Ten years ago this month, I walked over to my colleague Rick Kogan’s desk. He was editor of the Tempo section at the time, and I was a health and fitness writer just a few months into the job. I proposed a weekly column, said it might be fun to call it “Feeling Good.”
“Good idea,” Rick said. “How about doing it on Thursdays?”
“Great,” I said. I walked back to my desk with a big smile on my face.
Simple as that, I was writing a weekly column for my hometown newspaper. It’s corny, I know, but I have always considered my 600 to 800 words each week to be an absolute privilege. Right from the first column in April 1994 (about junking your bathroom scale) to this Sunday, my last time in this space.
When you write your farewell column for the paper you read growing up (along with, sigh, the now-defunct Daily News), you think about people. Lots of them.
Rick comes to mind first. He gave me a gift for which I can never repay him (though it’s my turn to buy dinner next time we get together).
I think about those who followed Rick in editing my column. They gave me a chance to roam, pick my own topics each week and didn’t doubt my frequent leanings toward alternative medicine, emotional healing and spirituality. They caught my mistakes. They accepted my passions. They asked questions about exercise and nutrition that inspired columns and, sometimes, whole series.
A big compliment was always when one of my editors tried something I covered in a column.
Once in a while, they even laughed at my jokes.
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Most of all, these editors did what they do best without fanfare or bylines. They put out engaging sections, planned ahead, hit deadlines, didn’t panic, wrote terrific headlines and always made writers and columnists look good.
These editors are smart, kind, funny, caring, modest, nutty, steady, generous, ultimately professional–often all in the same person on the same day. They know who they are and so should you: Nancy Watkins, Ron Silverman, Karin Tisue, Tim Bannon, Denise Joyce, Marla Krause, Ross Werland and Devin Rose.
They are friends. Good friends.
I think about my wife, Mary, who has stuck by me word by word. When I left my position as the Tribune’s sports editor to start a health and fitness beat, many colleagues and friends thought I was doing something rash and a bit crazy. Mary believed in me, told me I could do it, that I would be great at it. I don’t know about the last part, but I do know every column has her in it. Many column ideas came straight from our conversations. Her love fuels my days.
When I decided to reinvent my work life again–this time to move to an island in the Northwest to edit a monthly magazine and pursue other writing projects–she didn’t think it was rash or crazy. She said, let’s go, it will be a family adventure, it’s the chance of a lifetime.
I think about our kids, Arthur and Lana, now 1st graders. We pass horses, cows, sheep, goats and alpacas on the drive to school each morning. They watch eagles fly overhead between spoonfuls of oatmeal at our breakfast table. They eat steamed mussels and farmstand peaches with relish. They will grow up surrounded by mountains and water and evergreen trees.
When we reached the ferry after our cross-country car trip, Mary pointed out the island that was our new home. “For real life?!” asked Arthur from the back seat with his usual exuberance. “We’re going to live here for real life?”
I think about family and friends we miss terribly, achingly. I think about old school chums back in touch because they saw the column one Sunday.
I think about sources for the columns: smart doctors who care about their patients more than society might allow. Activists for disabled rights. People with bright ideas about how to ignite an organic food movement in this country. Mothers organizing communities to make it easier and safer for kids to walk to school. Caregivers with sick loved ones and overloaded schedules.
Researchers who study the value of listening to the people in your life–and not just thinking about what you plan to say next. School administrators trying to buck the trend of childhood obesity by revamping physical education and eliminating soda vending machines.
I think about Tribune readers, who have written, e-mailed, called or, on occasion, stopped me in a coffee line or at a grade-school basketball game.
I think about the privilege and blessing of it all. I will miss it. I will cherish it.
For real life.
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e-mail Bob Condor at [email protected], and watch this space next week for the debut column of Q health and fitness reporter Julie Deardorff.