The thought experiment known as “Ship of Theseus” goes like this: 

A king (Theseus, I suppose) had a magnificent ship that was the pride of the kingdom. Over the years, the vessel needed frequent repairs. One by one, old planks were torn out and new wood put in its place. The question is this: After every original board, plank and beam has been replaced, is it still the Ship of Theseus? 

Now imagine that every time a plank was removed from the original ship, it was repaired and used to create a second ship. With that second ship constructed entirely of materials taken from the original one, which one of these should be considered the true Ship of Theseus? 

And so it goes for the Sun Journal. 

In 2017, the Costello family, who had owned the newspaper for more than a century, sold the whole operation to one Reade Brower, who also gobbled up 16 other publications in a three-part deal. 

The big sign in front of the newspaper building on Park Street still read “Sun Journal” at the time, but I wondered: Is it really? 

Advertisement

Soon after the sale, the press machines that had chugged out news in Lewiston for 125 years were torn down and scrapped.

Around the same time, a whole parade of veteran reporters, editors and others left for one reason or another, most of them after decades of work with the newspaper. There went Tim, and Heather and Pete, who were followed by Karen and Sue and Sandy just ahead of Dan, Kathryn, Lindsay and Scott. 

Wave after wave of wily old news veterans walked out the door never to return. Some of them were replaced by younger folk who took on positions like “audience engagement editor” and a weird array of other titles that were foreign to me. 

Some nights I’d creep outside just to make sure the sign out there on Park Street still bore the name Sun Journal. When I saw that it did, I’d feel reassured. Reassured, but doubtful. 

And then the ultimate upheaval was upon me; a worst case scenario so unthinkable that I had convinced myself it would never happen. 

In late 2022, whomever was running things around here announced that the Sun Journal would abandon its totemic home on Park Street and move to more modern office space on Lisbon Street. And with that move, now I couldn’t even slip out to Park Street anymore to verify that the Sun Journal was still the Sun Journal. 

Advertisement

After the move to Lisbon Street was complete, they hung up a quaint little sign at the main entrance. “Sun Journal,” this sign says. 

But is it? Is it really? After so many planks, beams, poles and parts have been removed and replaced, can we really still sail this ship under a flag that declares us the Sun Journal? 

All of this is my way of prefacing the unhappy news that at the end of this week, this ship will lose one of its most crucial parts — its mast or its helm, say — when court reporter Chris Williams sails off into retirement. 

Chris has been at the paper for nearly 30 years. Roughly 20 years ago, he came over to the daily side to work on the court beat. And since I have always worked mainly covering crime, that meant Chris and I would be working closely together on two-pronged coverage of mischief and mayhem in our readership area. 

It worked out well from the start. Chris and I worked in such easy tandem, that somebody (I think it might have been me) deemed us “Law & Order.” I was Law, he was Order.

Or possibly it was the other way around; we never really did get that straight.

Advertisement

Chris is the best court reporter I’ve ever worked with. Where my approach to news has always been spastic and noisy, here was a guy who could slow things down and take a more analytical approach to a story. I would handle crime at the street level and Chris would take over once the dust settled and all the key players made their orange-clad marches into the court system. 

He also has an enormous talent for developing sources on his beat, and for maintaining the trust of those sources, whether they be clerks, lawyers, federal prosecutors or those who wear the robes and sit in the big chairs.

Chris has a remarkable knowledge of the law and almost spooky understanding of how the court system works. But to me, his most impressive attribute has always been one that I lack. Namely patience — patience of the type required to develop long and analytical stories, like the powerful piece titled “Caged in van No. 1304”, the grim story of a young woman’s hellish ride through the prisoner transport system in 2017.  

The story of Meghan Quinn’s rough ride, in my view, was one that should have won ALL the awards that year. And Chris wrote a lot of stories like that. 

I could croon all day about the man’s journalistic talents, but since I’m here mainly for selfish reasons, I’ve got to tell you this: For 20 years, Chris has been my closest work friend. He was the guy I’d call if I was having annoying trouble with the editors or if I’d lost an important source on a story I was hot to write. 

Sometimes, Chris would stop by my house on his way home just so we could stand in my hot driveway and grouse about all the aggravations that come with our chosen profession.  

Advertisement

We have inside jokes that nobody else in the world would understand. That close working relationship has caused us to develop our own language, in a way; our own way of wooing sources and sneaking around editors. 

Chris was my work bud, and I suspect that all of you understand how important work buds are. Without them, we’d go mad from our daily toil, and that applies to all professions. 

So, the newspaper is losing a skilled reporter and I’m losing a pal and a confidant — and this just three years after the passing of the irreplaceable sports writer Randy Whitehouse who was likewise a crucial part of my Sun Journal experience. 

Another plank ripped off the ship and chucked into a pile and here I am still wondering: Is this place I work for day after day still the Sun Journal? How can it possibly be, after so many of its key parts have been swapped out or eliminated entirely? 

It’s a pointless thing to ponder, I suppose. No ship, no matter how grand, can sail forever. High seas and rough weather will take their toll, but mainly it is time that does it in eventually. Time and change will come for us all eventually and we either whine about it, like I’m doing here, or we roll with the punches and get used to sailing aboard the new ship, whatever they happen to be calling it these days. 

It’s not that I hate change of all kinds, really it isn’t.

I just wish there wasn’t so damn much of it lately.

Sun Journal reporters Mark LaFlamme, left, and Chris Williams, have drastically opposing styles who nonetheless have worked well together for more than 20 years. Staff photo

Join the Conversation

Please sign into your Sun Journal account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe. Questions? Please see our FAQs.

filed under: