Mahan Nekoui with stacks of The Reckoner’s first print issue.
That’s it for the year, I suppose. Chairs up, lights off, doors closed. For us at the paper, it’s been a frenzy. We’ve spent hours writing, drawing, photographing, editing, arranging, and discussing. There have been more than a few late nights. But the memories that stay with us aren’t of any of these: they’re of distribution day. That’s the best part of working with the paper: seeing the school laugh with you, reflect with you, agree with you, disagree with you…think with you. All on distribution day.
And today’s my last one. You’re holding the final issue of The Reckoner’s first print volume. “It begins,” I wrote two years ago, and this is the end of that beginning. It’s been a struggle and a pleasure, and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my time at Garneau.
“Because we separate / like ripples on a blank shore.”
Thom Yorke sings those lines in a song called “Reckoner”. A reckoner is someone who makes conclusions based on calculation. As for the ripples, nothing can keep us from our own paths. But if, even for a moment, this newspaper has helped you see that we are all part of the same wave, then our shore is no longer blank, and The Reckoner has served its purpose.
I hope you enjoy this year’s last issue. Your school newspaper will be back in September.
Mahan Nekoui
Editor-in-Chief
I’ll probably not have a better opportunity to extend my thanks one last time:
to Ms. Brown, whose love of the aesthetic has remained with the paper to this day;
to Mr. van Bemmel: I hope to be as much of a steam engine as you are;
to Mr. Santolin, for helping in times of trouble;
to Ms. Speirs, for enduring the madness;
to Ms. Goldenberg and Ms. Mazzaferro, for their remarkably open minds;
to Soheil Koushan, whose partnership I wouldn’t trade for the world;
to Kasra Koushan, whose leadership I don’t doubt for a second;
and to the second guard of The Reckoner. This is your day.
