We get a lot of suggestions and requests at the Niagara Falls Reporter, ranging from the intriguing to the physically impossible.

One from the first category came in a few weeks back, when a Boy Scout official e-mailed the office to see if an Eagle Scout could tag along with one of us as part of an annual Career Day. Being the shamelessly community-minded, do-gooding newspaper that we are, we quickly agreed.

In the weeks leading up to the big day, mentioning our participation drew one of two responses, either a wide-eyed "You guys?" or a simple eye-roll that conveyed the same reaction.

True, spending the day with a 15-year-old automatically precluded visiting many of the haunts where some of our choicest news tidbits are gathered. And our business doesn't normally involve a rigid schedule of repetitive activity. But after a little thought, I came up with a schedule that would give the young would-be journalist a reasonable representation of a day in the life.

As suggested in a pamphlet provided by the Boy Scouts, I tried to give him a sampling of all aspects of the business. The main event was to be reporting on the proposed federal requirement that all U.S. citizens have a passport or newfangled ID card to re-enter the country from Canada. We'd make the rounds of local businesses that would be impacted by the change and talk to tourists at the Niagara Falls State Park.

Or so I thought.

Shortly before leaving to pick up my charge, Charles Hardenburg, I checked my e-mail and noticed a story on the Web site of Another Paper headlined "Senate OKs delay in border pass," which explained that implementation of the program would be pushed back until at least 2009.

So much for that story.

Which provided the day's first lesson -- there aren't many sure things in this line of work, and you have to be able to, as Publisher Bruce Battaglia likes to say, hit the curve ball.

Charles and I got acquainted on the drive from Williamsville, where he lives, to Niagara Falls. He's finishing his freshman year of high school and said an interest in politics led him to consider a career in journalism.

I told him that it's not a field you get into in hopes of getting rich quick, or getting rich at all, but that it supplies other sorts of satisfaction. Like meeting people you'd otherwise never run across. And getting to spend much of your working life doing something you enjoy. And, once in a while, feeling like you've made a difference.

I also explained that the day wouldn't include the single most time-consuming part of being a journalist, since watching me sit in front of a computer screen for hours, resisting the urge to throw it against a wall while trying to birth a column, wouldn't make for a very compelling spectator sport.

Once in the Falls, we stopped to see Kim at Jaco's on Buffalo Avenue, one of the Reporter's fine advertisers. I took Charles to our office, where he met Bruce and Design Editor Margaret Coghlan, who explained the process of creating our ads and merging them with the stories and photos arrayed by Senior Editor Rebecca Day.

"You never really get bored, because there's always something new going on," Margaret told him, perfectly capturing the appeal of the business.

Then it was time for what any honest journalist will say is the cornerstone of the industry -- lunch. In order to ensure that Charles got an authentic Niagara Falls experience, we took him to Gadawski's Fighting Irish Tavern on East Falls Street, where Eddie gave him the same warm welcome he's been bestowing on customers for more than half a century, along with the place's trademark fish fry.

After lunch, we headed to the library, where we talked about the role of research and the importance of the seemingly mundane basics -- making sure of spellings, dates and street names for yourself, and not relying on someone else's word. Particularly if you find those words on the Internet.

Being a reporter is sort of like having a license to be nosy, I told Charles. To demonstrate, we stopped by One Niagara and got a tour of the complete makeover the building's owner, Frank Parlato, is giving the ground floor of the former Occidental Chemical headquarters, converting office space into a tourist center occupied by a variety of local restaurateurs and merchants.

After returning to the library to retrieve a notebook I'd left behind (another lesson -- always keep your notebook close), we drove up the Robert Moses Parkway to see the power plant, returning via Main Street for an up-close look at what decades of economic decline can do to a city.

At the other end of town, we toured the Love Canal neighborhood. Though the environmental nightmare there made headlines before Charles was born, he was familiar with the name and the story.

The day went quickly, at least for me, and with a dinner scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in Hamburg, we headed south along the Niagara River, stopping in Buffalo to talk to business owners who would be displaced by a proposed hotel at the corner of Forest Avenue and Elmwood Avenue.

Back in the car on the way to the dinner, I told Charles that I hoped the relatively uneventful day hadn't made him reconsider his interest in journalism.

"No," he said. "It made me want to do it more."

That was good to hear, an affirmation that gathering news the old-fashioned way can still interest a teenager in a world of high-definition video games and on-demand media. And spending a day explaining what I do reminded me of how fortunate I am.

Welcome aboard, Charles. We need all the help we can get.

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When anyone asks me, "How's the baby?" I tell them, "Hardly a baby anymore."

Our son, Jackson, celebrated his third birthday last week, adding a tractor to his growing fleet of pedal-driven vehicles and getting a slide for the back yard that he never seems to get tired of.

He already comes up to my beltline, and his sense of humor is growing just as rapidly, maybe the most important quality I could wish upon him.

Though he qualifies for little-boy status in just about every way, I guess he's still technically our baby. At least until late September, when what medical science tells us will be his little brother is due to arrive.

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David Staba is the sports editor of the Niagara Falls Reporter. He welcomes e-mail at dstaba13@aol.com.