By JIM REEVES
revo30@yahoo.com
Blackie Sherrod had it right. No shock there. Blackie was almost always right.
When the legendary columnist decided he just couldn’t do this anymore some years ago, he made no big deal about it. No teary goodbyes. No maudlin strolls down Memory Lane.
Nope, Blackie, as the story goes, just walked in, told his editors, "That’s it, I’m done," and walked off into the sunset, or more likely, Joe Miller’s saloon, where he no doubt had a date with something tall, cool and mesmerizing.
What’s been amply proven over the last 40 years here is that I’m no Blackie Sherrod. I take some slight solace in the fact that mighty few have been and those who stake that claim can probably be counted on Three-Finger Brown’s right hand.
The way I figure it — and I admit, higher math isn’t my strong suit — some of us have shared upwards of 10,000 breakfasts together over the last four decades, since I arrived at the
Star-Telegram in mid-June 1969. I just wouldn’t feel right about simply walking out on folks who have shared their biscuits and gravy, their cornflakes, their Starbucks lattes with me for all those years without letting you know how much I’ve enjoyed our time together.
Figuring out when to do this was the hardest part. I finally likened the decision to a general manager making a baseball trade ... better to do it a year too early than a year too late.
This is my choice, and I’m lucky to still be able to make it. There’s been a lot of upheaval in the newspaper business in the last few years and it’s affected a lot of my friends and colleagues. I hate that our business is going through such turmoil and change, because certainly not all of it is for the better.
What hasn’t changed is my love for this newspaper, this business, and it never will. I think that I can honestly say that no one since Amon Carter has loved the
Star-Telegram more, or been more loyal and dedicated to it over parts of five decades.
Newspaper people don’t get into the business thinking about getting rich, or if they do, they’re the first to get out. We just want to be the first to tell you a story. The
Star-Telegram gave me the opportunity to do that for more than 40 years.
For me, it’s always been best when it’s been about the people. It’s been about their lives and their struggles, their triumphs and their tragedies.
It was about a pony that drowned in the 100-year floods some years ago, and Bobby Valentine’s valiant and dangerous battle to recover the body before his young son could see it.
It was about Johnny Oates and his courageous journey, one we all witnessed firsthand, and how he turned tragedy into a personal triumph.
It was about a man named Doug Inman, who had a dream of a baseball field for mentally and physically challenged kids, and the drive and energy to make it come true before he, too, walked his own valley with cancer.
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