I don’t like being sad.

It sucks.

I’m supposed to be happy. I have a job. Yet more than 50 of my former colleagues at the Tucson Citizen don’t, nor will they soon, judging by my recent efforts to find work.

This economy is brutal. I want it to get better quickly so my friends can find jobs.

But that’s pollyanna.

Today, Monday, I’m sitting in this huge newsroom capable of holding 80 or more journalists listening to the echo of my typing. There’s no buzz here to drown it out like before.

No laughing, no yelling, no banter, no fooling around, no police scanner, no click click clicking of dozens of reporters typing away.

Just silence, mostly.

And it’s sad. This isn’t a newsroom anymore. It’s a warehouse for desks and computers.

The Tucson Citizen held a wake Sunday night at a Fourth Avenue pub. Just about everyone who used to work here was there with their spouses, partners, friends and family. I went with my wife and felt like I was a skunk at the party.

No one made me feel that way, of course, everyone was congratulatory and a few were genuinely happy for me.

I didn’t know what to say. “I feel your pain” seemed trite and disingenuous. Saying “I’m sorry” got old fast, so did saying “I hope things work out for you soon.”

Good luck? I couldn’t bring myself to say that. What’s luck go to do with it?

None of this is their fault.

These were hard-working journalists who came here every day to gather and report the news. They worked 60 hour weeks – but only put 40 hours on their time sheets – so they could tell Tucsonans what’s going on in Tucson. Citizen reporters tried to give their fellow citizens the information they needed to make informed decisions about their lives.

They did it because they loved it, not because it was a job. Journalism is a passion more than a career. Those without a raging fire burnout fast and move on to PR or law school or something.

You either love this job or you do something else. There is no in between.

Standing in the corner of the Shanty Sunday I could see the fire was still roaring in most of them, valiantly flickering in others.

I want them to find jobs in journalism. Like it or not, there is no democracy without a free press. Our society, our culture our very lives depend on journalists to gather and report the news.

I know these are trying times for the news industry and much is in flux. But to allow these flames to extinguish is wrong. Tucson will be the worse for their absence.

It is my great hope that this new Tucson Citizen will rise to be the next big thing; a site that harnesses the power of community and directs that energy toward the betterment of Tucson through understanding, perspective and tolerance.

I hope that my former colleagues who still have the fire use it to jump into this new, deconstructed news industry – blogging the news, holding politicians feet to the fire, giving voice to the voiceless, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

And that in doing so, there will be a place for them here, their former home.

There might even be a way to make a buck in the process.

Perhaps that, too, is pollyanna.

Maybe. But I’ll work harder at this than I ever have at anything before to make sure it isn’t.

I will miss every one of you.

My father never missed an opportunity for metaphor.

Whenever he saw me struggling with something – math, football, marriage – he’d tell me the story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first two men to climb Mt. Everest.

He said the two nearly died in the ascent, struggling through massive ice fields in bitter cold, fighting off frost bite and altitude sickness to be the first to climb the highest peak on the planet.

When they reached the top, my dad said Edmund, exhausted but exhilarated, turned to his pal Tenzing and said, “Now what?”

When I was 12, I never really got the point. Now at 42, I get it.

It’s not achieving the goal that matters, it’s the struggle to get there.

When I started out gathering and reporting the news, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Sure, I had a journalism degree, but that mostly made sure I knew how to write in journalese – one-sentence paragraphs that adhere to The Associated Press style manual – and had a reasonable sense of what’s news.

My wife never lets me forget that the night I got home from my first day at my first reporting job I collapsed on the couch and said, “I have no idea what I’m doing and nobody seems to care.”

I’m a journalist because I refuse to be ignorant but here I was, an ignorant journalist. I endeavored to do whatever it took to learn the craft. Within two years I was runner up for Community Journalist of the Year from the Arizona Press Club.

