Next time you’re confronted with charts and graphs and reams of data at work, you might want to simply shove it all aside and look at the person sitting across the table and ask: “So, what’s your sign?”

While it may sound like a bad pickup line from a single’s bar, talking about astrological signs in the workplace may be gaining acceptance as more people look to develop communication beyond the hard data often continuously spit out by technology.

Steve Weiss, author of a new book on using astrology in business, says that he does believe astrology can be an important communication tool on the job.

“No way, no how, is astrology a substitute for everything else you need to know,” Weiss says. “But I think it can help create a language for us to understand one another better.”

That’s why he says he has written “Signs of Success: The Remarkable Power of Business Astrology,” (Amacom, $24).

Astrology – defined in the dictionary as “the study of positions and aspects of heavenly bodies with a view to predicting their influence on the course of human affairs” – is often only experienced by others through brief astrological predictions in the morning newspaper (Taurus: “Money will come your way this week”).

But Weiss says that by using the “terminology” of astrology for business trends, people can develop a greater ability to understand why people – such as bosses or co-workers – behave in certain ways.

He stresses, however, that astrology should not be regarded as something written in stone, and even goes so far as to say that some aspects of astrology – such a predicting specific events – is “a bit wacky for my tastes.”

“In the wrong hands, astrology is just another form of intolerance,” he says. “It’s not a science. It’s much more like an art – like art wrapped up in the science of math and astronomy.”

The book provides information about each of the 12 astrological signs, and gives examples of traits for those born under various signs. For example, “creative entrepreneurship is the true stamp of the Leo leader, frequently to the point of personality cult as well as to fortune and fame.” Weiss says those born under the sign of Leo include Martha Stewart, Magic Johnson and Mick Jagger.

Or, “a Capricorn is inclined to the more conservative position that a happy destiny is the result of a hard, well-managed, socially-sanctioned climb.” He says that 19th-century author Horatio Alger “was a Capricorn to his very soul,” while founding father Benjamin Franklin’s dedication to hard work and movie star Mel Gibson’s movies about family honor (“Braveheart,” “The Patriot”) show the Capricorn’s traits.

Weiss further points out that by understanding our astrological sign, we can better grasp how we react in today’s business climate, and have a clearer understanding of other individual’s strengths and weaknesses. (To join the blog discussion of astrology and business, check out www.anitabruzzese.com.)

For example, when dealing with an Aquarius: “Try not to take offense at their forgetfulness, which may even include the name of long-term associates. They are easily distracted by their own bullet-train of thoughts.”

Or, “Scorpio plays secrecy of intent as an advantage, so accept that you will rarely be granted a full confidence. But also know that loyalty and competence will be handsomely rewarded.”

Weiss says this ancient tradition of studying astrology has an important role to play in our modern society.

“We are clearly living in an era of metrics. In the last 20 years, it’s been the story of the personal computer and the Internet. We’re great data-sharers. And yet, that doesn’t always drive us to insight,” Weiss says. “Astrology reminds us that…we can’t write an equation for inspiration. Astrology creates those opportunities.”

Weiss says that by increasing our understanding of astrology, we can better develop interactive skills that improve communication and understanding. Still, he cautions that it’s only one tool that should be used by someone trying to survive in the business world.

“I see beauty and precision in astrology, but it’s a very complex craft,” he says. “It depends on the person interpreting it. It can’t make mean people not mean.”

Weiss also points out that as we all try to compete in a global economy, astrology may be another way to build a bridge between cultures.

“There are many places such as South America, India and China where astrology is not that foreign to them,” he says.

Anita Bruzzese is author of “45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy…and How to Avoid Them,” (www.45things.com). Write to her at: anita(AT)anitabruzzese.com or c/o: Business Editor, Gannett News Service, 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, Va. 22107. For a reply, include a SASE.

By the time you’ve been out of work six months or more, your mind starts playing tricks on you.

