It’s moving day for DCI!

Today’s the day! It’s the day we, the staff of the Dodge County Independent, move to our new location at 301 South Mantorville Ave. Suite 200, a.k.a. the old Shopko building.

We chose the location right next to Clem’s Cups & Cones for obvious reasons. (I know, no one was thinking of an ice cream cone last week when we were invaded by a Polar Vortex. But, summer’s coming!)

Word has it that the business on the other side of our suite will be a credit union from Austin.

I started shuttling things from my office over last Thursday.

The rest of the office will, hopefully, settle into their new digs today and tomorrow.

It will be strange to leave Main Street, but I look at it this way, for years, the DCI was on First Street. It was only in the last five years that we occupied the corner of Main and Second.

As I sort through the tons of three-ring binders, I have noticed Randy Carlson’s careful sorting of photos he captured while publisher and the CD’s he saved them on.

We’ve made culling our files, file cabinets and old statements a priority. Saving tax information beyond seven years seems more like clutter than being careful.

I’ve been trudging back and forth to the new location to visualize the progress being made by the sheetrock/taping crew, ceiling tile installers and heat and AC installers.

After each visit there was a lump in my throat, wondering if the workers would have our niche ready in time.

Let’s put it this way, we have everything we need either in our unit or stored in a short-term storage unit in the back of the building. (Having moved my family over multiple times, I thought it would be the practical way to move, rather than sorting things out in the office while trying to publish the next issue of the DCI and ADvantage.)

When things get settled and we’ve had a chance to catch our breath, we’ll have an open house and invite everyone to stop by for a quick look.

Looking back one year, my first year at the DCI, we were just being told that a pandemic was on its way to the U.S. from China. We were one of the businesses among those that was considered essential and we kept the doors open.

And now, as COVID-19 heads into a second year we’re moving this “essential business” to a new location. I hope it’s a sign of things to come…a new day without the coronavirus shutting things down.

WORK

What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it.

Mark Twain