Soon I became an editor and discovered that leading a newsroom of reporters was a lot more fun than reporting. I was thrown into the editor’s job at the EXPLORER, a weekly that covers the northwest suburbs of Marana and Oro Valley. I didn’t know what I was doing and made a lot of mistakes. When I look at some of those old EXPLORERs, I cringe at how bad they are.

I struggled through it and soon the paper was recognized as among the best nondailies in the state, repeatedly winning General Excellence and Journalistic Achievement awards from the state’s newspapers association.

I’m not without ambition. While leading the EXPLORER was fun, I wanted to lead a bigger newsroom at a bigger paper. Podunk weekly editors, however, rarely ascend to the top of metro dailies. They have to start at the bottom of the middle (or the top of the bottom, depending on your perspective) and work their way up.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I took a job here at the Citizen as an assistant city editor. I wanted to make my mark and move up, either here or in the 85-paper Gannett Co. Inc. chain of dailies. Seemed like a smart career move at the time.

Just as I was getting started, Gannett pulled the rug out from under me, announcing it was closing the paper unless a buyer could be found. Normally, I wouldn’t have worried, my ego is big enough to think that a talented guy like me should have no problem getting another journalism job.

But when the economy is shedding millions of jobs and the newspaper industry is in freefall, there are damn few jobs to get.

I was screwed.

Friday, after a long, strange trip in limbo courtesy of the Justice Department and the Newspaper Preservation Act, I was ready to take up my spot on the unemployment line; to go on the government dole while I searched for someone to hire me. The paper was closing, everyone had to clean out their desks and go home; Saturday’s paper would be the Citizen’s last printed edition.

Then a Gannett vice president called me into an office and said, “How’d you like to be part of the new Citizen Web site?” She explained it was a work in progress, charting new digital territory, soliciting and managing community commentary. I’d be working with one of my coworkers, Ryn Gargulinski. “Anyone else,” I asked. “Not right now,” she said, the details of the site and what we would be doing would be worked out in the coming days.

“Sure, I’ll do it,” I said. What the hell else was I going to say.

That night, depression set in. This is not what I set out to do. I wanted to captain my own news ship, not be chief mate in a leaky, two-person dinghy being towed behind the S.S. Gannett superliner.

In a few days, the corporate officials holding the rope are going to let go and sail away, calling back “see you in port,” leaving Ryn and me to bail and row like mad.

I refuse to sink. Ryn and I are going to call a few thousand of our Tucson friends, or soon-to-be friends, and get some help. We’re going to patch up this dinghy, put a motor on it, renovate it, expand it, polish it. We’re going to turn it into the sleekest, fastest coolest ship in the digital news fleet.

Soon, though I’m not sure when, Ryn and I, and maybe a few shipmates, are going to roar into port (perhaps splashing a little water on the lumbering superliner for good measure), the envy of the online cacophonous commentary world.

Exhausted but exhilarated, I’m going to look over at my pal Ryn and say, “Now what?”

A federal judge will rule Tuesday whether the Tucson Citizen must resume publication after the Arizona Attorney General complained that Gannett Co. and Lee Enterprises Inc. violated antitrust laws by ending their joint operating agreement and stopped daily publication of the newspaper to make more money.

The Citizen published its last edition Saturday after Gannett announced there was no viable buyer after about four months on the market. Gannett said the Citizen would continue as a Web-only, blog-like commentary site for local issues, but no news.

Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a motion Friday seeking a temporary restraining order to keep Gannett from closing the Citizen, but U.S. District Judge Raner Collins wasn’t available to hear the case until Monday.

Nancy Bonnell, chief of the state attorney general’s antitrust unit, argued Gannett’s decision to stop publishing the 138-year-old afternoon newspaper violates antitrust laws by eliminating competition and fostering a monopoly situation, while injuring the community by eliminating an editorial and news voice.

Gordon Lang, an attorney representing Gannett, said the opinion and commentary Web site is intended to create a community forum, as well as a weekly Citizen editorial to be published in the Star.

