What’s So Funny: So long for now

This is my last appearance in this space for a while. I’m sorry to break my string; I’ve never missed a scheduled turn since I started in this paper in 2002.

I realize that typing a few paragraphs once every two weeks doesn’t make a guy Cal Ripken, but you have to admit I’ve been reliable. I’ve always written the column, even when I didn’t have one.

I’ll be out of state teaching for a few months, however, and I can’t very well be local from Illinois. I hope to come back and resume in June, after we’ve all had time to think.

Before I go, I’d like to thank you for refraining from sending me hate mail during the years I’ve been in the paper. I’m very sensitive, and I was always ready to quit if I got any.

If you’d only known, huh?

To those of you who came up to me in the grocery store or post office and said you liked the column — or anyway, one of them — bless your hearts. Writers can go a long time between rings on the phone, and you saved many a day.

The column has allowed me to feel a part of a community I love. I knew when I first came here chasing after Patti Jo in 1986 that Laguna Beach was a rainbow’s end — mostly because she lived here, but the appeal of the town itself was not lost on me.

Since then I’ve discovered it’s not only a good-looking town, but it’s got good people in it.

Still, I’d start yawning in heaven after a chorus or two, and I’ve sometimes taken Laguna for granted over the years. From afar, I expect I’ll love it all over again. Back in the Midwest where I come from, people work all year to come out here for two weeks. I don’t think it will take long to get the feeling back.

As for you, if some morning in the coming months you feel that you miss something but you don’t know what it is, it’ll probably be my column. When that occurs, contact the Coastline Pilot and tell them. If they hear from enough people they’ll ask me to start back up when I get back, and by then I may have thought up a good one.

On the other hand, you may share the sentiments my friend Ray Paulick, a noted horse racing journalist, displayed years ago when we worked at a newspaper syndicate.

A colleague of ours was leaving for good, and a farewell card came around for our signatures. When I asked Ray if he was going to sign it, he said, “Sure. How do you spell ‘riddance?’”

See you later, and thanks again.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed. His novel, “Diminished Capacity,” is now available in bookstores, and the film version is available on DVD.