Hello and … farewell.

You’re reading my final column for The Spokesman-Review.

If that sounds weird, you should be on my side of the keyboard.

I’ve been writing three columns a week for this newspaper since 1985, or about two years after being hired away from my job as managing editor for the Coeur d’Alene Press.

I’ve always been terrible at math. But even counting vacations, a knee replacement and one dreadful bout of shingles, that’s like 4,500 columns or so.

God knows how many thousands of folks I’ve interviewed over the years. Even just the ones who wanted to see me fired are legion.

But now it comes to this: I have reluctantly accepted an offer that I can’t refuse.

No, it doesn’t have anything to do with finding the decapitated, bloody head of a prize racehorse under the sheets.

Ownership calls its offer a “voluntary reduction in force.”

I use the word reluctantly because this is a sweet-and-sour bowl of pork. More here.

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