After 42 years, it's time to go

They call these things "farewell columns," but I don't like the term very much. It implies some grandiose bon voyage. Me? I'm just packing up my stuff and acceping the best wishes of my fellow writers and editors, with a potluck event thrown in here and there.

Even so, I have but two days left in my long newspaper career, so I thought I'd wrap it up briefly, while giving you an update on what's happening here and what the future may hold for newspapers. (And, yes, I think they have a future in one form or another.)

I turned 63 in May. Earlier this year, when The Times offered a generous and voluntary buyout to all full-time employees with 10 years of service or more, I easily qualified. That buyout, plus The Times' retirement plan - which is entirely company-paid, by the way - seemed to give me the chance to drop the curtain on the work I've done for 42 years.

It was also a chance to bow out under promising circumstances. I'm not exactly young, but my wife, Darlene, and I share a whole range of outdoor interests, including hiking, bicycling and paddling. She has been the center of my life for almost 40 years. Now we plan to do more things, and spend more time, together.

We have three adult children. We're enormously proud of all of them, and we intend to spend more time with them, too. Then there are the five grandchildren, and one more is on the way. Darlene and I are thoroughly smitten with them, and one of my tasks this summer is to follow (read: chase) the 2-year-old-boys around when the need arises.

Long career, short version

For anyone interested, here are my 42 years in brief:

I started when I was 20, worked here during my last two years of undergraduate school at UAH. I went to graduate school (both my degrees are in English) at the University of Connecticut. After grad school, I spent a year-and-a-half as editor of a small Connecticut daily....