If the newsroom crew of the Optic were to secure five Pulitzer Prizes, it probably wouldn’t cause a ripple. And though such an achievement is admirable, if a bit far-fetched, it points out how unpraised we are, those of us in journalism.

     Public officials point to members of our staff at open meetings and importune us to “write positive news.” We could ask officials to conduct their affairs “more positively” and thereby be the subject of good news.
     My recent return to daily journalism reminds me of how the public simply expects us to do our job and is eager to chide us when we don’t. Seldom do we get calls praising us; often the phone rings to harangue us. Just as there’s caller I.D., couldn’t someone invent a device to screen screeds while putting through the two or three annual complimentary calls?
     One caller huffily explained that the late midwife, Jesusita Aragon, did not give birth to 11,924 babies, as we’d reported. Well, maybe “gave birth” missed the mark, but it should have been clear in the article that she delivered enough souls to populate a small city. We seldom get calls when one of our photographers happens to be on the scene of breaking news, or when a reporter writes a fair, accurate account of some big event.
     But we do get calls from people who say, “You’ll never get the there-their-they’re matter straight,” or “It’s Å’lie,’ not Å’lay,'” or “Didn’t you meant Å’preposition’ instead of Å’proposition'”?
     My introduction to journalism came a half century ago. I wrote high school sports, when newspapers used student volunteers to write up their high school games.
     At the time, West had its writers, Frank Maestas, Melaquias Aragon and Timo Valerio, to name a few; Jack Thompson, Leo Romero and others covered sports for Las Vegas High, later Robertson.
     After graduation I got a job as sports editor, and that opened the floodgates of criticism. If West beat East, Cardinal fans complained that I’d made “too big a deal out of it.” If the Cards won, I’d get faulted for failing to put the story on Page One. One fowl-mouthed man called me a sport-writing chicken. How’s that for a pullet-surprise?
     Once, a coach at West complained that the headline I’d given the Cardinals went clear across the page, whereas the head for West was only four columns wide. I tried to explain that the West head actually was two lines, not just one. I didn’t convince the caller, who called me a “Cardinal lover.”
     That Cardinal sin hit close to home recently when preparing PB&J sandwiches for my grandchildren. Carly likes hers folded over; Celina prefers hers flat. So Celina asked why her sister’s sandwich is “twice as thick as mine.” Yes, Celina, but yours is twice as wide.
     Inescapable were the accusations of favoritism from east and west, when it was learned I’d gone to Immaculate Conception. The biggest ranters, among those who identified themselves, were not the athletes but their parents. Has anything changed?
     Regularly I got accused of making my alma mater look good, even when area teams like the Mora Rangers, St. Gertrude’s Rockets, or Maxwell Bears beat us.
     A few years earlier, the I.C. Colts actually beat both the Dons and the Cardinals in basketball — a feat at the time worthy of headlines. The Dons’ roster included names like Sweeney, Ordoñez, Flores, Armijo, Segura and Herrera. The Cards’ roster featured names like Craig, Kincaid, Bickel, Browning, Hunter and Quintana.
     Of course, it helped the Colts to have starters with the names of Abreu, Barbero, Alarcon, Fram, Ortega and Pino.
     Years later, the man who covered sports at the Optic in the early Å’50s said fans, mostly parents, asked him why he’d used Second-Coming headlines when I.C. won. He replied that a high school with an enrollment of 100 isn’t even expected to be in the game with larger, public schools. Regardless, many readers are naturally going to be unhappy.
     After months of fielding complaints, I got phone calls from Don Gibson, long-time Highlands basketball and football coach, and Gillie Lopez, then coach of the Dons.
     And what would they be calling me about? Naturally, when our receptionist announced I had a call from “a Mr. Gilbert Lopez,” I trembled. Well, in both cases, they called to thank me for coverage we’d given their teams. I managed an awkward “You’re welcome and thanks for calling” as I was pondering the rarity of getting any kind of compliment in a job that angers so many people.
     My relationship with Gillie never went beyond coach-to-reporter. Over the years the public has become aware of how important a figure he has been to area athletics. Anyone who follows sports realizes the name “Gillie” doesn’t even need a surname. Ask any denizen of Wagon Mound, the place of Lopez’s birth, who Gillie is, and they’ll agree he’s the one whose surname is, well, a given.
     Though ill with a rare form of cancer, Gillie surely is aware of the legacy he’s created. His wife Rosaline died only recently. I’m honored to have shared a historical curioditty with her: She and I were born in the same house on Railroad Avenue.
     In those days midwives covered whenever doctors weren’t available. I was delivered by a Mrs. Kemm, who walked all the way from across the street to deliver me.
     I don’t know the details of who was present to bring Rosaline Lopez into the world, a few years earlier.
     My mom, however, who was present at my birth, told me that the partera Mrs. Kemm gave birth to several hundred babies.