“The Tucson Citizen is a failing newspaper,” Lang said. “There simply aren’t enough people to buy the Tucson Citizen, and the sad truth is that it costs more to publish than the partners get from it.”

Bonnell contended Gannett and Lee Enterprises, which publishes the morning Arizona Daily Star, determined their joint business entity, Tucson Newspapers Inc., “would make more money if they closed one of the papers.”

Tucson Newspapers Inc. handles the non-editorial operations for both newspapers, such as advertising, publishing and distribution.

“Even in recession last year, the parties made $16 million — but that wasn’t enough,” Bonnell said.

Santa Monica Media Corp. LLC offered to buy the Citizen for $250,000 in cash or $400,000 in payments for minimal assets, including the newspaper’s masthead, some editorial equipment and use of the archives, on the premise that it would compete with the Star, Bonnell said.

Gannett said the newspaper’s assets were assessed at $760,000, and its asking price was $800,000, according to court documents.

“Gannett rebuffed the offer,” stopped negotiations and shut down the paper, Bonnell said.

Until Saturday, Gannett and Lee Enterprises were 50-50 partners in a joint operating agreement through which they shared the costs, profits and losses of Tucson Newspapers Inc. The JOA, an exemption to federal antitrust law, was allowed under the Newspaper Preservation Act. The JOA was terminated with Saturday’s final edition, but the business partnership would continue outside of the legal framework of a JOA, a Gannett official said.

Don Kaplan, a lawyer representing Lee Enterprises, said the judge’s decision would reverberate nationwide. He said that if partners in a JOA can’t help out a healthy paper by shutting down the one that is failing, “then this industry is in very serious trouble.” The Citizen, he said, was losing more than $10,000 a day.

Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co., a group of weekly newspapers in California, said he believes when the Justice Department decided it would not go ahead with an antitrust action against Gannett, the company moved quickly to close the paper.

“I believe that was always their intention. I don’t believe they ever intended to sell it,” Hadland said.

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Hadland wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene. Goddard said he moved forward after the Justice Department notified his office at noon that it would not pursue an antitrust complaint.

Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper publisher, announced in January that the Citizen would close if it didn’t find someone to buy certain assets by March 21, but then delayed the closing to continue negotiations.

Kate Marymont, Gannett’s vice president for news, said she has no firm plans for rehiring staff if the judge orders the paper to publish again.

“I am thinking about all options, but waiting to see what happens before really getting aggressive about it,” she said.

Other than eight people retained for a transitional period, some of whom are working on the Web site, all the other employees were let go with severance packages on Friday, Marymont said. “So, it’s not like they’re sitting there waiting for that phone call,” she said.

Kathy Laird shows the page she laid out for The Young Citizen.

I recall a very special good Citizen experience: The Young Citizen.

Local high school journalism enthusiasts were afforded the opportunity of a lifetime to work with grown-up, real reporters and photographers in a Citizen program called the Young Citizen. This program, under the direction of the late Citizen columnist Don Schellie involved an editor and a reporter from each area high school.

There were 12 participating high schools at the time.

Every Saturday morning we checked in at the old Star-Citizen building on North Stone Avenue.

We then gathered in a corner of the newsroom trying to maintain our high school cool, as we were in the midst of real newspaper reporters.

Weekly, we typed our highly relevant and newsworthy articles on IBM Selectric typewriters.

Each Saturday one lucky editor had the honor of laying out the entire page with all completed articles.

I still have the page I laid out from 1970 and all my printed articles.

As a group, we brainstormed on headlines and counted the point value of each letter to be sure they would fit (English, creative writing, layout and design, and math).

If we felt our articles warranted a photograph, we scheduled a staff photographer to shoot photos of what they probably considered some of the most benign, silly subjects.

They never complained (to us) and it was always thrilling to see not only our article but accompanying photos which, of course, lend credence to the value of our writing efforts.

Every Wednesday afternoon, we anxiously awaited the arrival of the Citizen to see our names and precious articles in print.

