Spinoff
Big goings-on at the .crooked little house'
Mary HENKEL JUDSON

The South Jetty's "crooked little house" is experiencing change.

Last week I told you about our new online edition, but that's not the half of it.

Our little building, built by the late Henry Studeman in 19-I-Don't-Know-What, is being added on to for the second time since we bought the newspaper in 1981. It had been added on to at least once before, because the back portion of the building has always tilted, just a bit. Until we recently had it "evened up", when you stepped into that area, you sensed a bit of a downhill slant.

We added my office (currently shared by a total of four people), a small office and workspace in the mid 1990s. Before that, my "office", which led to the bathroom and at one point was almost in the bathroom, was in the back addition that tilted. There were times when interviews in my "office" went on so long that staff members had to leave the building to take care of "personal concerns".

We've upgraded since then, but we've still got a "crooked little house", and despite all its faults, I love it.

When we bought the South Jetty, the building was located on Cotter Avenue across from the Tarpon Inn. In 1982, we moved our crooked little house west to its present location on West Cotter. It had been in at least one other location.

It's also been home to a bait shop and a liquor store. (The transition to newspaper office was a natural. First you lure your customers in, then saturate them with your product, and, finally, you spread the word. Hey, I've been married to Murray for 30 years - it rubs off.)

Meanwhile, moving away from poor puns, the remodeling goes on. My office has become a bone yard for discarded computer monitors, boxes of stuff from who knows where, and anything anyone else doesn't want or know what to do with because - well, because my office is the building. biggest room in the building.

I'm pretty flexible, and I can deal with this. For a while. Time is running out, and, thank the Lord, the project is almost finished.

It's been exciting listening to hammers and saws, shutting down power, stepping over displaced "stuff", sniffing paint fumes and, in the midst of the chaos, adopting another "office kitten" (someone has to keep the stray cat population in this town under control). The anticipation of what was to come has kept up the momentum.

The additional space will allow us to move two of the four people in my office to their own spaces. (Murray and I began sharing an office about two years ago. It works because he's not there most of the time, which is the way it should be. That way we can go home together.)

The remodel also includes an upgraded mailroom and kitchen facilities for staff, many who come to work from out of town and therefore have lunch in the office. We have gone from a "dorm room" fridge, microwave and the bathroom sink to a small, but full size refrigerator and a real kitchen sink! We're keeping the microwave we inherited from daughter Libby in one of her moves. The kitchen upgrade also will be appreciated when we hold one of our staff birthday lunches involving some pretty serious groceries. In the past it's meant lugging ice chests and artfully using that microwave. Washing dishes in the bathroom sink was quite the experience.

Oh, and we have a new restroom - just for us girls! No more lid-up, lid-down battles!

What you need to know is that it's been a minor miracle that the print edition of the South Jetty has made its way into readers' hands over the last several weeks. And in the midst of all that, we managed to give birth to our online edition.

It's a tribute to all involved in the project, from the contractor to carpenters, painters, plumbers and electricians and, most of all, a tolerant, patient staff.

And in that respect, not much has changed, because within our "crooked little house" we still have the same heart and soul we've always had.

And that's what counts.