Themes



I can recall clearly how difficult it was to write my first regular column for this newspaper about 20 years ago. Having your name and picture embedded in your words puts you, personally, on the record. There is nowhere to hide.

Editorials -- and as managing editor I wrote hundreds of them over the years -- were so much easier to compose because they were anonymous. Our editorial board debated the positions to take on issues, and hardly anyone outside the newspaper knew who was writing on any particular day. You could hide behind the newspaper.

However, writing my final column has been much more difficult than the first. You want to go out with a bang by saying something profound and eternally meaningful. But, alas, I’m not going to compete with the nuggets of opinion I’ve offered up since January 1999.

Urging peace while opposing war has been the overriding subject of my columns for two decades, as dictated by the events of those years. From NATO’s air strikes during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and our continued presence in those regions, I have called on our leaders to stop the killing.

I have dealt with the four game-changing events that occurred in this country: the election of George W. Bush, the horrific terrorists attacks of 9/11, the election of Barack Obama, and, finally, the ascendancy of Donald Trump.

Shortly after the year 2000 election and it became clear that Bush and Cheney were going to win, I bemoaned and blamed voters for the fact that Bush was lowering the bar for what should be presidential. I was handily taken to task for alleged biased reporting, though my column obviously was an opinion piece.

Even before 9/11, I could hear the war drums pounding in the White House and warned that it was just a matter of time. I didn’t know those fateful terrorist attacks would make that time come so soon. Rather than cheerlead for our revenge, I asked, “Why do they hate us?”

Throughout the Bush years, I revisited the March Madness of the Iraq war from a “don’t do it” to a “get out now.” Nobody in Washington listened.

The 2008 election of President Obama offered a new hope that the war would end and the problems facing our own citizens would be addressed. Though the wars didn’t end, the Affordable Care Act tried to solve our health-insurance crisis and the president sought to begin the process of making pollution and fossil fuels attributes of the past.

My columns often spoke of environmental issues, from opposition to fracking in this region and pipelines here and elsewhere, to acknowledging the worldwide threats from climate change and how we must decelerate our reliance on fossil fuels.

Of course, the Trump presidency is turning the clock back on the environmental gains we have made, and the future for cleaner air and water is looking bleak. He, indeed, with his lying and demeanor, has lowered the bar yet again on the presidency.

But I didn’t always write about political matters and world events. That, as it is now, would have been too depressing. Our daily lives most often are settled into the simple joys and sorrows of the mundane.

On the 30th anniversary of mankind’s first steps on the moon, I discussed the nostalgia for a moon that still offered enchantment for lovers and poets. I wrote of my childhood fondness for toads and how I rescued one from the mouth of a snake. I reminisced about the excitement I felt as a 5-year-old when my father brought home our first television. And I recalled how my 80-year-old father, a member of the Greatest Generation, declined help getting upon a bar stool at his American Legion, saying, “I have to be a tough guy in here.”

And then there were books, of which I have way too many scattered over half a dozen bookcases in my house. At the end of a year, I would discuss the books I had read and offer suggestions for readers. I offered a reading list for a hypothetical teenager and wrote about the lists offered by a few local residents. A foe of censorship in all its forms, I often praised libraries for annually promoting their opposition to the banning of books.

Column writing has been a fulfilling experience, mostly fun and sometimes stressful. I have former editor Sam Pollak to thank for encouraging me to begin and asking me to continue after I retired as managing editor.

If I were to offer a final opinion, it would be that it is vital for our future to vote in November to thwart the Trump agenda, and in 2020 make sure he is a one-term president.

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