I worked at The Canadian Record for a time. If you asked me for how long of a time, I guess I’d have to say anywhere from a few months to about 76 years. And technically, that would be correct, but probably not the answer you were looking for.

But time works different at The Record. It isn’t measured by minutes and hours, or months and years, but by Wednesdays. Here’s how the week goes: Thursday is paper day. The day bundles of papers show up, are sorted out, mailed and delivered. Friday is the day you recalibrate, figure out what you’ve done and what you’re going to do. Saturday and Sunday are an instant, gone before you realize they’ve arrived.

Monday and Tuesday are a sprint, all the news, ads, and information rolling in, and your job is to take care of everything as soon as possible, as quickly as possible. Wednesday is whatever you’d call faster than a sprint; deadline day.

It’s when everything has to be done, because that’s how a newspaper works. You don’t get to put it off; you don’t get to stall or make excuses. It just has to happen. The Canadian Record is a small-town paper, but the dedication of its staff has never reflected that. We all worked as if our paper was the most important source of news in the world, because as far as our small community goes, it really is the only place to get local news. No news outlet in New York or Dallas, or even Amarillo—with a few exceptions— will report the happenings of Canadian. It was up to us.

By “us,” I mean the others, of course; my job was advertising. While the deadline was the same, and the work just as important—a newspaper can’t function without the revenue of advertising dollars—I didn’t have to write stories or spend hours on the phone gathering information, or lay out the newspaper in a coherent format. Comparatively, my job was a breeze.

And still, the stress of it is something I’d never care to re-burden myself with. Working at The Record was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, but it was also a job that kept me awake with worry during the night. I loved it and I hated it, and I thought I’d be there forever, or I thought about throwing in the towel within the hour; all of that on a regular basis. Depending on the time, of course.

Time works different at The Record. There’s a phrase you hear often at places of employment, so often that it has become cliché; you hear it all the time, and you’ve probably even said it yourself: We’re like a family. As cliché as it is, I have to say it now, because at The Record, we really were a family. Holidays, birthdays, marriages, deaths, births—we were in it together. My son spent the first two years of his life in the advertising office with me, cooing and crying and laughing from his place beside my chair.

We didn’t have parents in this family, I don’t think. We had older sisters: Mary Smithee, Cathy Ricketts, and Laurie Ezzell Brown.

Mary was the cool sister who would take you out dancing, give you your first sip of beer, and if she was feeling feisty, maybe even explain to you how to get a bra strap loose. All of this metaphorical, mind you. Nobody at The Record was experiencing their first sip of beer, not for a long time. The business of newspapering—even a small local paper—demands that hard liquor be consumed every so often, if for no other reason than to preserve perspective and sanity.

Cathy was the responsible sister, checking to make sure the homework was done, the laundry clean, the dishes washed and dried. She was a calming presence in the office, keeping tempers down and spirits up; keeping the household running, if not always smoothly, at least still running.

And Laurie? Laurie was the wise sister, the one you could sit out under the stars with, wonder about life with, discuss the future with, form dreams with. She had experience, she had knowledge, and she had wisdom. She was also the sister that would tell you to shut up and get out of her room.

Depending on the time, of course. That’s not to say these were the sole qualities of these women. Each of them had wisdom, had patience, had fun. But if you wanted to make a sitcom, those would be the base personalities, in my opinion.

The rest of us were...what? Maybe foster kids, coming in, going out, but still family. Always family. Despite the occasional tension, the occasional arguing, and the occasional knife fights, I loved them all, and continue to love them. And they love me.

That’s a forever thing, no matter how time works.