The past starts looking pretty darn good and you forget how much you hated the first 15 years of your career and conclude with almighty certainty that you really did like purchasing. Or that being in information technology wasn’t so bad after all. Before you know it, you’ve convinced yourself that you should go back to your previous, lackluster career.

That might be. Or you could be falling for the when-all-else-fails-go-back-to-the-past strategy.

I keep meeting more and more people banking on former careers they left years ago as a new and improved place to hang their hat for the next decade or so. Many reason that, “I just need something secure for the next 10 or so years.”

If that is what’s making you nostalgic for the past, better rethink your plan.

First, you don’t want to end up miserable again. Second, it’s not necessarily an easy sell. Obviously you will have to answer sticky questions from potential employers about your change of heart. They will also compare you to newly minted graduates eager to jump in. How can you beat that? If a return to the past is truly what you want, you need a three-pronged approach to be a serious contender:

-Anticipate employers’ objections.

It’s only natural for an employer to probe. So expect to hear questions like, why after ten or more years, do you want to go back to what you did before? Why did you leave the field in the first place? And, if you’ve held management or leadership positions, why do you want to give it up?

You can bring up their concerns before they do: “You might be wondering why I want to get back into accounting…” Then give your well-thought-out response that explains your new career objective.

One of my clients who had been in information technology ten years before becoming a teacher explained how, even as a teacher his focus had been on helping students understand and use technology — a subject he loved. Now he wanted to apply his teaching skills to help adults understand technology by working in a customer support role. It’s a logical step, and he also had a story to tell.

- Explain how you’re up to speed and will keep up to date.

If you’ve been out of the field for years, you need to be up on the latest and greatest processes, issues the industry faces, as well as required skills. So be ready to explain how you’ve done that. What training have you taken? What do you read to stay abreast? Be prepared to talk about how you’ll stay ahead of the curve.

- Explain what has reignited your interest and why you’re excited about the work.

Employers can smell it if your heart’s not in it. How will you explain your renewed interest in a field you haven’t worked in for years? What is it about the work that you can’t wait to do again? What has happened in the last ten years that might add to your value in this new direction? How do you see yourself developing in this field?

If you can’t seem to come up with a story that you believe with all your heart, how can you convince someone else? In that case, perhaps heading back to your past is not the best plan for moving forward.

—

Andrea Kay is the author of “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 Steps to Get Out of Your Funk and On To Your Future.” Send questions to her at 2692 Madison Road, No. 133, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208; www.andreakay.com. E-mail: andrea@andreakay.com

Francisco Peña contemplates a math problem at an AIMS workshop at Pueblo High Magnet School.

After many years as a political observer and erstwhile practitioner, I usually understand why what I think is sensible policy doesn’t get enacted.

Often, there is some interest group opposed. In our political system, intensity matters. An organized group that cares a lot can usually carry the day against policies whose benefits are diffuse.

Our political system also is set up to make big reforms difficult. Incremental change at the margins is more the norm. And usually, that’s a good thing.

And not at all infrequently, my views are in the minority, and not infrequently a very small minority at that.

Nevertheless, the failure of policy to move in the direction I think sensible about a high school graduation test in Arizona perplexes me. It doesn’t disadvantage any organized interest group. It’s not that big of a reform. And I think most people would agree with me, although I might be wrong about that.

Nevertheless, Arizona’s high school graduation test remains stuck in a place that makes no sense, and reform efforts, to the extent they are gaining traction, move in the wrong direction.

Arizona has a high school graduation test, AIMS, that all students must pass to receive their diploma (ignoring the temporizing fudging mechanisms the Legislature has adopted and extended).

However, the test doesn’t really determine whether a student knows what a high school graduate is expected to know. Instead, it is set at a 10th grade level.

So, Arizona can be relatively confident that its high school graduates know what a sophomore in high school should know. Wouldn’t it make more sense to determine if they know what a high school graduate should know?

I think Arizona should have a high school exit exam that actually tests what high school graduates should know. If passage were made a graduation requirement, however, the failure rate would be, at least at first, politically unacceptably high.