What a thrill this program was to me and other budding journalists.

As an assistant and editor representing Sunnyside High School from 1968 to 1970, I can’t tell you how terrific the gracious, gentle Schellie made us all feel as valued members of the newspaper staff. What an honor it was to work with him.

The Citizen treated us at the start of each school year with a breakfast and celebrated the end of the year with a nice dinner (one of which was at the historic Pioneer Hotel).

We all received our names in typeset and graduating seniors received silver and turquoise key chains personalized with their initials.

As if all that wasn’t enough, at the end of each month we received a paycheck representing $5 for every Saturday we worked.

Twenty bucks a month for writing four stories was pretty respectable compensation in 1968-70 (remember we baby-sat for 50 cents an hour and gas was around 25 cents a gallon).

As a three-year varsity pompom leader who cheered our Blue Devils on to victory (or not) every Friday night and who had to get up early every Saturday morning to head downtown to the Citizen newsroom (thanks, Dad), it was often a struggle.

But once you signed in with security, entered the smoked-filled newsroom, heard the sound of typewriter keys banging out the daily news, you couldn’t stem the excitement of starting your own story.

So, hats off to the Citizen for the innovative Young Citizen program to involve local journalism students in getting our stories out there, for the gracious and respectful manner in which they treated us, for the priceless opportunity they offered us. You have our love and respect – and they can’t take that away.

Kathy York Laird

To help kids prepare for summer reading, A Children's House of Books owner Pat James is having a trading day where families can trade a can of food for a book.

Finding a cool spot to get lost in a good book is one of the best ways to survive a Tucson summer.

The “bookmarm,” as she calls herself, at A Children’s House of Books wants to connect Tucson kids with great reading to help beat the heat.

“I want to foster literacy in the community,” said retired teacher Pat James, owner of the children’s used book shop at 2624 N. First Ave.

James, who opened A Children’s House of Books six months ago, has transformed the spot into a charming, colorful hideaway, with children’s art on the walls. A brightly colored paper dragon, created by students at Miles Exploratory Learning Center, hangs from the ceiling.

There is a dress-up chest, vintage toys and about 5,000 books for children up to about age 13 to choose from. Nearly all are used. Some belonged to her children, now grown.

James wants to make it easy for children to get books. Families can trade in books or pay half the list price.

She is hosting Trading Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 22-23. Families can trade cans of food, to be donated to the Community Food Bank, for books.

“Bring in a can of food and get a book, or bring in a book and get a can of food,” James said.

James, who retired from Tucson Unified School District in 2004, also offers teaching resources.

She wanted to spread her love of reading to kids in the neighborhood. She offers story time at 11 a.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, along with tutoring and special events.

“It’s very important for families to have books in the house and to be reading to children,” she said.

LIBRARY SUMMER READING KICKS OFF

Kids, teens and adults can join the free summer reading club at Pima County Public Library, winning prizes and taking part in hundreds of educational activities.

“Be Creative @ Your Library” runs May 21 through July 18.

The calendar of events is available at all branch libraries.

Children can pick up a free “Be Creative @ Your Library” game board at any branch and use the game board to keep track of how many hours they read. They can also log their minutes online at library.pima.gov.

For every six hours spent reading, children earn prizes. All those who read 24 hours by July 18 will receive a certificate and a ticket for four people to the Tucson Toros baseball game at Hi Corbett Field on July 26. Six hours of extra reading will earn the child a pass to Breakers Water Park and a free paperback book.

The reading program for teens, called “Rock a Book,” is open to ages 12 to 18. They can earn coupons for local businesses and other prizes for every 10 hours spent reading. Prizes include a $10 gift certificate to Bookmans and a backstage pass to the “Rock a Book” band finale, where they can watch bands in the Main Library’s garage. Teens can register online at library.pima.gov or go to their neighborhood library for details.

