Just so you know, the title of my column for this week is pretty much just rhetorical. Science will tell you that time does not fly. It just feels like it is going by at the speed of light sometimes.

Case in point, I noted a few months back that when there are five Wednesdays in a month, typically I do a third ‘bonus’ column for the ‘Perspective’ page. My column normally runs on the first and third Wednesday of each month, former fulltime reporter and now contributor Kim Van Meter takes up the second week and staff member Sarah Lawson writes the column for the fourth week. If there happens to be a fifth, it’s me again.

However, August had me spinning in circles with a schedule that was jampacked from the beginning of the month to the end. The day after our paper came out on Aug. 17, I sent Kim a text and told her it was “her column week” coming up. Not even sure what calendar I was looking at to think the second Wednesday would be after the middle of the month, much less not remembering she had just done one the week before me. But she dutifully agreed (she’s pretty busy too and didn’t even notice my mistake) and Kim got a bonus column to write. Throw in to the mix that Sarah had it in her head that her column runs the last Wednesday and she was prepared to write one for Aug. 31. Yes, hers is usually the last Wednesday – when there are only four of them – so we were all confused together.

Thank goodness there are only four Wednesdays in September, maybe now we can get back on schedule. Looking at the rest of the year, there are five Wednesdays in November; I am going to shoot for getting it right that month.

But enough about the behind-the-scenes confusion of running a paper; on to time flying.

It seems like once summer is over and school is back in session, (summer over by the return to school date only, not the weather) all our schedules just kick into high gear. Student assemblies, new class officers to meet, plans for Homecoming, all kinds of clubs and organizations to cover, sports in full swing; it is both exhausting and exhilarating. Throw in two days a week of granddaughter babysitting duty for part of the day and sometimes I don’t know if I am coming or going.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Honestly, the best part of my job is being out there in the community covering events and seeing people. I have to spend a lot of my time behind a desk proofreading articles and editing photos, coordinating stories for three papers and writing an occasional piece for our 209 Magazine, so being out and about is the fun part.

I still, however, get people asking me about retirement and it definitely is a few years away. If I had to guess, it might be when my granddaughter starts school. In my head, the scenario is that my daughter has completed her college coursework and found a job in her chosen field so she goes back to work full-time as opposed to part-time, meaning Grammy will need to be available to pick Lorelei up from school. She is just a little under eight months old, though, so we’ve got time to figure all that out.

But, not too long because, you know, time flies.

Marg Jackson is editor of The Escalon Times, The Oakdale Leader and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 847-3021.