They were having a little going away gathering for me at the Record-Eagle. As long-timers go, I'm practically a newbie compared to others who have worked here 30 and more years. Several have left in the last year or so, and each time it was hard to imagine how long that is and changes they had seen.
Still, 16 years here and several freelancing before that is a substantial chunk of time. And coming up with remembrances to talk about at the party was a trip down memory lane.
I was newly moved to Petoskey, with my daughter in diapers, when Dave Miller, then editor of the brand new regional Sunday Record-Eagle, came to the house to talk to me about freelancing for him. She's almost 21 now.
I have been doing the Food section for quite a while and it hit home early on that with recipes, you have to proofread for more than spelling -- as in, make sure everything is there. I had run a recipe for "Beef Casserole." The late Frank Senger, publisher at the time, also liked to cook, and I can still picture him at my desk, holding out that recipe and asking, "Where's the Beef?" Uh, I'd not noticed that nowhere was beef listed in the ingredients.
Then there was the time I listed the wrong date for Passover, which I had gotten from a calendar above my desk. It was embarrassing when I went back to the source to have to report to my boss that I had relied on the National Pork Calendar as my authority on Jewish holidays.
I remember great -- and not so great -- moments with this column. People still mention the one about putting a can of beer in my son's day camp lunchbox because LaBatt Blue was the same color as Sprite. It was also the talk of day camp.
A friend and coworker brought up the time I wrote about how I'd waited and waited to see perky again after breast feeding, and how crestfallen I was when it never happened. I had forgotten -- or blocked out, maybe -- how the column somehow got on a lactation message board and garnered hundreds of hits on our Web site. It caused a flurry of angry letters and unleashed one zealot in Texas who I thought was going to drive up here and flog me with her breast pump. And I was only joking. I love breast-feeding as much as the next guy, er, woman. Really.
But it has been fun, and often heartwarming, with lots of good people in and outside of the Record-Eagle through the years. I'll miss being here as features editor, but am ready for some new challenges.
Meanwhile, we're still trying to figure out if I can continue contributing a column. Either way, thanks for reading all of these years.
Reach Kathy Gibbons at kgibbons@record-eagle.com
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