It’s often a mystery why people end up in the careers we do. In my case, there were a couple major factors.

Although my Grandpa Lafe Bell quit school at 14 to work in support of his parents and younger siblings, he was well read. He loved newspapers and subscribed to several, sometimes including the London Times and the Northern Echo, from his father’s hometown of Durham, England.

He collected newspapers that reported historic events — everything from our World War II victory and FDR’s inaugurations to JFK’s assassination and the first landing on the moon. I keep the tradition, with the first report in the New York Times of Princess Diana’s fatal accident and a front-page (and quickly discredited) report in the Portland Tribune about a signal being discovered from intelligent extraterrestrial life. All these papers fill a large box in my storeroom.

My mother and father were big newspaper readers, too, and our breakfast table was a riot of competing sections. I got my start with the funny pages and quickly graduated to politics.

But it was from my Uncle Tom Bell that I really caught the bug. The little newspaper he started and initially produced all by himself, High Country News, broke new ground by taking an overt advocacy role in promoting sensible conservation and land-use practices. It grew into an institution. Along with his other activities, it eventually resulted in him being named by the National Wildlife Federation as Conservationist of the Year, an honor he shares with former President Jimmy Carter, Robert Redford and other luminaries.

So when it came to choosing between his journalism path and my Dad’s in the law, I broke poor Daddy’s heart a little by following his brother-in-law’s path.

It always tickles me when I’m able to intersect with High Country News, as we did with our cover feature last week on the difficulties faced by Washington oyster workers and their employers as housing gets more and more expensive. If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out at www.chinookobserver.com/news/local/country-s-largest-shellfish-farm-struggling-to-hire-retain-workers/article_129bceee-458d-11ed-8936-1bff690172d1.html.

We have much of interest in this coming edition, including a big chunk of candidate coverage. Thanks as always for your support of the Chinook Observer, in which I aspire to live up to my uncle’s example.