Like the future, only shorter

Delaware State News Tribute

possible1081 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:00:49 +0000

Chris Godwin

By Andrew West
Delaware State News
DOVER — Eight days ago, the Delaware State News lost one of its own to cancer.
Chris Godwin, a copy editor with more than a decade of service to the newspaper, was 49.
All of us lost a friend, a guardian of the written word.
Not many readers would have been familiar with his name. Copy editors generally do not seek credit lines in the paper.
As he once told a group of students on a tour of the State News, “If you don’t know we exist, we’ve done our job.”
Over the past five months, Chris kept a blog about his personal battle with metastatic cancer, his reflections on family and friends and life, and more. For the purpose of this column, we will focus on his passion for the print.
In July, he fired off some thoughts on journalism in the wake of Walter Cronkite’s death.
“Just to fix this in time a bit,” Chris wrote, “Walter Cronkite died yesterday at 92. You had to be there to know what the guy meant. Back then, he seemed permanent. You could count on your fixtures remaining fixed for a good while.
“I was gratified to read, in one of the obituaries, that Walter himself believed that no television news broadcast could ever be a substitute for the printed version, in terms of fullness and depth of coverage. That’s still true, though nobody knows it (well, print people do, but who listens?) or believes it anymore. People would rather be shouted at by someone they already agree with.”

Chris’ newspaper career started when he was just 14 years old, using his stellar spelling and grammar skills to win a job as a copy boy in the Anchorage, Alaska, bureau of the Associated Press.
He was instantly hooked, just like four generations of his family had been on newspaper work. His parents, Connie and Stuart, both had newspaper jobs on their resumes.
Chris’ time in the news business pre-dated today’s quiet, computer-oriented newsroom. He could wield a pica pole and photo-sizing wheel with the same intensity that he turned pages of a dictionary and Associated Press stylebook.
The news business has evolved rapidly over the last two decades, thanks to the Internet and all of the electronic products that make it easy to grab news in bits and bytes. Chris studied online news and tried it. He liked it and loathed it.
“Forty years ago,” he wrote the day after Mr. Cronkite’s death, “who could foresee how the technology would change? That’s still sorting itself out. And when the last newspaper hits the last doorstep, something valuable will be lost.
“I’ve been at it a long time, and I can tell you that most people in a newsroom work very hard to make sure that the story you read in the paper is as truthful and accurate as we can possibly make it. Do we have opinions and biases and points of view? Of course. We’re human beings. But that doesn’t mean we don’t feel a duty to check the facts, make sure stories don’t hit print with gaping holes and unanswered questions, make sure you’re getting the best information we can possibly give you while each day running smack into the constraints of time and manpower — constraints that are more severe than ever these days.
“A newspaper is what they call ephemera — short-lived printed matter,” Chris wrote. “Today’s news wraps tomorrow’s fish. And that’s fine. Some of us like that. One of the things that has always attracted me to the job is just that — every day starts fresh, not a lot of work to take home, you bang out one day’s paper and that’s it. Tomorrow you do a whole new one. Good for teeny little attention spans like mine. But the way we go about it, from one day to the next, that doesn’t change. We really do put in some diligence. That’s the part that’s unseen and, I think, unknown and unappreciated.
“And it’s really the heart of the matter. So when that last newspaper hits that last doorstep, that’s what you’ll be losing. I think it’s hard to overestimate how valuable and important that is.”

Chris picked copy apart.
Writers, new or experienced, were given the same treatment. There’s no doubt he caught millions of mistakes and improved countless sentences over the years. Like a treasure hunter, he could find a gem of a quote or bit of detail buried in a story and move it to the top.
He would fire off a note or directly scold writers when they made simple errors. It would set him in a fit to see a real clunker, like the time one reporter said a judge ordered someone to “pay retribution to his employer.”
Chris also loved a snappy, witty headline. One of his best from the month of April, during his final days on job, was “Ion the prize” — a kicker on a story about Delaware State University’s hydrogen program.
He had quite a sense of humor, too. His irreverence once led him to slip a line into a story about a truck crash on Del. 1 a few years back. Chris’ second line in the news report read, “The good news for kids everywhere: The truck’s cargo of lima beans was a total loss.”

The week before the Cronkite piece, Chris was bemoaning the size of some of his favorite news magazines and marveling about how accessible they have become with computers and little electronic gizmos.
“Some of us older folks, say 40-plus, know what we’re losing (those of us who work for them especially); nobody under 30 does,” Chris wrote. “I like my gadgets, yes, and it’s nice to be able to read stuff when I’m lying in a hospital bed that, not that long ago, I’d have had to go to a newsstand or a library to get my hands on — and now it comes to me.
“But there’s still something to be said for holding the thing itself in your hand, a reassurance in quarter-folding the page and knocking out the crossword puzzle, in lingering over a well-turned phrase. Somehow not the same on a very groovy iPod or any other device; it just doesn’t lend itself to that. And what are you going to line your birdcages and gerbil cages with when all the papers and magazines are gone, huh?
“First time I ever set foot in a newspaper office, man, I just knew. And I’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to do the thing I’ve always loved best for most of the time since then. I still think it matters.”

