couple boring hours I had every day with nothing to do. I filled in an admittance form, and when they asked about getting my transcripts, I gave them a phone number. I didn't think anything more about it. I had a scholarship to the University of Iowa, and that was where I was going.

About two weeks before I graduated, I got an acceptance letter in response to my application. With Dad living in Phoenix, I could go as an in state resident. At that time, the tuition for a first semester in state student was only $500. I enrolled and worked on the school newspaper. The kicker was, it was the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. I don't know if young people recognize that name, but to me he was the ideal journalist. Every year he would come talk to us, and we could spend two hours with him, listening to his stories and asking him whatever questions we wanted to ask. It was awesome! As I look back at it, I went to Arizona State to work on the newspaper and I took classes. That's when I knew that what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was newspaper work.

I met a lot of people with whom I became friends, and they are still my friends. Two weeks ago I met one of them who wrestled at Arizona State and was an Olympic silver medalist at the time I was covering the story. I made a point to go to Ames and say, "Hi." I didn't go to see the Grand Canyon. People ask how I could have been in Arizona for almost four years and not see the Grand Canyon. I erred in judgment, but I don't think I want to go back. In the summer time it is the closest thing to Hades I've ever experienced. The defenders say, "But there's no humidity." In my opinion 130° is 130°, no matter how dry it is.

I spent 3 ½ years there, and transferred because I was homesick for Iowa. I went other places but I always came back. The old saying is really true for me, "Home is where your heart is." Mine is here.

I returned and went to Iowa State for a year. I hated it, which may have due to several factors. I changed majors. I thought if I ever became bored with what I was doing, I'd probably want to teach. What I would teach, because it is what I know, is how to write, but you can't teach the passion I have for the newspaper business. It isn't something you learn. It is something you have. Also, I had a really bad advisor. I went to Iowa State for a year and spent whatever amount was required for tuition at that time, took a total of 24 hours in two semesters and only nine were what I needed. One thing I inherited from my father is stubbornness, and it made me a little irritable to have spent money for 13 hours of courses I didn't need. I still don't have kindly feelings toward Iowa State. I quit and enrolled at Simpson, where they have trimesters. I took nine to twelve hours each trimester. One course, ''History of Western Civilizations," I took under Hugh Stone, current pastor of the United Methodist Church in Osceola. I think it was in that period when I started to grow up, at about 33 years of age.

I started working at the newspaper at Centerville, about a 20-minute drive from Corydon. I was there for about four years and went to Kansas City, where I spent about a year, living with my best friend, Matt Davison, whom I'd gone to Arizona State with. I loved Kansas City for going to baseball games - things like that, but I hated living there every day because I'm a simple man and a small town kid. Matt said, "I knew Chris wasn't staying long because he never unpacked his boxes." He was right. About a year after moving there, I left. I'd always wanted to be the editor of a newspaper and that happened when I was 25. I took an editor's job at Winterset.

About three months after being there, I did a story on the introduction into the community of a new job-coaching type program. Its purpose was to get mentally challenged or physically disabled people into the work place. The person I began working on the story with was promoted, and a newly hired person came on board. Her name was Angela. We hired a couple of their employees to come in and work and, as job coach, Angela came with them. For about four months, she and I visited when she came. One day there was an employee she had to take somewhere, and she gave me her card, saying, "Give me a call at the office when they are done." I said, "Fine, but I don't need to call you unless your number is on the back." She flipped it over and it was there. That broke the ice, and six or seven months later, I married her.

When Angela was job-coaching, she would say, "Jon and I did this and Jon and I did that." I assumed she had a boyfriend, so I didn't give it much consideration. But being a newspaper man, I seek information, so I inquired a little bit about this Jon fellow. After two months I discovered that Jon was her three-year old son. Angela and I have a daughter named Savana. We didn't spell it that way to be goofy. It's hard for a three or four year old kid learning to spell their name. They don't need extra letters, so we cut it down as much as possible. This became my life - work and family - unfortunately, in that order.

