Don Metivier showed me the way
Chronicling the people, personalities and history of Glens Falls
The Front Page
Morning Update
Saturday, June 26, 2021
By Ken Tingley
It’s a thin 191-page volume with a no-frills cover that has a special place on my bookshelf. From time-to-time, often when I am feeling unsettled, I pick it up and am reminded anew of the special talents of an old newspaper man named Don Metivier.
I was preparing to be interviewed on Friday by a TV reporter named Reisman. One of the advantages of having done so many interviews myself is that you know what the questions will be beforehand.
The interviewer would want to know why I wrote the book? Simple question, but a more complicated answer.
By the time I arrived at The Post-Star in 1988 to become its sports editor, Don Metivier had moved on to another gig and stopped writing his Saturday morning column that had been a staple of the morning newspaper for 12 years.
Mark Behan was the editor then and I suspect it might have been his idea to publish a book of Don’s column’s for posterity. All the proceeds would go to Operation Santa Claus.
“Nobody has a more intimate appreciation for Glens Falls than Don Metivier,” was how Behan started the foreword to the book. That kind of sums up the value of not only someone like Don, but the daily newspaper as well.
There were lots of copies laying around the office in those days and I remember picking one up and reading a few of the columns. I wasn’t terribly impressed. My 31-year-old self thought the writing was old-fashioned, had too much nostalgia for the good old days and was a little hokey.
Don seemed to be writing about people and places and memories without much purpose. It was only later did I understand what was at the heart of his writing. It was the people. He was writing about the soul of a community. After I became editor in 1999, I remember looking at the book again. It was a way for me to understand the community this newspaper had to cover. It was way to get a handle on its history. And it was a challenge to pick up where he left off. Column by column I gradually came to understand and appreciate Glens Falls.
I found Don’s writing got better with age, or perhaps I just appreciated it more as I aged.
So I struggled to explain to reporter Nick Reisman about how it started with Don Metivier and that I had hoped in some small way that my own writing had provided the next chapter in Glens Falls’ history.
When Don left us for good in April 2007, I wrote these words in a column about him:
“The opportunity these past few days to read Don's old columns provided insight about what used to be for those of us who weren't there to see it. Don Metivier provided a rich and bountiful palette with which he painted Glens Falls and its people.”
Not long after Don passed, I rededicated myself to column writing. I wanted to tell the stories about the people and institutions that made Glens Falls and its surrounding communities so special. That work has now resulted in an 83-column volume of my own columns that I hope picks up the story where Don Metivier left it in 2007.
It was essential that Don Metivier also be part of the next chapter as well. Included in the Hometown, USA section is my column about Don’s passing from April 11, 2007 called “The city comes full circle.”
That has new meaning to me today.
My book - The Last American Editor - is a metaphor for what we are losing as a community by not reading a newspaper. I feel better that the stories I told over the past 21 years are now preserved. I hope Crandall Public Library someday puts my book next to Don’s. That would be an honor.
Spectrum Interview
It was great to catch up with Spectrum News reporter Nick Reisman on Friday. Nick started his career as a reporter at The Post-Star before going on to fame and fortune in television.
