Column: Outside looking in

In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.

May 30, 1995

By Devlyn Brooks

Hi there. I would like to take this chance to introduce myself. My name is Devlyn Brooks, and I am a Bemidji State University mass communication major interning at the Pioneer for the summer.

Although I am not from Warroad, I feel that I know your town rather well. You see, I grew up in Fertile, Minnesota, which is even smaller than Warroad. So I feel very comfortable in this new environment.

For the past three years I have been attending BSU. I have worked in some capacity on the student-run campus newspaper for the last two years.

You must be wondering what I first thought of Warroad. Well, to be honest, I've only been here a couple of days, but what I have seen has been very entertaining.

I was fortunate to catch the Memorial Day service sponsored by the American Legion and Auxiliary. The parade and ceremony gave to me the distinct, refreshing feeling of being home. Local men in their Legion attire, streets lined for a parade and young children running around in bright, summer clothing is not a sight you see too often in Bemidji, unless you are considering the hordes of tourists that crowd around the monstrous Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues every summer.

I also was in attendance to see the Warroad Warriors high school baseball team defeat Lake of the Woods. This was fun for me because I am a big sports fan, and last summer I held a job that did not allow me to attend sports of any type. Now, I have this wonderful position where I can attend a baseball game and pretend that I am working.

Of course, as I start a new beginning with you, I am going through an ending period in other parts of my life. "Goodbyes" are just not something I am good at.

I understand that Warroad held its graduation Friday for the 1995 graduates of Warroad High School. I, too, experienced a graduation that meant a lot to me. It was BSU's 1995 graduation.

In a three-year period, a person develops certain friendships that mean a lot. These friendships are hard to part with, especially when you don't know when you will see these friends again.

This is exactly what happened this weekend at the graduation I attended. I parted with several of those close friends which I have accumulated over the last three years, one of which has been my roommate.

What can you say to these people? "Well, it's been fun. Goodbye." No, I don't think so. It just doesn't work that way.

I have lived, worked, and studied with these people for three years now. You don't want to think that you will never see them again, that they will never be a part of your life again.

I just can't figure out the proper way to say a "goodbye." Maybe I am thinking about it all wrong. Maybe there is no way to say a "goodbye" that is better than the rest. Maybe we just have to take these partings one by one, and deal with them as we encounter them. I don't know. I am still looking for the answer.

This is why I am not good at "goodbyes." They seem so final, as though you are never going to see the person again. Which may be true, but I would prefer to keep a positive attitude and say, "see ya' later." This, at least, gives me the psychological advantage of thinking that I will see the person again.

Maybe that is what is so special about graduation. It provides an appropriate time for those last "see ya' laters" that need to be said.

The only thing I am certain about is that I am still no good at "goodbyes."