Chris and Sisyphus

possible1081 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:47:10 +0000

This is a song Dave wrote during a long walk one day after Mark and I had returned from our last visit with Chris. His friend Scott Cochran of the band Flannel (http://www.myspace.com/scottcochranandflannel) came down from Iowa City on a moments notice to play with him, sing harmony and record it for him. Click the arrow below to hear it. Here are the words

Life just seemed to roll you stones

And sometimes they rolled over you

You always tried to push them back

Right up until your days were through

Trouble never came and went

It seemed to linger over you

It’s almost like your life was spent

Livin a Catch 22

Chorus

Chris and Sisyphus

Sisyphus is calling you

Come and lay your body down

He knows what you’ve been going through

You were sittin on your patio

The wind was cool the sun was high

You wondered if you’d ever see

That kind of day that kind of sky

I hope it’s what you see right now

Wherever you and Jeanne have gone

Hope you’ve got a record on

And you’re singin her your best love song

Chorus

Baltimore Sun Obit

possible1081 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:40:24 +0000

Christian Godwin – baltimoresun.com

baltimoresun.com

Christian Godwin

Copy editor was a fourth-generation newsman whose work under pressure earned him the nickname ‘Capt. Deadline’

By Frederick N. Rasmussen | fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com

September 15, 2009

Christian “Chris” Godwin, a veteran newspaper copy editor who earned the sobriquet “Capt. Deadline” from newsroom colleagues during his more-than-30-year career, died Saturday of metastatic cancer at Hospice of Queen Anne’s County in Centreville.

He was 49 and lived in Dover, Del.

Mr. Godwin, a fourth-generation newsman, was born in Miami, and moved with his family to Anchorage, Alaska, where his father was an FBI agent and his mother was an editor on The Anchorage Times.

While a 14-year-old student at East Anchorage High School, Mr. Godwin began working as a copyboy for the Associated Press bureau chief in Anchorage.

He attended the University of Alaska-Anchorage and then went to work as a reporter for The Anchorage Times. He was later promoted to copy editor.

“He said one of the best moments of his career was when his managing editor, a veteran newsman, called Chris the best copy editor he had ever seen,” said his mother, Connie Godwin of Chestertown.

Also, while in Anchorage, Mr. Godwin worked as the stadium announcer for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots, one of the National Baseball Congress teams then made up of college players from schools across the nation.

In 1980, Mr. Godwin moved to Chestertown, enrolled in Washington College, and after attending college for a couple of years, joined the staff of the Delaware State News in Dover, Del., in the early 1990s.

During the 1980s, Mr. Godwin experienced a year-long bout with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and confronted his alcoholism.

He attended a Delaware state-sponsored alcohol rehabilitation program for a year and became an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

“Chris recently celebrated 20 years of sobriety,” his mother said.

He left the Delaware State News to edit a weekly, The Leader and State Register in Sussex County, Del., for several years before returning in 1999 as a copy editor.

“When I heard that Chris was coming back I did cartwheels,” said Andrew West, the newspaper’s managing editor.

“He loved being a copy editor and I’m not sure you can say that about too many people, but for Chris it was a perfect fit. He was a go-getter and he could catch mistakes left and right in copy,” he said. “He loved the notion that each day you started from scratch and you wove pieces of the paper together and at the end of the day, you had a product.”

Mr. West praised his colleague’s “irreverent sense of humor.”

He recalled an incident when a truck loaded with lima beans was involved in a fiery collision with a Delaware toll both, which resulted in plenty of damage but no loss of life.

In writing up a brief on the accident, Mr. Godwin included, “Good news for kids. Lima beans a total loss.”

Craig Horleman, a fellow copy editor, was also a Dover neighbor.

“He always had a smile on his face and continued to make jokes even when under deadline pressure,” Mr. Horleman said. “When push came to shove, he was the guy who was able to tie it all together. That’s why we called him ‘Capt. Deadline.’ “

Mr. Godwin, who was respected for his knowledge of history and sports, was also an “old-fashioned grammarian,” his mother said, who was never too busy to help young staffers.

Mr. Godwin was an avid reader and loved different types of music.

He also enjoyed doing puzzles.

Because of his illness, Mr. Godwin stopped working in April, but he continued to remain as engaged as possible with his newspaper and relished hearing the latest newsroom gossip, Mr. Horleman said.

He also began a blog which he named, “Like the future, only shorter,” to keep in touch with friends and associates and to deal in a candid matter with the cancer that would take his life.

His longtime girlfriend, Jeanne Shinn, 47, an auditor who lived in Bear, Del., was diagnosed in July with two golf-ball-sized brain tumors.

“This was like a Greek tragedy,” Mrs. Godwin said. “She was buried the same day Chris died.”

