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Time flies when
you’re old and feeble

There was a tradition at the Star-Bulletin, now thankfully shelved, in which the staff would be asked to gather 'round in the newsroom and gaze at some decrepit sorry old buggers whose claim to fame was that they had lasted 25 years at the newspaper.

Every year these poor ancient codgers would be "honored" by making them shuffle in front of the rest of us and gum something ceremonial like soft cake for which a full set of teeth was not a prerequisite. I, a young, skinny, self-absorbed police reporter, thought I had never seen human beings as old as these barely perpendicular specimens, and duly felt sorry for them.

Alas, I discovered that, as of last week, I had become one of them, a member of the Star-Bulletin's "25 Year Club." I couldn't believe it. True, I don't have all my teeth. I'm no longer young or skinny. But I'm still self-absorbed and my hair is still darkish. Have I really become one of those semi-ambulatory, cardio-cases I used to pity? Thankfully, management no longer holds the quarter century-ers up to public ridicule.

The thing is, I didn't mean to stay at the paper for 25 years. I only meant to stay for a couple of years, because, as an Air Force brat, that's about as long as I stayed in one place during my entire life. But the years sped along and about four years ago I got a shock: Not only was I not leaving the paper, but the paper was apparently leaving me. The Star-Bulletin was doomed to be closed. Providence, or at least a federal judge, interceded, and the paper stayed alive long enough to thrust me into my current depressive state.

THERE WERE a lot of good times in those 25 years, or so I'm told. My memory has become rickety to the point that I leave notes around the house reminding me to do various things (i.e. "feed birds," "feed dog," "don't feed birds to dog.")

I could amaze you with a few selective memories of key events over the years that I have mentally embellished to something between "mythical occurrences" and "outright lies."

I know I must have written something worthwhile in 25 years but it's strange that what stands out are incidents like the reader who threatened to blow me away with a .357-caliber Magnum because I made fun of mopeds.

I understand that I also had a daughter along the way, so that's something. And as soon as she gets home from school I intend to ask her about it.