So, I’ve proposed a two-tier diploma: a certificate of achievement, representing passage of the test; and a certificate of completion, representing passage of all other graduation requirements but failure to pass the exit exam.

No one would be denied graduation because of the test. But employers and universities could place appropriately differential value on the two diplomas.

An AIMS Task Force formed by the Legislature recently released its recommendations. It said, much to my surprise, that AIMS should remain a 10th grade test and should remain a graduation requirement. However, it should be supplemented by two “college and career readiness” tests in the freshman and junior years.

Now, that would mean that there would still be no way of knowing whether an Arizona high school graduate actually knows what a high school graduate should know.

The desire for new “college and career readiness” tests issues from two growing fallacies.

First, that all students should graduate high school ready for college. Second, that what is necessary to prepare for college is the same thing as is necessary for jobs that don’t require a college degree.

If college is to be what it should be, and not just the new high school, then it should require cognitive abilities and a keen interest in hard academic work that just isn’t universal. And the math skills that an aspiring plumber or carpenter needs just aren’t the same as for an aspiring physicist or economist.

This is an overreaction to the commendable desire not to prematurely track kids, and particularly to avoid lower expectations for low-income and minority students.

But there are plenty of college readiness tests that already exist, and the entry requirements for Arizona universities are not opaque. Avoiding low-expectations is a matter of exhortation, not new tests.

Arizona does, however, need a high school graduation test that actually tests high school graduate knowledge.

Getting one shouldn’t be this difficult.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

“Aaron passes Ruth!”

“Nixon resigns!”

Those headlines helped me sell a lot of newspapers in 1974, when my journey with the Tucson Citizen began as an 11-year-old hawker. Wearing my “Citizen Charlie” smock, I pitched the paper – which cost 15 cents back then – in front of my father’s East Side liquor store.

In between begging for tips, I pored over the sports section. I studied box scores and Citizen writers such as Regis McAuley, Corky Simpson, Jack Rickard and Bruce Johnston.

The newspaper bug had bitten me.

I took journalism at Catalina High School under J.G. Carlton, and began calling in prep box scores to the Citizen for $3 a game. By the time I landed a correspondent’s job in 1980, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Except for a five-year stint at USA TODAY, I worked many different jobs and many crazy hours at the Citizen until Gannett announced our closure.

Some of my favorite memories:

• High school: Sahuaro quarterback Rodney Peete threw for a then-state record 424 yards and five touchdowns in 1983 against Amphi. It ended in a 34-34 tie but was the greatest game I ever reported. Amphi countered with 361 yards on the ground in a contest that saw three TDs and one field goal scored in the final 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

• College: After covering Sean Elliott for three years at Cholla High, I watched him break Lew Alcindor’s Pac-10 career scoring record in 1989. Elliott needed 34 points and scored 35 – with six 3-pointers. It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard McKale Center, and we had a special section printed after UA routed UCLA.

• Pro: Curt Schilling sprayed champagne on me and other reporters in the locker room after the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees to win the 2001 World Series. When Luis Gonzalez singled in the winning run, strangers began hugging in the aisles at Bank One Ballpark.

• Embarrassing: On a hot night, I fainted in the elevator at Arizona Stadium during UA’s 1986 football home opener vs. Houston. When I came to, then-sports information director Butch Henry stood over me, asking in his Arkansas drawl, “Is he dead?”

• Initiation: Two Cleveland Indians players, who shall remain nameless, tried to stuff me in a locker when I was 19. To the locker-room attendant who saved me, thank you.

• Sadness: When I was an assistant city editor, I had to wake up Lute Olson to tell him that former UA basketball assistant Ricky Byrdsong had been gunned down in Evanston, Ill. After Olson’s wife, Bobbi, yelled, “No, God,” Lute gave me an eloquent quote.

• Proudest: Watching our sports staff pull together some of the biggest stories of the decade: UA football coach John Mackovic’s firing; the death of UA women’s basketball star Shawntinice Polk; Olson’s retirement and Sean Miller’s hiring as basketball coach.