Adults can list, rate and review books online, earning chances in weekly drawings for $5 Bookmans’ credit slips. Those who read 20 hours will earn a reusable book bag and a pass with discounts to Pima County attractions. Those who read 30 hours by July 18 will be entered into a drawing for a $100 credit voucher at Bookmans.

Citizen file photo by RENEE BRACAMONTE

Pat James in her store, A Children's House of Books, 2624 N. First Ave. James sells children's books - mostly used - in her 6-month-old store.

James is a retired Tucson Unified School District Teacher. Many of the used books belonged to her own children.

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IF YOU GO

What: Trading Day at A Children’s House of Books. Bring in a can of food and take home a book, or bring in books to trade

Where: 2624 N. First Ave.

When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 22-23

Price: free admission

Info: 822-8211

Ever wonder what’s up when your dog incessantly chases his tail or your cat bats at your head?

You can find out Saturday if you attend Communicating with Your Pet, a free service from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at HOPE Animal Shelter, 2011 E. 12th St.

Reiki Master and pet socializer Judy Ferrigno will be on hand to spend time with folks who bring in their dog or cat for a 10- to 15-minute consultation.

For more information, call 792-9200 or visit Tucson’s only no-kill dog and cat shelter’s site at www.hopeanimalshelter.net.

Two chief academic officers whose jobs were being eliminated in a reorganization at Tucson Unified School District were hired for next year as assistant superintendents.

Maggie Shafer will be assistant superintendent for elementaries; Jim Fish, assistant superintendent for middle schools.

The newly created jobs, which will pay between $95,000 and $120,000 annually with a possible $10,000 performance bonus, will include more responsibilities than chief academic officers had, said Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen.

The governing board on Tuesday night voted unanimously for these two appointments, and for three principals:

• Joe, Hermann, acting principal at Banks Elementary, 3200 S. Lead Flower, will become its permanent principal next year.

• Santa Rita High Assistant Principal Frank Armenta will be Cholla High Magnet principal;

• Paul De Weerdt, Pueblo Magnet High assistant principal will become Mansfeld Middle School principal.

In other action the board voted 4-0, with member Adelita Grijalva out of the room, to allow the possibility of a reduction in salaries if Legislative cuts are “substantially” more than the expected worst-case cut of $45 million for 2009-10.

Also, the board majority rejected by a 4-1 vote, a plan by member Bruce Burke to cut the 3.2-person governing board office staff by one full-time employee and one part-time one.

Trimming that office also was a recommendation of auditors the board hire last year.

Burke, who said he wasn’t “making this decision lightly,” said the cuts would bring the board staff in line with comparable staffs in Arizona and across the nation and would save the district $75,000,.

But member Miguel Cuevas said the board should go along with a 12.8 percent cut for $33,000 proposed by the district director of staff services. That cut is being done by decreasing overtime and supplies and discontinuing dues to the National School Boards Association. “I think Mr. Burke is incorrect and missing the bus completely,” Cuevas said. “It’s the employees that make this district.”

But Burke said the board should “set an example” and make the staff cuts plus the reduction in overtime, supplies and dues. “We’d save $100,000.”

Board President Judy Burns said comparison’s can’t be made between TUSD’s board staff and others because TUSD’s takes on more responsibilities. “We’ve already given up one full-timer,” she said. “Our staff archives everything that happens here. No other district does that.”

Clerk Mark Stegeman said the board office also works collaboratively with union groups. He said Burke’s plan “contains merit, but is premature.”

Sonoran Science Academy is set to receive $5,000 for winning the Bookmans’ Reading Challenge.

The school, 6880 E. Broadway, had the highest average number of books read per student in a Tucson school.

In February, March and April, the school’s 157 students read 10,476 books, or an average of 67 books a student.

The school was one of 22 in Tucson to participate in the third annual challenge. Tucson students read more than 160,000 books for the challenge. Statewide, students read more than 296,500 books.

Representatives from Bookmans Entertainment Exchange will present the grand prize check at a 9 a.m. Wednesday award ceremony.

