Endings and beginnings: the week that was
When I woke up Thursday morning two weeks ago, I was a man with three jobs.
This morning I’m down to one. I may be the only person you know to be hired for one job, retired from another and fired from a third all in the space of several weeks.
Let me explain. I had decided recently to take early retirement from my job as senior writer at the University of Richmond, the institution where I have been employed fulltime for over 23 years. At 64, I was close to retirement anyway, but then an offer had come along earlier this summer to become chairman of the English and journalism department at Virginia Union University, and I very quickly knew that that was something I really did want to do. Having taught college English and journalism for about 15 years before coming to UR, it made sense to me to end my career back in the classroom, where I had started. So here I am, beginning next week a whole new phase of my life, in a whole new place at a whole new job at a rather advanced age to do so. I’m excited.
The firing you probably know about by now. On that same Thursday I mention above, I was invited to lunch by my editors at the Times-Dispatch and advised that, after an 18-year run as a columnist, last Friday’s column would be my last. It seems they needed my space for “hard news.” I notice that my space in this morning’s paper is taken by an article headlined “Danville teen holds inline-skating record.” Be sure not to miss it.
You may also know that the last column I was asked to write never ran. The paper’s new executive editor, Glenn Proctor, spiked it. You’d have to ask him why. It does appear elsewhere on this blog, and it seems rather innocuous to me.
Life goes on, and so does our conversation. There hasn’t been much that was funny about my exodus from the newspaper, but nevertheless it has been a good week. I’ve had an elaborate, warm and wonderful week-long send-off from UR, and I have heard from scores of readers this week checking to see if I was okay. The newspaper never explained what happened to me-there was no notice at all last Friday-so some readers feared I was ill. I don’t know how so many of you missed the column so quickly. I assumed everyone would think I was on vacation and not even notice anything was different until a number of weeks had passed. I’m trying to answer everyone’s letters and calls, but since I’m packing up one office and setting up another one at the same time, it may be awhile before I get back to some of you. But I’m reading everything.
Let me share some things that have made me smile during what might otherwise have been a depressing week. A number of readers have worried about my livelihood, assuming, I guess, that the newspaper column was “my job” and that Barb and I might be facing tough times-that made me smile because the concern for us was touching. Actually, the column was a labor of love and the income from it pretty much just about covered the expenses of writing it. (That means that if any other publication in town wants to pick it up, I’m sure I’m affordable.)
I think my son, Kyle, would have been delighted had the column ended years ago, during his adolescent years when he was being featured too regularly for his comfort; but now he has been one of my best advisers in how to keep it going, suggesting I start a blog and telling me how to set one up. Daughter Sarah called early this week from Austin, Texas, where she is in graduate school to ask what the story was on the missing column. Not knowing that Barb had called and left her the message a day earlier, I asked how she had known the column had not appeared. “I could hear women wailing all the way to Austin,” she replied. Sarah always teases that all my fans are female because women like the fact that I’m a fellow who clearly dotes on his wife. She would be surprised, I think, at how many letters I’ve gotten from men this week.
In fact, that’s not unusual. The last column I wrote that was printed-the one that spoke of June Allyson’s death and the golden era of Hollywood-brought in numerous phone calls and about 25 e-mails-and 18 of those were from men. (I think I’ll print some of those on the blog when I have time next week-very interesting.) I’d also like to share some of the letters I’ve gotten this week. I’m glad you found this blog. If you have friends who read me in the paper, please tell them where to find me here. I wish so much the T-D had leveled with the readers and just told them I’d been dropped. Then I could stop explaining what happened and just get back to writing about the exciting new things in our lives, rather than the old regrets.
Don’t worry-pretty soon I’ll be funny again.