I’m biased, but I considered my sports staff to be one of the hardest-working and professional in the nation.

The Associated Press Sports Editors agreed. It named us a top 10 daily sports section in the nation seven of the last nine years for our circulation category.

Credit goes to my second “family”: Steve Rivera, John Moredich, Anthony Gimino, Bryan Lee, Ken Brazzle, Geoff Grammer, Raymond Suarez and Michael Schmelzle. Correspondents Ash Friederich, Rodney Haas and Christopher Veck deserve high-fives, along with past staffers Dave Petruska, Paul Schwalbach, Michael Caccamise, Shelly Lewellen, David Pittman, Stephen Sharpton, Jessie Vanderson, Charles Durrenberger and Christopher Walsh.

More thanks go out to all the page designers I annoyed with my suggestions, Simpson for his inspiration and guidance, and Peter Madrid, who I succeeded as sports editor in 1999.

Finally, I’d like to pay tribute to all the coaches, players, parents and readers who helped suggest stories and make my job easier.

I’ll miss this place.

Defensive end Tedy Bruschi celebrates UA's 29-0 win over Miami in the 1994 Fiesta Bowl.

So we’re closing. The Big C. We’re done for. The whistle is blowing. The horn is sounding. We’ve run out of extra time. Just took a called third strike.

I’d like to think you will miss us here in Citizen sports, but I don’t want to be presumptuous.

But even if you think that only once a month we nailed a story, a scoop, a column, a feature – and I think our batting average was much higher – well, that’s one story, scoop, column, feature you won’t be getting any more.

That’s not good for anybody.

I asked Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood in February about the Citizen’s impeding demise and how it might affect his department.

“For a great number of years, we’ve had the ability to have things balanced, and all of a sudden you lose that,” Livengood said of this turning into a one-newspaper town.

“It also has an impact on the outside world, about the perception of Tucson when you lose an institution like this. There is an impression that we’re not going forward; we’re moving backward.”

Certainly, Livengood was telling me what I wanted to hear, but he also lamented a financial aspect to the closing and a potential loss of sponsorshi\n\nadvertising dollars from a reconfigured Tucson Newspapers.

I guess that’s now a story for our pals at the Arizona Daily Star to track down.

I got my start in this crazy business at the Star, back in the fall of 1986. My first byline was on a high school football game, featuring a flash of a running back from Flowing Wells. His name escapes me now.

There have been a blur of running backs, point guards, pitchers and catchers in the years since then.

It was a pleasure to chronicle the Arizona football team through most of the 1990s – the Fiesta Bowl victory over Miami, the Holiday Bowl victory over Nebraska. Waldrop. Bruschi. Bouie. McAlister. Keith and Ortege, the tag-team quarterbacks.

One of my favorite stories: Back in the early 1990s, UA football coach Dick Tomey, upset over something I had written that day, went ballistic on me after practice as the players were leaving the field.

I have never heard someone so copiously and creatively use another term for horse manure.

We agreed to disagree that day, and I feared that a good working relationship would be damaged. Football coaches have been known to hold a grudge.

But the next time I saw Tomey, it was as if nothing had happened. That was his style. Say what you have to say, and then let it go. It’s a life lesson I have never forgotten.

Elsewhere, I covered seven of Arizona’s eight national championships in softball, and had access to the mind of coach Mike Candrea for two decades. Sometimes, this job is so worth it.

No complaints here.

I had a chance to work with, travel with and learn from the twin towers of local sports columnists – retired Corky Simpson of the Citizen and Greg Hansen of the Star. Tucson was lucky to have two such voices for all those years.

So, yeah, it’s been a good ride.

It hit me a while ago, though, that the best part of this job at the Citizen for the past four and a half years had nothing to do with newspapers or journalism.

Recently, for no other reason than boredom, I reached into the closet and pulled out a box I hadn’t opened in years. It was filled with various items from college days.

Two things caught my eye.

