Its official. Gordon has left the building. Here is my farewell column that ran in the Journal Sunday: Confucius is credited with the observation that those who find jobs they love will never work a day in their lives. Well, as all working stiffs know, the Chinese sage evidently was smoking more tea than he was drinking. That said, I can accurately report that the occupation in which I have been engaged for more than 40 years, 35 of them at this fine newspaper, comes near to validating the ancient philosopher. This truly has been a dream job. However, all good things must end. Readers who have made it this far into the paper have figured out by now I have decided to retire. My last day here will be Dec. 31. Unless my doctor knows something I don’t, there is nothing medically wrong. I’m vexed by diminished hearing in one ear and a touch of osteoarthritis in a knee, but neither is a reason to stop buying green bananas. I’ve asked recent retirees how they knew when to pull the plug, and they all say, “You’ll know.” They are right. It’s time I got on with the final third of my life. We’ve all known people who stayed at a job way too long. I’ve written stories about them. They remain out of obligation to the company or to fellow workers. Mostly, they hang around and get in the way because they have nothing else in their lives and are pitied more than valued. I’m not all that vain, but I would like to think I’m better at this now than when I started. I always promised myself that I would walk out the door ahead of the inevitable decline, before I forgot my employee number, or couldn’t find the front door, or, given a family history of dementia, no longer knew what a door was for. Idleness isn’t on my to-do list. I have plenty to keep me busy. Becoming a more proficient gardener and a better musician are high on the list, as is over-staying visits with our children and their families. There are trails to hike and lakes to paddle. There may even be a book or two or three swirling around in the grey matter (see below). I’ve heard it said that the best way for a husband to get his wife’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable, so there will be no lounging under a lap robe on the veranda for me. I leave with cherished memories of the many people I have written about. With few exceptions, they are the so-called little people who labor and live and love in obscurity but who have done terrific things that demand telling. It has been my pleasure to bring those stories to you. A number of these memorable interviews were with applicants of the Salina Christmas Fund, a service I started 30 years ago. I caught then-publisher Harris Rayl at an opportune moment. He agreed that such an agency, designed to be a last resort to keep those scuffing along the bottom floor of the economy from falling through the cracks, sounded like a splendid idea. I’m proud it has lasted this long. For sure, there were the clinkers. I’ve been threatened with bodily harm, and one subject prepared for a contentious face-to-face interview by arming himself with a handgun. I’ve been insulted by the worst and the best, but none finer than one disgruntled soul who evidently had a gripe with the media in general or the Journal in particular. In a telephone conversation, after I finished my spiel about who I was and why I was calling, he paused and in a calm voice asked me if I knew who my father was. My dad was a longtime real estate agent here, so I figured he sold this guy a house. I said, “Of course, I know who my father is.” After another pause and without dropping his gentle demeanor, he replied, “Well, if you know who your father is, then you can’t be a reporter.” He hung up before I could congratulate him on the quality of his invective. Well-crafted, eloquently delivered, free of profanity, it was the gold standard against which I measured all other verbal abuse. His has never been equaled. The seeds of my profession were planted in elementary school. In third or fourth grade, the teacher declared that one afternoon a week would be “original story day.” We could write about anything we wanted. As this was the height of the Cold War, with nuclear annihilation a missile-launch away, and with the Soviet Union’s Sputnik still fresh in everyone’s mind, I concocted the most horrific science fiction my young mind could imagine. These days such prose would earn the author a trip to the principal’s office for a chat with the school shrink, if not expelled outright or sentenced to hard labor in juvie. But I came of age in the 1950s, when creativity, no matter how disturbing, was rewarded, not punished. Looking back, I suspect “original story day” was less a learning experience for us than it was an excuse for the teacher to skitter off to the lounge to burn through a pack of unfiltered Camels. Whatever the reason, I discovered early I liked writing. In college, when professors pulled out those blue-covered essay booklets, I was secretly cheering while all around me I could hear the sound of sphincters clamping shut. My professional career began not at a 5,000-watt radio station in Fresno, California (Google “Ted Baxter” young’uns), but in a taxicab in Manhattan, Kansas. I had just received a