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All good things come to an end; so do bad and mediocre
things but I’ll let you form your own conclusions. After eight years
I have decided to hang up my keyboard, at least as far as this
column goes. As this is my last piece it seems fitting to share a
few thoughts about banging out these 600 or so words for the last
400 or so weeks.
*****
A “Junk File” seems natural for my finale. I wrote the
first just months into my columnist career (I called it “The Junk
Drawer” but my editor did what editors do and changed it for the
better). It was
one of many experiments, which included prediction pieces, writing
as if from fifty years in the future, parables, and so on. Most
fell by the wayside but “Junk” worked, probably because randomness
suits my thought processes. Besides, I need a cookie and it’s almost
daylight-saving time. Paisley is cool.
*****
I am often asked if it is difficult to come up with a
topic every week; the real challenge is paring them down to one.
This week, for instance, I could have written about the fuss over
Supreme Court nominee Harriett Miers’ religion, a study finding
Americans are getting ruder, the London accountant whose life was
saved when her Wonder Bra stopped a bullet, or the German architect
who filed for a patent on an “odorless heating and building
material” made from dog droppings. So many subjects, so little
time.
*****
Promoting this column has been almost as interesting as
writing it. Some years ago I got a trial run in a paper that would
have then been the first outside my home state. When I checked with
the editor after six weeks she asked for two more. No problem. I
called in two weeks … and learned that she had died. And just when
I thought I had heard every possible rejection line.
*****
I almost always enjoy feedback from readers. Even those
who disagree are usually civil enough, but two topics seem to bring
out the worst in people: Harry Potter and pedophiles. I expected a
defense of Harry (though not so vicious), but not child molesters.
Nearly all the email calling me a {insert expletive here} right-wing
Puritan evangelical hack and declaring pedophilia a normal part of
the human sex drive seems to have come from people who found me on
the Internet, not their local paper. Hate to think what they were
Googling.
*****
Speaking of Google, if you search the words “Berkeley”
and “spanking,” item number two on the results page is a 2001 column
I wrote on research at the University of California, Berkeley, about
spanking children for punishment. My guess is that most people who
search those two words aren’t looking for my thoughts on child
discipline, but whatever they’re seeking likely explains why that
column is almost always among the top ten most visited on my
website. I suspect I’ve disappointed a few people with that one,
too.
*****
From researching the major news media on the topics I’ve
covered over the years I have learned that all the world’s problems
– war, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, avian flu
– have one of only two causes: global warming or President Bush. I
wish I’d figured it out a long time ago; could have saved a lot of
fact-checking time.
*****
I can’t go without expressing my appreciation to my
readers, my editors, and especially my family, who have endured
living their lives in the paper for eight years. (My daughter once
threatened to get her own column so she could embarrass me for a
change, and I hope she does.) It has been fun and I’ll miss it
whenever a current event catches my interest – which is to say every
day. Thank you for reading and being a part of it.
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