A celebration of Mr. Godwin’s life will be held at 2 p.m Oct. 12 at Fellows, Helfenbein, and Newnam Funeral Home, 130 Speer Road, Chestertown.

Also surviving are his father, Stuart Godwin of Chestertown; a brother, Mark Godwin of Des Moines; a sister, Mary-Stuart Godwin O’Connor of Des Moines; a nephew and two nieces. A brief early marriage ended in divorce.

Mom and Dad said:

possible1081 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:08:40 +0000

While we get a bit tear-y today, we really are very happy he’s not in pain any more. He was SO brave, and the doctors said it was probably the worst pain anyone could experience, given the way his spine was badly compromised.

We’ll put it in the obit when it gets in the various papers, but that may be a week or two down the road, SO if you’re wondering what we would wish people would do, rather than letters, cards, casseroles, flowers, plants, boxes of Fairytale Brownies (that’s a joke a couple of you understand) or other lovely and thoughtful expressions of love, we would hope, instead that you would send a contribution, however small, in Chris Godwin’s memory, to

Hospice of Queen Anne’s

255 Comet Drive,

Centreville, MD 21617

It’s a place just about as close to heaven as you’d ever guess. Beautiful, like a comfortable elegant resort, full of caring, knowledgable people. Great for Chris and for all of us.

Thank you all for being there, electronically or in person, many of you for well more than a half-century. We’ll TTYL, as they say in Cyberspeak.

We will let you know about whatever we plan as a service, for those close enough to come. It won’t be for a week or two at least, to give Mark and Peekie and a couple of others time to arrange their schedules away from work.

With love, Connie and Stu

9/12/09

possible1081 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:07:05 +0000

Chris passed away peacefully this morning about 5:00.

Mom and Dad were with him last night and said he was the most peaceful and restful he’s been in weeks. Rudy (his dog) came to visit every day in the hospice and she would snuggle up on the bed right next to him.

Three days ago he told mom he wanted a WINDUP clock. And believe it or not she found one for him. Maybe he wanted to hear the time since his eyes were usually closed. I am borrowing a book called Final Gifts from my friend Kristy which says a lot of those final requests are to help prepare themselves or their loved ones for their departure. That’s what I think the clock was.

He really enjoyed writing this blog and reading everyone’s comments.

He was so dang smart and so funny. The two made a great combination. I’m going to miss him.

Peek

Your Picture Wanted

possible1081 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:20:21 +0000

Chris has a bulletin board by his bed and it would be nice if we could fill it up with pictures; which we’ve started to do. Could you please send one of you? Here’s the address again:

Chris Godwin
c/o Hospice of Queen Anne’s
255 Comet Drive
Centreville MD 21617

Thanks, Peekie

Hospice Info

possible1081 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:36:05 +0000

Here is Chris’s phone and address. I would recommend calling before visiting to see if he’s up to it.

Here is the 24-hour
line for Hospice itself:, and the address:
443-262-4111

Hospice of Queen Anne’s
255 Comet Drive
Centreville MD 21617

He has wireless internet, and access to a laptop so if he is feeling up to it he may post something.

He has a direct line to his room but I won’t share that here since I don’t know how many people might call.

Moving To Hospice

possible1081 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:18:09 +0000

Chris has been in the hospital since his last post. They are moving him to Hospice at Queen Annes County. I’m not 100% sure that’s the exact name. We’ll post something else when we know for sure. Peekie

A DEFINITE MAYBE

possible1081 — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:45:03 +0000

AUG. 22, 2009
I need to get this said. On Friday afternoon, Dr. S. congratulated me on completing one (1) Cyberknife treatement.

One.

After how many weeks? I don’t know. But we got it done. About halfway through, or roughly one run-through and change of Tracy Chapman’s debut album, my neck, which had been turned facing to the right, was just killing me and I had to turn it. This might have meant having to start all over. But we turned my head until it sat upright, the rest of the body hardly moved at all so, crossing our fingers, we forged ahead.

Apparently it was good enough. The head remained upright, the rest of the body hardly moved, one Don McClean CD later everybody seemed pleased that we’d hit all the proper spots cleanly. The rest of me — lying on my stomach — felt OK the whole time, so apparently I can last through that.

There were some episodes of nausea — just as we left the house, as soon as the Cyberknife was finished, and again back home (this last a bit green, though each instance was bile.) Dr. S. said I should let Dr. K know, in case it indicated some sort of spread in the liver or blockage or something. Left message.

There is, perhaps, maybe, some noiceable pain relief. We’ll see how getting through tomorrow and Tuesday do.

The thing that has not changed, and is not changing, is the fatigue. It’s far worse.

ANOTHER TRY

possible1081 — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:10:08 +0000

AUG. 20, 2009
Misplaced a year in there somehow. How odd.

Back up to Christiana tomorrow to take another whack with the Cyberknife. Load up on the painkillers, they tell me (no doubt losing a little patience with me). Moving slow, nothing new to report.