The company that owns the Freeman was sold earlier this month. You may have heard about it; it was in all the newspapers.

Indeed, the sale seemed to attract more public attention than previous times when Freeman ownership changed hands. (More on that history in a moment.)

Maybe that was because the parent company was in bankruptcy for the second time in three years, prompting many in the public to expect us to go out of business as the latest casualty in what is often described as a dinosaur of an industry.

Maybe it was because there are more print, digital and broadcast outlets attempting to cover our community these days, some of which weren’t around to chronicle past sales.

Maybe it was because the sale coincided with negotiations with unions representing employees at our newspaper and others owned by the parent Journal Register Company. As typically occurs when unions (public and private sector) seek outside support in hopes of applying pressure on management, the unions expressed dissatisfaction about what they were facing at the bargaining table during talks with 21st CMH Acquisitions, soon-to-be new owner of Journal Register Company (and an affiliate of Alden Global Capital, the soon-to-be former owner).

I get it.

But here’s where I’m going to take on the persona of Father Time, as I’ve increasingly found myself doing over the last several years.

When you’ve worked at the same place for nearly 43 years, you get leather-skinned about the kinds of major business developments at your place of employment that you’ve experienced time and again in the past.

Put another way, while the sales of the Freeman’s parent companies and/or a resulting change in management are always unsettling for employees and a curiosity/concern for customers, it’s less so to the greybeards on the payroll.

I don’t mean to be cavalier about it. It’s a lot easier for me, someone who’s a lot closer to the end of a career than to a beginning or middle – and one who’s lived through it to tell the tale – to react with little more than raised eyebrows. No doubt the level of angst is elevated among my younger colleagues.

That said, before I tell you where I think the Freeman is and where it’s going, for some context, here’s a bit more on that aforementioned history, in abbreviated form.

The Rondout Daily Freeman was born in 1871. The owner -publisher was one Horatio Fowks. Over the next 20 years, what soon became the Kingston Daily Freeman was sold to S. D. Coykendall, then to Charles Marseilles, then back to Coykendall. The newspaper was losing money in 1891 when 25-year-old Jay Klock purchased it.

Klock ushered in what was considered the “modern era”, installing new presses, moving the operation into a building at the foot of Broadway (currently the home of Mariner’s Harbor restaurant) and making the kinds of improvements that saw its circulation grown from 3,000 to over 20,000.

After 45 years in charge, 70-year-old Klock died in 1936. For the next 30 years, the Freeman was run by his widow, Lucia.

(Yes, the Klocks were the namesakes of the Klock Foundation, which for decades has been a generous benefactor to a variety of worthy causes in the community.)

“Modern era No. 2” began in 1966 when the Freeman was purchased by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, two nationally known impresarios who’d made their fortunes producing TV game shows like “The Price is Right”, “I’ve Got a Secret”, “Match Game”, “To Tell the Truth” and “What’s My Line?”, among others.

The sale coincided with the onset of larger companies purchasing family-owned newspapers. Newspaper families made large sums of money and the companies immediately realized big profits and considerable influence. Today, it takes a bit of searching to find a daily newspaper that is still family-owned.

Goodson and Todman purchased what they were to call the Daily Freeman (Kingston was dropped from the flag) and other similar-sized newspapers in the Northeast. The Freeman now was part of a “chain,” albeit a small one, managed by noted journalist Ralph Ingersoll. (Ingersoll had invented a short-lived publication called PM in the late 1930s. Some look back on it today as USA Today decades before its time.)

Ingersoll’s son, Ralph II, later came on board to manage the Goodson-Todman properties, as well as a number of other newspapers that he purchased, all of which fell under the umbrella of Ingersoll Publications Company.

In 1989, Goodson (Todman had died several years before) ended his management agreement with Ingersoll and formed the Goodson Newspaper Group for the newspapers he wholly owned.
Goodson died three years later, but his newspaper company, inherited by his children, carried on until 1998, when it (including the Freeman) was sold to Journal Register Company.
Saddled with significant debt after a couple of huge acquisitions (including the Goodson deal), and faced with a severe downturn in the economy and the newspaper industry, Journal Register Company entered and quickly exited bankruptcy in 2009, with Alden as its new owner. Journal Register Company, still faced with huge debt, emerged from a late 2012 bankruptcy earlier this month, with yet another new owner (the aforementioned 21st CMH Acquisitions).