Angela and I were married about ten years, from the time I was about 25 to 35. The first three or four years I still pretty much worked like I'd always worked. I wasn't at the bar, I wasn't playing pool with my buddies; I was at work. I was a workaholic. One night Angela had a heart to heart chat with me, reminding me that there were two kids that needed me just as much as the newspaper did. I heard what she was saying because when my dad drove a truck, he was always gone. He never played ball with me. I never took a summer trip over the road with him. The furthest I ever rode with him was 45 miles when he had something to drop off for somebody. He didn't give me what you'd call real sound advice. If I had disagreements at school, his idea was,
“Just go knock his block off," as opposed to talking about it rationally. I knew I wanted something better for my kids, and was determined to make a conscious effort to be there for them. When they are my age, I want them to have good memories of trips we took and things we did together.

This was a reason I took the kids on a trip last year. Mom and I were huge Elvis fans. I grew up hearing his music playing in the background. There were always Elvis movies on TV. I know more about Elvis than any human being should, to the point where I won a karaoke contest singing "It's Now or Never." Elvis and Watergate - those two topics interested me all through high school, and fascination with Elvis has carried over to my children. Several years ago I made a promise, "One of these days, I'll take you to Graceland," and I carried through with it last year. It was kind of a benefit in reverse that I received from my dad. Those are the things I want to do, so that if something should happen to me, those are the memories the kids will have.

Angela is one of the most ambitious persons I've ever known. When she sees what she wants, she goes after it full bore. I'm kind of a poke-along. It took me months just to ask her out. I'm not an argumentative person. Looking back at it, that was probably one of our main differences. I'm not confrontational.

Skipping details of working on a paper in Des Moines for awhile, discovering I missed the weekly newspaper I was accustomed to, when the opportunity came along, I came to Osceola to be on the staff of the Osceola Sentinel Tribune. That brings us to the present.

Angela's and my divorce has been final for more than a year now, and we are still friends. We stay close and share time with our daughter. I see a lot of relationships which end bitterly and ugly, but ours was and is very amicable. Our attorney said, "This is the easiest divorce I've ever done." We got online and pulled up a legal form and wrote our own terms. All we had to do was have it processed, and the judge signed off on it. We are still very good friends. If I need a favor, she's there for me and the same is true if she needs something.

I learned a lot from Angela. My mom had raised me well. She taught me how to be a good man, and Angela took me another step. She taught me how to be a responsible parent. Until then, I wasn't the most responsible guy because I was always working. My life consisted of getting up, going to work, covering a meeting, going to a ball game or other newsworthy event. By the time I was done, it was 9:00 or 10:00 at night, and I'd call it a day. I learned through her that work wasn't the #1 plan or priority I'd always thought it was. She taught me to finish things. My wife made me see that finishing something you start shows a lot about your character. I thought she was kind of full of it, but when I thought over what she said, I decided she was right.

Stepson Jon is still part of my family. He is 14 now, a big kid, bigger than me - six feet tall and wears a size 12 shoe. Jon is going to be a freshman at Winterset. He wants to be a lawyer, which would be a good choice. He's an articulate debater.

Savana is nine and will be in fourth grade. I'm trying to talk her out of being in the newspaper business, but that is what she thinks she wants to do. She picks up newspaper scraps and makes her own newspaper. She was with me last week when I covered a shooting. I won't let her go to a crime scene but the night when I was working on this, she played receptionist for me. It was awesome to watch. She would answer the phone while I was working another phone, and she was the most professional little thing you've ever seen. "Can you hold, please?" "May I ask who
is calling?" After things calmed down, she said, "I had fun playing newspaper with you, Dad." I told her, "You weren't playing newspaper. You were a newspaper."

Savana is very musically talented. She got that and her looks from her mom. She has my ability to talk to people. She can talk your leg off but at the same time, she's shy. It is going to be fun watching her grow up. I hope she keeps the traits she has. We seem to have been successful in teaching her to be polite, kind, and compassionate. She is particularly compassionate for her age.

My parents are both still living. My sister has a little girl, also. My daughter and my niece are close enough in age that they have fun together. I continue trying to be a good person and a good father. I'm not Ward Cleaver and I'm not Mike Brady, but I've learned a bit about fatherhood from them, just as I have been learning and continue to learn from all the people who have been a part of my life.