B.A. in English from Kansas State University and was waiting for my wife to finish her degree. I took a job driving a cab in hopes I would meet some interesting characters to write about. At the time, I fancied myself the next great American novelist (see above), and that plan would have worked out splendidly had I been able to find a bank that cashed rejection slips. One of my regular riders was a retired journalism professor, who reminded me that Twain and Hemingway had newspaper backgrounds. So, a few years later, I was back in college, enrolled in J-school, ultimately graduating and working my way here as the county government reporter. A few years later, I took on the city government beat about the same time the Central Mall War was declared. If there was ever in Salina’s history an issue so contentious, so divisive as this, I have yet to find it. The Schilling Air Force Base closure in 1965 was devastating, but the community rallied behind a single rebuilding goal. Schilling united the city; Central Mall tore the town apart. Skirmish lines formed early. The pro-mall faction argued - correctly as it turned out - the proposed 400,000-square-foot development was the freshening wind Salina needed, which at the time was becalmed in the economic doldrums of the early 1980s. The downtown supporters feared - also correctly - that such a retail behemoth squatting in a south Salina wheat field 3 miles from Santa Fe and Iron would change the face of the central business district forever. Arguments for and against the mall grew more strident and outrageous as the months and years wore on. Like a forest fire that’s so massive it creates its own weather, the Central Mall issue took on a life of its own. By the time the mall prevailed, longtime friends who found themselves on opposing sides of the debate went to their graves hating each other. I was fortunate, journalistically speaking, to have had a front-row seat to all of it. From time to time I also covered the cop beat, which afforded me a glimpse at Salina’s sordid underbelly. Mostly the stories were unspeakably tragic, particularly those involving murdered children, but I had to find a way to write them anyway when what I really wanted to do was rush outside and scream at God. During my tenure here, I also was the business reporter, covered a few school board meetings and district court trials and spent a number of years on the copy desk as well as writing a weekly column. Among the more enjoyable parts of the job has been compiling items for the “A Look Back in History” feature in the Neighbors section. More than a dozen years ago, I suggested the Journal reprint items from the past, stupidly thinking I’d never be the one assigned to do it. In scrolling through the microfilm, I’ve learned that there is no such thing as “the good old days,” and Mark Twain was right when he said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” OK, that’s enough about me. I will be leaving a newsroom that contains the most talented reporters and photographers it has been my privilege to work with. They are without question the finest, most dedicated writers and shooters in the entire state, if not the Midwest. Take them for granted at your reading peril. I remember my first day here. We were an afternoon paper back then, so the press cranked up early. Running full bore, that iron beast could spit out about 30,000 copies an hour. This was the first place I’d worked where the press was in such proximity to the newsroom, and as it got rolling, the whole place began to shake. “Holy crap!” I remembered thinking to myself, “that thing could hurt somebody!” In a physical sense, sure, if it snagged a body part, but also as a media symbol. Misused, it could wreak unspeakable harm. I never forgot that. This is not a new danger. In the 19th century, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde noted that “In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.” When I pounded out my first news stories on a World Ware II-era Royal manual, the media had a solemn duty to at least be responsible. Facts were checked and rechecked. As the late astrophysicist Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But in today’s electronic age, when anybody can be a reporter, foil-hatted conspiracy theorists, garden-variety whack jobs and the certifiably insane with Internet access now can broadcast rubbish so outrageous it makes the Weekly World News look like the global newspaper of record. This is why being a savvy news consumer is tougher than it’s ever been. Make no mistake: the reporters down here fight tirelessly day after day after day to get it right. They understand the power. They deserve your highest respect and praise. I leave here confident in the knowledge that the folded chunk of processed wood pulp I’ll pull out of my Journal box each morning will continue to inform and entertain, as it always has. As one who has spent a career amid the intoxicating aroma of ink and paper, I would suffer a serious case of the jim-jams without this daily fix. I hope you, dear readers, will feel the same for ages on.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 18:07:24 +0000
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