The head of Pima County’s health department will join Arizona’s director of health services and others in a public briefing here Wednesday on H1N1, the swine flu virus.

The lecture will be from noon to 1 p.m. at the University of Arizona College of Medicine’s DuVal Auditorium, 1501 N. Campbell Ave.

Among the scientists who will speak are Nafees Ahmad, Ph.D, a professor in the department of immunobiology, on the virology of the disease, and Katie Mathhias, Pharm.D, on therapeutic options for treatment of the virus.

Jobing.com is hosting another Career Expo Tuesday at the Tucson Convention Center.

Dozens of local companies will be on hand from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. to meet with prospective employees. Register online and find more information on the companies at jobing.com.

Parking at the TCC, 260 S. Church Ave., costs $4 to $5.

The uncertain future of the Tucson Citizen will continue for a while longer.

The newspaper will continue its day-to-day operation as negotiations for a potential sale continue, Kate Marymont vice president/news at Gannett, told Jennifer Boice, interim editor, Friday afternoon.

Gannett Co. Inc. had announced in January it would close the Citizen March 21 if no buyer came forward.

March 17, the company announced that the paper would continue day-to-day because potential buyers had shown interest.

Two weeks ago, the company said the Citizen would remain open until at least May 9.

Though Gannett officials have not said who is seeking to purchase the Citizen, a Culver City, Calif., news company posted ads in April on craigslist seeking advertising sales people in Tucson.

A spokesman for the company, David Ganezer, told The Associated Press last month that Gannett had rejected the company’s last offer and that his company was no longer in active negotiations with Gannett.

Gannett is offering the Citizen archives, Internet domain name and lists of subscribers and advertisers to potential buyers, but not the 50 percent share in the joint operating agreement it has with the Arizona Daily Star, owned by Lee Enterprises Inc.

The two companies jointly own Tucson Newspapers, the subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers, and share equally in the operating costs and profits.

Each company made $10.5 million in profit in 2008 through the JOA, about $8 million less in profit than they made in 2007, according to Lee’s annual report.

The JOA is allowed under an exemption to federal antitrust laws called the Newspapers Preservation Act. The Department of Justice has said it is investigating Gannett’s action but DOJ spokesmen have repeatedly said they cannot comment on details of the investigation.

None of Tucson Unified School District’s tenured librarians or counselors will be laid off next year.

An e-mail went out Wednesday to all 75 librarians and 141 counselors who in early April received a notice of a possible reduction in force.

The notification by Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Nancy Woll said, “I understand, however, that there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding placements for next year.”

Because of budget shortfalls, some schools have opted to do without counselors and/or librarians next school year.

“All of us in Human Resources understand how difficult this is and we will be working closely with those of you who have been displaced for the next school year to bring you that certainty about your placement as soon as possible,” Woll said.

Goldie Breeding, 86, tends a rose bush in her yard that produces magnificent pink blooms. It was an 80th birthday present from her family, and she gives roses to friends at church and people who are ill.

She survived the Great Depression, the deaths of two husbands and breast cancer.

Goldie Breeding, 86, is one self-sufficient woman.

But the economy has Breeding fearing for her independence. While she is able to manage her expenses by clipping coupons and hunting for bargains, Breeding worries that a new prescription for her spinal arthritis or any other expense might prohibit her from living on her own.

“Food is my big concern,” says Breeding, who lives on Social Security and a small pension. “It’s gotten so expensive. And if I have to go on medication, I don’t know what I would do. I’d probably have to sell and move in with someone.”

Breeding is lucky. She knows any of her six children would be happy for her to move in.

But she doesn’t want to leave the mobile home where she has lived since she retired in 1999 at age 75.

“I eat what I want to, I watch what I want to,” says the retired home health care nurse. “I want to remain independent as long as possible. My family needs privacy, and so do I.”

She worries about how the economy is hurting her older friends who have no one to turn to.

