Jud Snyder - Rohnert Park Journalist and Friend
Judson F. Snyder - August 12, 1925-March 3, 2018
By Irene Hilsendager
As I sit writing this, I am very sad because as of March 5, 2018 I lost a dear friend of thirty years. He was intelligent, stubborn but had a great wit about him. So, these words will reflect what his friendship meant to me.
Jud and I met in 1988 in a very small storefront that was the office of the old Clarion newspaper located on Southwest Blvd. in Rohnert Park. Since it was a little office with partitions some offices didn’t have connecting doors, so in order to get to Jud’s office I would have to leave the circulation office, step onto gravel and usually mud, to enter a side door next to Jud’s desk. His usual greeting was “What do you want?” I didn’t know if I should call him Mr. Snyder, Judson or Jud as we had not been properly introduced.
Shortly thereafter, the Clarion moved to a very small office on Professional Center Drive just a few miles north where Jud would typeset, write his columns and be a regular newshound. He was always seen at every city hall meeting, ribbon cutting and likened the library to his second home. As long as his wife Pauline was able to get around, he would drive her to different libraries - they were a great pair. Jud being very tall and Pauline being just a little bitty thing.
Having such a long friendship, we did have screaming matches at times. He would say, “Where did you go to school? You can’t do that, haven’t I shown you enough times?” “What did you do with the examples I gave you?” I would go home and tell my husband how Jud and I would interact and my husband, John always said, “if you want to work with him, just agree and nod your head.” After a few months, we depended on each other for where the best events would be in the city and who would have the best spread (food).
After Jud became editor of The Community Voice, we worked extremely close together, by that I mean, we settled in a room that was about 10 X 10 in size and one small desk and Jud’s large desk with a copy machine. The printer was almost sitting in my lap. At that time Jud still had a very hard time fighting with a computer. If I had a quarter for every time I had to show him how to save a file or send an email, I would be a very rich gal. I used to get very frustrated with him. We would get press releases and he would type them up on his computer and then delete it. He was supposed to send them by email to the editor, Bill Lynch at the Sonoma Index-Tribune or to me to copy edit but relentlessly deleted each and every one. Then because he thought I knew so much about computers, he would say just re-type it and give it to Sonoma. Frustration was not the word I usually said, but I laugh to this day how many times I had to re-do items or look for an article on his computer because he didn’t hit save.
Politics will never be the same for Rohnert Park.
Jud held the city council to the fire at all times. He loved Tuesday evenings (city council nights) as he would be able to have his coffee and his beloved sweets before each meeting. Some of the old council members would say, “If we didn’t have coffee here, Jud would never show up for the meeting.” Many of the retired and even some of the present council people had many arguments with Jud. Most of the time it was, we will agree to disagree.
I believe that after his beloved Pauline died, Jud did not lose heart for the newspaper, but he lost his companion and became very lonely. Books and his pen and ink drawings were his love.
I will miss the Monday and Tuesday phone calls, when he would say, “My computer has a virus, get over here to fix it so I can do the weekly column.” Well, the funny part of it is that Jud did not have internet and so there was no way he could pick up a virus. Usually, I would stop on my way home from work and give a little knock on the door, push it open and say, “Hey what did you do again to the computer?” His curt answer would be, “Nothing I just hit the button here and nothing happens.” Of course, he was combining two or three files together without knowing what he was doing, but it was always very comical, most of the time it really was just some cracker crumbs and liquid spilled into the keyboard.
When it came the time where Jud was having trouble walking, it was very sad to see a volunteer driving him somewhere and he would just sit in the car. I know that it hurt him deeply not to be able to come into the office and literally bellow, “Irene, you cannot re-write my column.” I would just smile and say yes, Jud, I won’t.” but by that time Jud’s memory was getting a little hazy but while copying and editing, I would slip in a word that I knew he wanted to use. My heart would go out to him. My husband lived seven years with Alzheimer’s, so I knew how hard it was for the both of them.