One was a 20-year-old edition of the Tombstone Epitaph. A journalism class at the University of Arizona produced – and still does – the newspaper for the Town Too Tough To Die.

In this particular edition, I shared a few bylines with a guy named John Moredich.

As I dug deeper in the box, I found an old address book – the kind of thing we used before we all had cell phones. Thumbing through, I saw I had the old phone number of a guy named Steve Rivera.

Point is, the two writers I have worked most closely with at the Citizen since the start of 2005 – Moredich covering football, Rivera covering basketball – have been friends for more than two decades.

Working with them has been the rewarding part of the job.

Whatever you do for work, I hope you have been as lucky.

For the past 35 years, this is the column I’ve been wanting to avoid writing. My last column for the Tucson Citizen.

Now that it’s here, I’m thankful the wait took 35 years.

I’m also thankful this column doesn’t mean the end of life as I know it. Reporting on Tucson’s thriving performing arts scene will continue.

I’ll be moving online with the rest of the world. Starting right away, you can find my theater reviews, film, dance and music commentary at www.tucsonstage.com. This is the Web site Bill Dell built into a powerhouse listing service for the entire arts community.

Now Tucson Stage will become the online address, as well, for my own arts page “Let the Show Begin.” The plan is for me to be posting new items daily, so there’s always a new reason to click on the page and check it out.

Hot reviews will be even hotter with the timeliness of digital technology. When I first started writing for the Tucson Citizen in 1974, everybody used typewriters. The phrase “cut and paste” literally meant cut the type-set copy off a larger piece of paper and paste it on the layout sheet.

Whew . . . the printing process was clumsy but the writing was better. Having a computer spell-checking everything is the absolute worst. Typos are popping up all over the place.

But I digress.

Progress will always be pushing us ahead, creating bad things along with good ones. Assuring us there will always be a need for the entertainment and insight that art provides.

Tucson, with its do-it-yourself attitude, will continue to be Arizona’s arts oasis. All those dusty dreamers who can’t live without an overdose of sunshine will keep on creating stuff, whether there is any money in it or not. They just can’t help themselves.

I couldn’t help myself, either, back in the 1970s writing about new rock bands and dinosaur big bands touring the music of Woody Herman, Glen Miller and the like. Tucson was a bigger music town than Phoenix. In 1978, the Rolling Stones skipped Phoenix altogether. The band’s only stop in Arizona was the downtown Tucson Convention Center Arena.

Then Phoenix built the Desert Sky Pavilion and some other giant-sized venues while Tucson’s city leaders sat on their hands. Sound familiar?

After covering rock ‘n’ roll in the ’70s, I moved over to reviewing theater in the ’80s. Counterculture issues were thriving: plays about injustice in Vietnam and stateside injustice over the AIDS crisis, feminist protest onstage, performance artists on tour, plays about conflict and every skin color in the human spectrum, lots of theater dramatizing border issues insisting the rights of people are more important than the laws of nations.

It was a time rich with ideals and ideology. The whole experience was made stronger by seeing this entire parade of scenes pass through the city’s open-minded and open-hearted playhouses. Plenty of times it felt like I was being force-fed Thanksgiving dinner several times a week.

There is a lot I will miss, but also a lot to be thankful for. The philosophical lessons I’ve learned taking notes in dark theaters have just been prelude to the next act of my life. The one that begins May 17, the first day there will be no printed edition of the Tucson Citizen.

I walked on fire for this place, a piece of cake compared to guessing which day we were going to die. Or not. Buyers invited to visit the place didn’t bother. We continued “day by day.” Just like real life.

My career here started in 1980, after a decade of change as tumultuous as this one. The Citizen had moved, changed owners and converted to computers.

At 20, spoiled for honest work by a stint at a college paper, I drove to 4850 S. Park Ave. to talk to my uncle’s poker buddy. Then-Features Editor Dick Vonier told me what my creative writing degree was worth and sat me down at a typewriter to rewrite my résumé.

Seventeen years later a couple of co-workers and I sat at Dick’s kitchen table, trying, though not very hard, to talk him out of his last bender.