In recent years, Breeding, a Tucson resident since 1947, has received help with unexpected expenses from Pima Council on Aging.

After a knee replacement in 2003, the agency installed a ramp, so she would not have to walk the eight steps up to her mobile home.

PCOA built a new roof four years ago after a storm ripped off a portion. “My insurance wouldn’t cover the roof, and it’s so expensive to fix these old mobile homes,” she said.

The agency helped her get a bracelet that she can use to alert authorities if she falls and needs assistance. The spinal arthritis causes Breeding to easily lose her balance.

Each time, her family has made a donation to the agency, she said.

Breeding relies on Van Tran or her children for rides to the doctor, church or shopping. She shops at four grocery stores, looking for the best value.

Breeding, who was born in 1922, was one of nine children, seven who survived past childhood.

Her father developed typhoid fever in Missouri, and the family moved to Phoenix in 1926 when Goldie was 4. She has vivid memories of the Depression.

“We were fortunate to live on a dairy farm, so we had milk and vegetables,” she said.

She recalls a time when her family had no butter, having sold all the cream from the farm.

“Daddy was selling everything he could. Mama said we had to go downtown and sign up to get margarine. I didn’t know what that was.”

Her parents always managed.

“We were young and we didn’t realize how tough times were,” Breeding said. “Mama always had a pot of stew. She made good bread and we always had a pot of beans.”

Goldie married in 1939 at age 17. She and husband James had two children. But James died, leaving her a widow at age 22.

She remarried, and she and husband Herschell had four children. At age 50, Goldie was again widowed when Herschell died from a heart attack in 1971.

It was then she went to work for the first time, and loved the years she spent caring for others.

Breeding has six children, 14 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren. “I’m so rich,” she said.

She predicts the economy will get worse before it gets better.

“I call it a depression,” she said. “I lived through one and that’s what it feels like to me.”

She turns to her faith in hard times, and hopes her prayers will be answered.

“I’m praying that this new president can turn things around, but he has a lot on his shoulders,” she said.

“Every night I pray for the United States to be back to where it was when I was raising children. I want Tucson to be back to the way it was.”

Breeding walks down a ramp for which the Pima Council on Aging helped find a builder when her right knee was replaced six years ago.

The Pima Council on Aging helped Breeding get a medical alert device that notifies authorities if she falls and needs assistance.

———

HELP FOR SENIORS

Pima Council on Aging provides services to seniors and their caregivers. It is the designated Area Agency on Aging and acts as a conduit, coordinating services for older adults through other local agencies.

Among the services provided are meal delivery and congregate meals; personal budgeting assistance; employment services; transportation; home repair and housekeeping; and personal care services.

For more information, call 790-7262 or go to pcoa.org.

Help Stamp Out Hunger by leaving a bag of nonperishible food by the mailbox Saturday.

The nation’s largest single-day food drive is organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Food collected here will go to the Tucson Community Food Bank, which received more than 334,000 pounds of food from last year’s event.

Simply leave a bag of nonperishable food, such as canned meats, vegetables or soups; cereal; peanut butter; canned fruit; or canned tomato products next to the mailbox Saturday before the regular mail delivery time. Food should be in nonbreakable containers. Local letter carriers will collect donations and deliver them to the Community Food Bank.

The Food Bank also needs volunteers to help transfer collected food from the mail trucks to vans or to cover some routes and pick up donated food. For more information, call 622-0525 Ext. 204 or go online to communityfoodbank.com.

Leave a bag of nonperishable food next to your mail box Saturday for the National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive.

Postal Service letter carriers in southern Arizona will collect the donated food and deliver it to the Community Food Bank, 3003 S. Country Club Road.

“The letter carriers’ food drive is especially important this year as the number of local families seeking our assistnce is increasing every month,” said Bill Carnegie, the food bank’s president and CEO.

Food should be in non-breakable containers and should be put out before your regular mail delivery.

Last year, the food drive collected more than 334,000 pounds of food in southern Arizona.