Topeka Metro News
May 3, 2002

I suppose I should begin by commenting on events leading up to my untimely death on the city’s unofficial newspaper, So here is my report: I was being measured for a muzzle and a leash, so I quit. Period. End of report.

Actually, what happened merely interrupted what already has been a long journey. Old columnists are like old ballplayers, always thinking they have a good year or two left in them, and always wanting to prove it. They can’t wait to go to the mound one more time to show ‘em the curveball still works.

That’s the way it is with me. I’m not out to match the record of Zula Bennington Green, who, as Peggy of the Flint Hills, wrote columns well into her 90s. But I still feel the urge, so when the Topeka Metro News expressed an interest in running a combination of my old and new columns, I said, “give me the ball,” or fighting words to that effect. We’ll see what happens.

I feel I don’t go into this new game without credentials. After all, I was voted Topeka’s favorite columnist for 39 straight years, a record matched only by Porubsky’s chili, and by Baby Dolls, as Topeka’s “best place to spend a rainy afternoon.” Or a sunny one/

When I left the daily paper, I was bade farewell with three lines of agate type – a real bush-league bye-bye. John Atchley of Topeka emailed me about it: “I would’ve expected headlines in bold type. Then the celebrations could’ve begun, one for those happy to see you go, and one for those who are sad.”

Even more bush-league was running one letter to the editor regarding my disappearance, suggesting only one was received. I also was denied the privilege of writing a final column, which is as classy as denying the condemned man a final meal. It meant I couldn’t fire any parting shots.

For example, there’s the Legislature. I always have said you could station yourself at the corner of 8th and Kansas, stop the first 200 or so adults who came by, send them over to the Capitol to replace the legislators and other top-level politicians and bureaucrats, and the state’s efficiency wouldn’t slip a single notch.

It would, In fact, gain several notches in the present situation. This group of recruited volunteers would not have dug Kansas into an $800 million hole, because common sense would have told them that when the hole started getting too deep, it’s time to stop digging. Then, having no political fears, they do what had to be done to fill in the hole.

On the other hand, I’ve always had a fondness for the City Council at its inspirational Tuesday night prayer meetings. In fact, I longed to be a council member, even announcing my candidacy in late 1996, and I still have the $2 bill Ardena Gass sent me in response to my plea for campaign funds.

Ardena and I have this in common: I was born in Oakwood, Okla., and she once lived there for three months. She could say she spent three months there one weekend.

I have saved a few other letters, one of them from Joe Rogers of Holton. Written in 1989, it said, “You have had a considerable impact on the thoughts and events in Kansas – like a hard rain on a dirty street.” I accept that humbly, and want to add it also is a tribute to the unofficial newspaper’s unwavering editorial stand in favor of clean streets.

In December of 2000, a letter from Catherine Strahan began: “Nearly everything I know I have learned by reading your column.” That’s frightening, but it means she is well grounded in truth, justice, and the American way. And actually, she was writing to point out an error.

I’m asked occasionally if I’m planning a book, and it makes me wish I’d saved the letters I’ve received, rather than the more than 4,000 columns I’ve written. I once paid to have copies made from microfilm of the columns from the 1950s and 1960s. When I mentioned the cost to fellow staffer Frank Boggs, he said, “You should have had copies made of just the good columns. That would have cost you next to nothing.”

Note – At about the same time that I quit the daily newspaper, I apparently was found unfit to repeat my role as host of the Marian Clinic golf tournament. I learned this through the mail, since those planning the outing apparently lacked the courage or the class to notify me. I was used and discarded, with no thank you or goodbye.

I wish the clinic well, because it is vital to the community. I wish its golf committee would grow up.

My ouster was not without humor. In an e-mail to a friend of mine, a clinic executive wrote, “t was not an intentional snub, nor truly a planned decision, but one, I believe, from lack of foresight, sensitivity, attention to the process, and coordination.”

And a lot of gobbledygook.