One Call Away

I piled the 8-year-olds into our trusty Honda Pilot for the 7:30 a.m. run to their Saturday futsal (soccer) game and backed out of the drive. I took a sip of coffee—hoping it would magically turn the cold and gray January weather to 70 and sunny.

It didn’t work.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. The always irrepressible twins were chatting happily about the lives of their stuffed animals—and everything that had already happened to them this morning. I smiled. That felt better.

Absent-mindedly, I turned on the radio. In no time, a yell came from the third row, “Turn it up!”

Like a trained monkey, I punched the volume button on my steering wheel.

“Higher!”

I hit it a couple more times and listened as the twin’s tried to out-yell and match pitch with what I learned later was pop singer Charlie Puth.

“I’m only one call away. I’ll be there to save the day. Superman got nothing on me. I’m only one call away.”

The song is pretty repetitive and—like all pop songs—very catchy. I quickly found myself joining the fun. The song ended about the time we pulled into the Hive—our soccer association’s indoor facility. The girls bounced out of the car, jacked from the ride and ready to play some futsal. I felt better, too. Somehow the weather wasn’t quite as cold or gray.

Later, as I watched my girls give up eight goals (literally—they’re not destined to be goalies) and smile and laugh through the whole game, I found myself humming, “I’m only one call away. I’ll be there to save the day. Superman got nothing on me.”

It struck me. This is exactly what all of us here at PRB are trying to do for you. For 17 years (yikes), we’ve been publishing your stories of success and failure hoping they help you make better decisions for your community.

This month, we’re taking that process one step further. We’re launching brand-new websites (built on Twitter’s web technology) that integrate the best of search with our 17 years of content. To make it accessible to anybody on your staff, anywhere in the world, we’re releasing a new FREE mobile app (available on all platforms).

To make sure we’re always communicating according to your wishes, we’ve also upgraded all our core, back-end technology—so, if you have a moment, visit parksandrecbusiness.com/subscribe and update your preferences.

In the end, our goal is to make sure the information you need to do your job is only “one call away”—or maybe one search away.

Have a great month!

Rodney J. Auth

Publisher