Adults on the other hand quit on the second or third try and are usually told they can’t do it, or demoralized in some way.

Recently, the Lassen County Times has made some errors in some important news stories. We took the information given to us by reliable sources and trusted it. In one sense it was not wrong but misidentified. Unfortunately some grieving individuals in town decided the best way to handle the error was to call me and scream at me and call me names rather than listen to me.

Truthfully, I can’t excuse the mistake to the caller. He would not have heard reason. He was too upset and angry and to him we tried to hurt him and deliberately wanted to wrong the memory of his friends.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Misidentifying photos was an innocent mistake that happened in the middle of another tragic incident, and I took my source’s word for it. I am sure my source was confident he got the right information, but in his grieving mind things got twisted. I know that I have forgotten people’s names when introducing them — people I have known for a long time. I remember when I was in the stages of grief, my mind went blank on occasion. It’s not an excuse, just fact.

Once the paper is published, I can’t fix the error. I can only fix it the next week, which I did do.

From what I have been told, the man who chose to use an angry voice and words on the phone is new to the area and isn’t familiar neither with the people in this county nor with the paper.

I hope he learns quickly that we are a giving community that rallies around each other in the hard times and in the fun times. I hope he learns that when one of us is hurting we all hurt. I hope he learns that the paper is Lassen County’s community friend that reports the good and the bad and sometimes it makes mistakes but it always tries to fix what it can and set the record straight.

To the family and friends of the three men who died in the helicopter crash, especially those who know the reporters, you know we would never go out of our way to cause you more pain and suffering. We made an honest mistake. Forgive us and accept our apology and take the reprint of the photo, cut it out and save it along side the incorrect one. Maybe someday it will bring a smile to your face. From what I know of the three men who died, they all had a sense of humor.

To the man who called me, I hope we meet someday and you can see that the paper is filled with caring people who take the news of this town seriously but that we are human too.