So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen

This column marks the end of my 13th year in this space.

It also marks the end of tenure as a writer for this paper. That’s right, this is my final column.

One of my favorite scenes in the novel “Tom Sawyer” is when he tricks the other boys into whitewashing the fence and even gets them to pay him for the privilege. At the end of that chapter, Mark Twain writes this: “...Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

When I decided to hang up my keyboard, this quote came to mind as to why. Writing has become something I have to do every week. Once I get started, I always enjoy my time unspooling my topic, but I promised myself when I began this job that I would stop either when I ran out of things to say or when it stopped being fun.

I told Eli that I can still picture the day I sat in my car across from the Star-Eagle offices, cogitating on whether or not I should go in and talk to Jim about filling this space that had been so capably taken care of by Jody and Betty before me. I told him I thought I could come up with things to write about for at least a year.

I considered leaving this post a year ago, but I got a burst of energy in the summer and had all kinds of things on my list on which to pontificate. My list still has three things on it, but the drive just isn’t there. We might never know what I would’ve written about eyesight, school pictures, or blue jeans.

Ooh, I just came up with another topic - why do we act strangely around famous people? Eh, still not enough to keep going, sorry.

I realize that over the course of the past year, I’ve started to slide some items off my overflowing plate. A year ago, I put down my trumpet for the last time; my lungs just don’t work the same since Covid. Earlier this year, I stepped down from the Quad Cities Baseball Association board after many years; it was time for others to steer youth baseball. And now my column. All of this is a bit freeing, I’ll admit.

As I developed a writing style in this space, I found myself more and more writing this as a sort of memoir for my kids and any future generations. I spend plenty of time using past events in my life to connect to the present. I hope that someday they might sit down and read through all 671 columns and get to know me a bit more. (If you count the 36 columns I wrote for the Owatonna People’s Press some time back, I guess that number increases to 707!)

If you’ve read this space from August 30, 2012, you’ve learned plenty of things. You’ve seen the size of my column grow from the 400 or so words Jim said he needed to usually 800-1,000 words. If you know me outside of this space, you’re aware that I’m never at a loss for words, so that shouldn’t surprise you.

When I started, Jayna was 10 and Anton was 7. I was getting ready to start my 17th year at NRHEG. Michelle was in her tenth year at Precision Signs. Now Jayna is starting her first teaching job, Anton can see the end of college in sight, Michelle’s time working in Austin is the same as our daughter’s age, and I’m almost done with three decades of teaching.

Here’s what you might have picked up over the years. I believe in what teachers do and will defend our profession to the very end. I despise standardized testing! 

I love my family. I’m super proud of what my children have done. And Michelle has been the best thing in my life; she is my lobster!

I am passionate about sports. While the Twins and Vikings are always near the top of my list, I love youth sports even more. The privilege I have to officiate and announce at sporting events is my very favorite way to spend free time.

Give me a good book and I’ll be happy. Suggest some good comic books to read and I’ll be even happier!

I won’t hesitate to tell you how I feel about topics that might be a bit controversial. I’ve written about gun control, religion, and politics in this space.

I’ve written things I regret. I’ve embarrassed myself. But I’ve always been honest with my readers, whether you agree with me or not. I’ve had some amazing discourses with people after some of my columns, even if we didn’t agree on matters. I’ve also gotten mail ripping me at times. 

Through it all, I have enjoyed interacting with my readers. I appreciate all of you for taking time each week to read through my musings. You may have enjoyed some and not others, but that’s all part of the title: I wrote about whatever flipped my waffle that week. 

I’m thankful to Jim for giving me a shot at this and to Eli for continuing to support whatever I placed on the page. I guess I’ll never reach the total number of writings of Mark Bernard and Al Batt and Bob Hanson, but I will keep reading and enjoying their columns.

Eli told me I was always welcome to return at any time. But I think that when one leaves a place they have been for a substantial amount of time, they should just do that and not look back.

In the book “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls,” Robert A. Heinlein wrote, “...it hurts less to write than it does not to write.” I guess I’ll find out if that’s true. Thank you for all your readership and support and even some disgust over the years. As George Costanza said in a memorable episode of Seinfeld, “That’s it! I’m outta here!”

Word of the Week: This week’s word is a callback to the word from my very first column, my favorite word of all time, defenestration, which means to throw someone or something out a window, as in, “The reader wanted to perform an act of defenestration when he found out his favorite column would no longer be written.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!