Yes, that was the abbreviated version of our history. It didn’t include the long line of CEOs, CFOs, VPs, publishers, department heads, etc., who have directly and indirectly influenced the Freeman over the years.

I’m guessing most of you who have read this far didn’t have any idea about how much was going on behind the scenes as long as your newspaper was delivered each day.

A statistic worth noting – and I offer it more to make a point about turnover than to pat myself on the back – is that my 25-year tenure as Freeman publisher was longer than anyone else in the newspaper’s history besides Jay and Lucia Klock. (You are likely aware that I stepped aside as publisher last August and took on the role of publisher emeritus. Jan Dewey now publishes the Freeman and Journal Register Company’s New York newspapers in Saratoga Springs, Troy and Oneida.)

So what’s the point? Oh, yes, the point.

Changes here aren’t new. The history above briefly describes the evolution in ownership. There were also many publishers and editors for whom I’ve worked since walking through the door as an idealistic 22-year-old in 1970: Dick Treat, Ralph Ingersoll II, Tom Geyer, Jim Plugh, Peter Barrecchia, Irwin Thomas, Charlie Tiano, Chazy Dowaliby, Rob Borsellino, Reg Gale, among others. And that roll call doesn’t cite the many corporate people to whom I have reported or the laundry list of adjustments and improvements we’ve made to the publication itself, not the least of which was becoming a 7-day morning paper instead of a 6-day afternoon paper.

Understandable internal and external anxiety aside, the sale of the Freeman’s parent company this month is business as usual for us. We have another new owner, new management, new procedures, and a reinforced commitment to digital publishing, which most observers agree is the future of our industry (and which Journal Register Company and its umbrella management group Digital First Media were spearheading long before many of our industry colleagues).

I’m betting on the Freeman being here long after I’m gone. In what form? If anybody in the newspaper business can tell you that for sure, they’re kidding themselves.

Who knows … maybe the parent company will be sold again. After all, it’s happened before.

Here's my Pat Summerall story.

I'm old enough to remember No. 88 place-kicking for the New York Football Giants (as we called them). Summerall wasn't a soccer-style kicker; he employed the straight away approach common until about a decade later.

And like the rest of you, I remember Summerall broadcasting with Tom Brookshier and then John Madden on NFL games, with Tony Trabert on U.S. Open tennis, and with Ken Venturi on pro golf events.

But I best recall the correspondence we exchanged when I was a kid.

Summerall had retired from football and was breaking into announcing as the sports guy on WCBS radio in New York. This was around 1962, when I was 14 and a relatively new, but already rabid New York Rangers hockey fan.

Back then, the prevailing wisdom was that the Rangers were of interest only to the 15,925 who routinely filled the old Madison Square Garden. So you could only find them on TV once a week, Saturday nights on Channel 11, with Win Elliott at the mike. ("He's shilly-shallying the puck!") If the Rangers played an afternoon game, it would air via tape-delay in the evening.

Radio? Get this: WCBS broadcast the last six minutes of the first period, the last six minutes of the second period, then all of the third period. Hard to imagine today.

So I wrote Summerall a letter complaint. And he replied!

It matters little what he said -- something about sympathizing, but not being able to do anything about it.

What did impress this 14-year-old was that he answered. He opened my no doubt near-incomprehensible letter, read it and fashioned a reply.

You have to understand what it was like back then to open your mailbox in the lobby of your Bronx apartment building. You expected to retrieve your parents' bills. Instead you found a personal letter to you, with the CBS logo as the return address, and with a note actually signed by a big time sports guy, which Summerall definitely was in New York, long before he became a national TV star.

Summerall could do no wrong from then on.

In reading his obituaries this week, I was pleased to discover he was widely considered a good guy, in addition to being a great announcer. He battled substance abuse and emerged an even better man.
That was the Pat Summerall I "knew".

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Odds and ends:

* As long as I'm playing geezer, please note that I'm one of those baby boomers who ran home from school each day to watch "The Mickey Mouse Club", particularly to see the Mouseketeers, featuring Annette (who also was a part of one of my favorite serials, "Spin and Marty". Annette (we later learned her last name was Funicello) died last week at age 70. Many of us who grew up with her have been feeling a lot older since then.

