When I first proposed to the inimitable Darby Ruth Cornelius back in 2010, I told her she shouldn’t expect me to ever make much money, because I was and — God willing — always would be a journalist, and, as a rule, we’re paid peanuts.

That, as much as any other anecdote I can think of, tells you what it’s like to be a journalist.

I’ve been asked many times what it’s like, and it can be a hard question to answer. Because this job is wonderful and exhilarating and boring and awful and stressful and fascinating and almost any other adjective you can pull out of a thesaurus.

Journalism is like spending six full, eight-hour days holed up in a courthouse conference room, living off of coffee and beef jerky from the gas station up the road, poring over literally thousands of bills from court-appointed defense attorneys in an attempt to gauge how much effort those underpaid lawyers put into their cases.

I always felt bad for the journalism students Michigan State University sent over to the State Journal to shadow us. Newspapering is a lot of spreadsheets and document-reading. It’s exciting when you know the stories you’re going to write at the end of those numbers, but it’s gotta be dull to watch.

Journalism is like driving through a snowstorm over to Grand Rapids to watch Larry Nassar be sentenced on child pornography charges in federal court. Arriving hours early to make sure you can get a good parking spot early enough to get to the courthouse early enough to get a good seat in the courtroom. It is sitting there listening to horror stories in a room full of feverish journalists and heartbreakingly emotional victims, expecting to write your story on a laptop in the parking garage and make it back home in time for dinner, only to learn that several press conferences have been called and instead of going home you have to walk up and down and all around downtown Grand Rapids for several hours, collecting quotes from lawyers and more heartbreaking stories from victims.

Journalism is getting called in from vacation to chase down someone who might know something about a kid who got shot by police.

Lansing Township officers had fired through the rear window of a parked car and killed the young man sitting the passenger seat. Understandably, police said very little that first day. They said the dead man had been armed, but would not say whether the gun was ever brandished. Reporters all over the city were trying to find the answer.

One of the State Journal photographers had captured the license plate on the shot-up car, which we used to track down the owner. A couple of my colleagues had knocked on the door already, without luck, so my editor called me in to swing by for one more knock.

I was expecting another no-answer, a quick knock and a drive back home, but the woman answered the door and invited me inside. She owned the car and her boyfriend was driving when police shot their friend. She knew her boyfriend was at that very moment being interviewed by police, but, knew nothing more than I did.

I thanked her, and gave her my card, and was on my way out the door when her boyfriend burst in, yelling and swearing and vowing to take revenge on the police who’d killed his friend. I was still standing in his kitchen and he barely seemed to notice me as I started furiously writing notes.

Eventually, I was able to introduce myself and start asking questions, which he answered between more outbursts. He confirmed to me that his friend had pulled a pistol from his pocket — just to inform police he had it, the friend said — before police shot him.

We were only the ones who had that information in the next day’s paper.

Journalism is like the time I was afraid to drive even a little over the speed limit through a township neighboring Battle Creek because I’d written several stories questioning the legitimacy a tax the township had imposed — without a vote of the public — to fund the police department. Township leaders had assured the public the tax was needed just to keep the police they had, but then they created several new positions and one of the trustees who’d voted to impose the tax resigned from the board to take one of those new jobs.

Journalism is getting to ride in a hot-air balloon to cover the annual air show in Battle Creek, and having the chance to interview the lead singer of my favorite band (Art Alexakis, of Everclear), and getting to shake hands with Laura Bush.

Yes, this is a wonderful, awful, exhausting, amazing job. I still don’t make much money.

And I still can’t imagine doing anything else.

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-358-5686 or jhinkley@thealpenanews.com.