I am now retired.

Strange how you don’t really think about this when you start on a career, especially one you love. I really didn’t want to retire, but family issues forced the decision. Simply put, I need to be home with Genie, the love of my life and wife of 43 years. We will continue to live in Picayune as we have lived here longer than any where else.

The worst part about retiring for a newspaperman is you know of other stories that are coming, ones you wanted to write but now have to trust others to write. I have no problem with the “trust” part. The people who succeed me at the Picayune Item are top notch, it’s just that I wanted to write or edit the stories.

By the way, please note I said “newspaperman,” not journalist. A journalist is similar to a doctor who is a general practitioner, not a specialist. I am a specialist. I have always worked for a newspaper and never wanted to do anything else. Yes, there has been a job or two between papers, but nothing serious.

In retirement, I probably will do as a bird dog I once knew who, after his master retired him, would occasionally escape his yard and we would see him around the neighborhood with his nose out front and moving with that distinctive, gliding gait of a bird dog on the hunt.

I will continue writing columns for the newspaper, and, of course, I have to know what is going on around Picayune and Pearl River County to be able to write a sensible column. Don’t be surprised if you see me out hunting for stories with my ear to the ground, a notepad in my hip pocket, coffee cup in hand and moving in that distinctive, shambling gait of a newspaperman on the hunt.