* When Wolf Blitzer is on CNN, I'm changing the channel. Sorry, Wolf, I "exclusively" won't "stand by."

* Question I didn't hear asked in the wake of that recent Rutgers men's basketball brouhaha: Where were the beat reporters who covered Rutgers all that time when coach Mike Rice was abusing his players? You mean nobody knew what was going on? Reporters either covered-up, or didn't have their arms wrapped about the team about which they were supposed to know all the ins and outs. Either possibility is troubling.

* If you like "60 Minutes" on CBS and you're into sports, you'll also like "60 Minutes Sports" on Showtime. Same people, same format, same strong journalism.

* Here's what I know about Dr. Oz: Oprah made him famous and I get way too much junk email from him. Hey, doc, for my health, cut out the spam.

* Happy for the local guy, Jimmy Fallon of Saugerties, who'll be the next host of "The Tonight Show", replacing Jay Leno. Still bummed out that David Letterman, the best of the later-nighters post-Johnny Carson, wasn't selected instead of the decidedly bland Leno when Carson retired.

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I haven't forgotten to write about the recent sale of the Freeman's parent company. I'll do that in this space next week.

- If you watched Friday's "Real Time With Bill Maher" on HBO, you likely were impressed by the passion and irreverence of a former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner named Charlie LeDuff, who talked about troubled times in the city of Detroit. I was in the audience for the program in Los Angeles (broadcast from the CBS Television City studio that's home to "The Price Is Right" game show). Unfamiliar with LeDuff going in, I deemed him the star of the show going out. Come to learn that LeDuff has a reputation for being quite a character in Detroit, the latest example being his being intoxicated and involved in a brawl after urinating in public on Sunday at a St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm guessing it won't hurt his brand.

- Everybody has an airplane story. Here's my latest: Decided to fly to Los Angeles starting from Stewart in Newburgh. It's a short puddle jumper (propellers, no less) to Philadelphia, followed by a non-stop flight to LAX. My concern had been that the first flight would arrive too late for me to make the connection. No problem. The Philly plane was delayed three hours for maintenance (at one point it was supposed to be a 5-hour wait). That's three hours of quality time in the Philly airport - and I couldn't find a cheese steak. The return trip departed LAX on time Sunday, but was about a half-hour late landing in Philly (for reasons that weren't clear). That left us about a half-hour to exit the plane, run across a terminal to get a shuttle bus which had to go from one end of the airport to the other, then run through a second terminal to get on the Stewart flight. We missed it by six minutes. (You mean US Airways couldn't have waited, particularly when it knew it had passengers connecting from a flight that was late, but on the ground?) Since I had to be in the office for meetings on Monday morning, I was already thinking about renting a car to finish the trip, since I figured the limited number of flights would make it unlikely I'd get an instant rebooking. But, no, there was one last Stewart-bound puddle jumper in four hours. The tally for this trip, approximately 7 hours in the air each way, 7 hours on the ground in Philly (and one more prior to the first outbound flight at Stewart). The moral: Despite being farther away from home, it's back to flying non-stop in and out of JFK next time.

- Made it to a Los Angeles Kings hockey game. First time in the sparkling Staples Center. Great place.



- Celebrity sightings (large and small): Vince Vaughn, Matthew Perry, David Hartman, Jon Hamm, Franklin Ajaye, the cast of "Shake It Up" (a Disney show on which my daughter-in-law, Jessica Replansky, is the costume designer), Mario Lopez and Maria Menounous.

- Best "celebrity" (seen in the accompanying photo): my grandson, Dylan James Fusfeld.

So what did I think of the Oscars?

Funny you should ask.

Besides it being too long -- isn't it always? -- and despite the fact that most of the awards are of interest only to those in the film industry, I thought this year's event was injected with a healthy dose of inventiveness, making it a refreshing change from the recent past.

Most of the day-after water cooler chatter had to do with host Seth MacFarlane.

(A disclaimer: I met MacFarlane when my son was a writer on his animated sit-com "American Dad" and I watched him work several times at "table reads," where the cast performs a script for the first time. He's funny, likable and extremely talented. So let's just say I was inclined to enjoy his Oscar performance even before the first joke.)

