February 2008

Moving Forward.

The fact that I am writing this Reflections in one corner of an office that looks as if a bomb has burst in it is not necessarily an eyebrow-raising event. The talent for workplace tidiness is not one with which I was born, nor have I been able to train myself for it despite half-hearted efforts over the years. But even regular observers of my working environment might note a greater than usual dishevelment today. Stacks of paper teeter improbably on every flat surface. Books and magazines litter the floor. Tangled to redundancy, a nest of computer cables that looks like the work of some electronic buzzard spews from an open closet. In short, the room looks as if the Dance Institute of the Society of Clumsy Oafs (DISCO for short) has held a Breakdancing for Beginners class in here. It’s a disaster, and it can only mean one thing: Country Roads is finally moving.

I say “finally” because fully eleven months have elapsed since we bought the quaint but somewhat down-at-the-heel century-old raised cottage in Baton Rouge’s Beauregard Town with the intention of converting it into the high-tech nerve center of digital-age convergence that we were seeing in our mind’s eye. Sure: it needed a coat of paint, a bit of wiring and a spot of work here and there. But, beneath its twelve-foot-ceilings, bathed in the sunlight streaming through tall windows to play across its hardwood floors, we hummed the tune to “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and signed on the dotted line. A year later, I can report that I know a heck of a lot more about rezoning requests, city/parish parking requirements, plan reviews, and commercial occupancy code than a Medieval European history major has any business knowing, and am beginning to suspect that the subject isn’t really my strong suit.

No matter; ‘tis done and at least we’ve learned one thing: To engage a professional moving company to aid in this relocation. When we moved into our current place five-and-a-half years ago, we threw on some old clothes and took on the task of moving an office for ten people from St. Francisville to Baton Rouge ourselves. This, it turned out, was not a terribly good idea, and had it not been for last-minute assistance by two teenage members of St. Francisville’s Benton clan, I believe we might still be trying to get the conference table up the stairs. On its side we could get the thing through the front door, but a central table leg made turning the corner into the hallway a physical impossibility. Back on the front porch and all sitting on said table, someone had the ingenious idea that we could tie a rope to the thing and hoist it up over the balcony, the railing of which was about ten feet higher off the ground than the conference table was long. I pushed from the ground floor. William and Michael Benton were upstairs, and guys, I’m not sure whether you ever told your mother the exact details, but to this day I’m convinced that if you hadn’t been on the wrong side of the balcony railing and clutching that table as tightly as you were when the rope came untied, Country Roads’ editorial staff might well have been smaller to the tune of one executive editor.

That wasn’t the only nerve-wracking incident. Backing in with too much exuberance, we got the rented moving truck stuck with its rear wheels off the ground half way up the driveway. Another volunteer representing the baby-boomer generation had some sort of minor cardiac incident after charging the stairs carrying a roll-top desk, and had to spend the rest of the day lying on the floor with a wet towel on his head. Suffice it to say that we learned there are some things best left to experts, and they will be here in a little over twelve hours to get started on moving this mess I’ve made.

So come Monday and by the time you read this, Country Roads should be open for business in a new home. It’s a new beginning of sorts, one that seems a suitable way to mark a magazine’s twenty-fifth anniversary. While we’re on the subject, I’ve got a couple of other new beginnings I’m excited to share: last week longtime Country Roads account executive Alison Rodrigue brought her first child, Ruffin Adam Rodrigue, into the world. Both Mama and little one are doing brilliantly. And another new arrival: look for the launch of an updated, reworked Country Roads Web site later this month. The new site is our production designer, Mike’s, baby. And unlike Alison’s pregnancy, the site has had a long and complicated gestation that I’m sure Mike will be glad to see the back of. The new www.countryroadsmag.com arrives packed with new features: search functions for accessing past articles and recipes, ways to leave reader feedback on stories and calendar events, and lots of clever devices for getting more out of each issue of Country Roads. We hope to launch it in early February and hope that it doesn’t need to be induced. So please! Have a look; sign up for our Milepost weekly e-newsletter, and tell us what you like, or don’t like, about what you see. We’d love to hear from you.

James Fox-Smith, editor
james@countryroadsmag.com