It was the Cold War era, the early 1980s. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were palpable, especially to a little kid who was afraid the Soviets would kill her family from a world away.
I would always watch the evening news with my parents. For some reason, when I heard the music begin to play on the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," you could find me scampering out of the living room. Every night.
I was leaving the room to stick my head in the sand, so to speak. You see, I was hoping to avoid Dan Rather announcing the start of nuclear war.
Thinking about my behavior today, the irrationality of my actions cracks me up. As if the local news team would have just skipped such important news if a missile were headed our way.
"Hey, Tony! Can you tell us what we can expect for tonight's forecast?" would not have been the discussion if our nation was truly in such peril.
But as a child, such rational thinking was not always my strong suit. So, I would hang out in another room where the TV could not be heard and, after a reasonable amount of time had passed, you could find me reappearing.
As if staggering out of a bomb shelter myself, curious about how I would find my world after a battle, I would slowly wander back into the living room, eyeing the adults, studying their faces for expressions of sadness and fright at the horrible news I was afraid had just been delivered.
Luckily, I never saw those expressions. They were always just fine, still going about their business. There would be no nuclear war for a while. Well, at least until 6:30 the next night.
Beginning with those childhood fears, I have always been a strong consumer of news, from watching television news, to listening to talk radio, to being the only kid in school with the local paper tucked between her books.
That's one of the reasons I feel so blessed for my daily experience here at The Times-Gazette. Our newsroom works hard all throughout the day to bring the local stories that matter to you, that affect your life.
Once those stories are produced by our dedicated and talented staff of reporters and editors, it is my honor to bring their stories and photos to you in a timely manner via our ever-evolving Web site, along with producing video versions of some of our stories for your viewing enjoyment.
In this digital and Internet age, you can expect us to continue making an even greater effort to expand our production of online video stories of local events.
Whether it's our reporters capturing video footage alongside their traditional duties of writing stories and snapping accompanying photos, or me attending an event to record the live action, we will edit these stories into packages designed to offer a flavor of the sights and sounds that cannot always be captured by the printed word alone.
It all adds up to our effort to be leaders in the modern trend of making news available when you're ready to read it or watch it, and not just when a certain time of day finally rolls around.
The advent of constantly updated online news makes me realize that if such services had been around when I was a kid, the 6:30 nightly news might not have been so traumatic for me. Then again, it might have been worse. Maybe I would have stayed glued to my computer screen all day, fearfully waiting for those missiles to pierce the skies.
To our regular Internet viewers, thank you for making www.timesgazette.com a regular part of your online experience. If you haven't checked us out in a while, take a few minutes to do so. You'll find a variety of news and sports stories, photos and video packages, including our latest video of the Hillsboro Fire and Rescue's open house and ribbon cutting that took place on Saturday.
To catch up on all the video stories we have produced to date, visit our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/thetimesgazette.
You won't find any stories about attacks by the Soviets. But it's not because I haven't been looking for them.
Lora Abernathy is the online editor for The Times-Gazette and the southwest group online editor for Brown Publishing Company.