Here's what you have to understand about MacFarlane and the Oscars: He was hired in large part because of his appeal to young males, a demographic the aging Oscars show needed to attract to the broadcast. (TV ratings did rise overall and in that category.) And he was selected because the producers wanted what MacFarlane could deliver: the kind of edginess that has helped make his three Fox comedies ("Family Guy" and "The Cleveland Show" are the two) and his movie "Ted" popular, plus his ability to sing standards in the manner of old Hollywood. In short, MacFarlane is a younger, hipper Billy Crystal, a perennial Oscar favorite.

So MacFarlane performed as advertised, something he parodied in a bit-too-long opening routine anticipating him being called the worst Oscars host ever (with which many on Twitter during the show and in the press afterwards were in agreement).

Here's the equation: Past Oscars shows have been considered predictable and, yes, boring. Bring in an irreverent performer and turn him loose. Then duck when spitballs from an offended peanut gallery come flying.

Jokes about breasts, domestic violence and Jews in Hollywood drew the predictable screams of foul from some individuals and special interest groups.

(Meanwhile, the "In Memoriam" segment, something with which MacFarlane wasn't involved, produced anger among Hispanics for the omission of an actress they thought was snubbed. (Days before the Oscars there were reports about "In Memoriam" being such a hotly contested segment, given the guarantee of many exclusions, that the names of those who decide who's in and who's out are closely guarded secret, lest they be subjected to backlash.)

What all this says to me is that there's no tougher "room" than the Oscars, both in the theater and on TV. When you look up "no-win situation" in the dictionary, there's Oscar.

Hey, it's supposed to be entertainment, all in good fun, from the movie capital of the world, no less. Lighten up. If the Seth MacFarlanes of the business are scared away from hosting future Oscars, we'll get more shows hosted by the likes of Ann Hathaway and James Franco. Remember when they had the gig? Yikes.

If you want to know what disappointed me most about this year's show, it was that other than the electrifying performance of "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey, the James Bond tribute highlight reel was pedestrian stuff. I'd hoped that all the James Bonds would do a walk-on -- Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. It's been speculated that both Connery and Brosnan weren't interested in attending.

* As one who's in remission from a different kind of blood cancer, I'm heartened by Robin Roberts' amazing recovery from a life-threatening disease and subsequent return to morning TV today. That said, I've never been a fan of Roberts, dating back to her days at ESPN. Meanwhile, don't tell me ABC didn't exploit Roberts' condition to milk ratings.

* Speaking of morning TV, if NBC named David Gregory to permanently replace Matt Lauer, the "Today" program would be significantly improved. Gregory's been filling in for Lauer the last couple of days. He's been sharp, funny and likable, and he meshes well with co-host Savannah Guthrie, who has been a big upgrade over Ann Curry.

* Give credit to those who had the guts to speak up for the state's gun law at last night's Ulster County Legislature meeting at UPAC. It couldn't have been easy given the hecklers and boo-birds they encountered in the large crowd.

* I'm looking forward to Seth MacFarlane hosting the Oscars, but I suspect if he sticks to his irreverent "Family Guy", "Ted", "American Dad", "Cleveland Show" humor, the core audience in Hollywood and in Middle America will be upset. If one-time host David Letterman's relatively mild "Uma ... Oprah" was panned in 1994, MacFarlane doesn't have a chance. Hope I'm wrong.

* My wife's out of town. Thank goodness for the hot food and salad bar offerings at Adams.

* I have three email addresses, one of which attracts an endless stream of spam, which I immediately trash without opening. I'm guessing I'm not alone, thus the question: Does anyone read this stuff and, if not, why do spammers continue to send it?

* I don't much like politics, but in my next life I'm coming back as a political consultant so I can get a lucrative contract from a cable channel in between elections.

* Phil Mushnick's New York Post column is a must-read, particularly when he's keeping tabs of the overrated, overexposed, overbearing sports radio talker Mike Francesa. Today's piece is a perfect example:

Even by Mike Francesa’s transparent and hilariously haughty standards, he has been on a spectacular run. A few highlights:

Tuesday, his superior expertise and extensive inside knowledge of all college football and NFL matters allowed him to predict Louisville QB Teddy Bridgewater will be “the steal of the [this year’s] draft,” adding he could go earlier than Southern Cal QB Matt Barkley.

But Al Alburquerque has as good a chance to be drafted. As a “true sophomore,” Bridgewater is not even eligible for the NFL draft. Oh, well.

Then there was his “interview” with Dick Vermeil, more an opportunity for Francesa to tell Vermeil how much he knows about football and to tell listeners how he and Vermeil have been pals for years.

Late in the chat, Vermeil, ostensibly the fellow who was being interviewed, interrupted Francesa with, “I don’t mean to interrupt.” Classic.

Then there were Francesa’s chronic problems with straight addition math as applied to his football picks. Francesa always loses track of his losing picks, when he has merely misplaced them — over there in the “win” column.

Heck last year he claimed to have picked the Giants to cover in Super Bowl XLII when, in fact, he picked the Patriots to crush the Giants.

Even this NFL postseason — 11 games, easy to track — the simple math threw him. He claimed to have finished “6-4 or 7-3,” but as truth-tracker Gary Lewbel chronicled, Francesa was 5-5-1. Yes, even the smallest, most foolish matters fuel his egomania. Hey, 5-5-1 — for you, Mike? — that’s fabulous!

And there was his expert tout that this Super Bowl’s ratings would be poor. Leave it to Mikey! It’s now believed to be the third most-viewed TV program in U.S. history.

Which brings us to next year’s Super Bowl, at PSL Stadium. Francesa already has authoritatively ensured us that the weather here on Feb. 2 will not be an issue.

And that can mean only one thing: The Great Super Bowl Blizzard of 2014 is just 51 weeks away!

* If you use the Tappan Zee Bridge and you have a strong stomach, make sure you read this story from New York Magazine. Even if you're not of the faint of heart and keeping traversing the Tappan Zee, you'll grip the wheel harder each time you do, praying your trip isn't the one during which the span collapses.

* My Ed Koch story: The state newspapers publishers were conducting their convention in Manhattan, 1998, I believe. I was the chairman of the board and introduced the guest speakers. Even though he'd been out of office for years, you couldn't do an event like this one in New York City without inviting the outspoken Koch. He didn't disappoint. I remember telling Koch that as a New York City native, I appreciated what he had done to inject new energy and spirit in a city that really needed it after the financial crisis of the Abe Beame years. Koch was gracious in accepting the praise (which he no doubt believed was earned and probably not effusive enough), and he even seemed to like the commemorative golf shirts each guest received (although I'm guessing that if he wore it, it wasn't on the golf course). Koch was a character in many ways, outspoken and often politically incorrect. But he loved his city and was a "public servant" in the finest meaning of the phrase. At his funeral this morning, as the coffin was being removed from the temple, the organist played "New York, New York". That says it all, no?

* I almost made it through the day without watching any of the Super Bowl, which is my annual goal (mostly fulfilled since I left the sports department). But that darn power outage at the Superdome screwed it up, because the office emailed me with a question about moving back our press time to get the result in today's paper so I needed to see how far along the game had progressed. As it was, we had arranged for a special press time (an hour later than normal), so the Super blackout created an unanticipated situation. The decision was to start the press at the pre-determined 10:30 p.m. without the final score, then stop it and send a new lead sports page once the game was over. Shortly after 11 p.m. the updated page was sent. Thus, the final score wound up in just over half of today's copies. As for why I don't watch the game (or its endless prelims), it's a habit I've stubbornly adhered to all these year, mostly to be different. Not sure what that says about me. Calling Dr. Phil!

* By the way, the movie I recorded to watch instead of the Super Bowl was 2006's "The Black Dahlia". Bad choice. I really like Los Angeles film noirs (think "LA Confidential"), but this one fell short.

* Radio daze: WAMC (90.9 FM Kingston) is fund-raising again (1-800-323-9252). I'm on the station's board and a regular on its "Media Project" program, so you know where my heart is regarding Northeast Public Radio. Meantime, my standard first-Tuesday-of-the-month visit to Kingston Community Radio (WGHQ 92 AM) comes up at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow. Give me a call at (845-331-9255). I'll be on until 8 a.m.