This by way of saying the Citizen has been, if not the love of my life, by far my most enduring commitment.

Just ask my ex-husband.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: I got a job as a clerk and begged copy editors to let me write headlines. One of them, known for once accidentally setting his hair on fire, ended up in a coma. I offered to fill in. How was I supposed to know he’d died that morning?

After that, the bosses found me an editing position. I started with the new section Calendar and in 1983 was made editor of Bulletin Board, a weeky zoned publication delivered to all area households.

For arcane legal reasons, Bulletin Board had to be an “edition” of the Citizen, outside the ordinary chain of command. I couldn’t, by law, have a boss.

Leaving me free to work my own hours and follow real reporters around. Especially one.

DUCK AND CHICK: This guy walks in with a brilliant magazine-length piece and Dick tells him we can’t use it. He goes home, writes another brilliant story and comes back the next day. This one ran, and Chuck Bowden was hired.

Bowden tolerated me as a kind of apprentice. I’d tag along on interviews and he would invent assignments for me, even dragged me to the gym. Journalism takes stamina.

Chuck and Dick and Picture Editor P.K. Weis were among my many mentors, illustrating every day the power of observation, language and frozen instants in time.

When I wrote a front-page piece about a storefront dance club an editor attached a snotty comment: “Non-Bowden byline CQ (correct).”

I took it as a compliment.

DESK HOPPING: I had skipped the usual reporter-to-editor sequence and needed to back up. I covered the county and city ably enough but rarely with the grit and patience to do it expertly.

We started to lose our investigative edge when our most hardnosed reporters – like Jim Wyckoff and Mark Kimble – became editors. All of us had a learning curve. Frustrated by the “he said, she said” rhythm of reporting, I longed to get to the bottom of things but rarely did.

I landed on the city desk and did a stint at USA TODAY as the token Westerner – and conservative. Just because I didn’t think every problem had a government solution.

Back here, two years on the features desk burned me out on managing people. I never knew where their jobs ended and mine began.

I fell hard in ’96, lost my driver’s license and joined Dick’s support group (he died in 1997).

And I got demoted to the copy desk. Finally I was where I wanted to be.

RECENTLY: From days to nights, copy desk to the city desk, back to the copy desk. Setting the alarm for 2:30 a.m. or 4 p.m. Ducking out of Thanksgiving dinner or arriving late on Christmas Eve – typical newspaper stuff.

And, for the past couple of years, doing this column, riding herd on the Web site and student teaching at Cholla High Magnet School.

On vacation or on assignment, I traveled and saw the world. I stay at home and see it too.

As long as I’ve worked here, I’ve learned. Whether I wanted to or not.

NOW: A few unemployed journalists may not amount to a hill of beans. Ninety percent of what we do is – not, fluff, exactly, but superfluous. Opinions, entertainment, sports. National news, available anywhere. Almost all of it free, not counting the Net connection.

But still we lose something with every demise. Newspapers have the staff, if not always the will, to ferret out embarrassing information local governments don’t want published. To pursue documents revealing whether Lute Olson got special treatment. And to hold big businesses – like Citizen owner Gannett Co. Inc. – at least somewhat accountable for previous statements.

Thanks to Assistant City Editor Mark Evans for reviving that hunger here.

Financing the dogged tenacity to nail that stuff is a lot more important than polishing prose or rewriting press releases.

A born cynic, and most days I still believe: Truth will find a way to be told.

I just don’t know how anymore.

A family’s journey from hand-set type to hand-coded hypertext

George M. Smith edits a story for the Wheaton Daily Journal sometime in the late 1940s.

The Internet killed the newspaper.

No, it’s the economy, stupid.

Or overleveraged publishing chains. Left-wing columnists. Whatever the cause, change is in the air of the publishing world, but it’s blowing faster than ever.

From the cover of Time magazine to a slew of bloggers, the changes sweeping the news business are an untiring meme lately.

Newspapers big and small are stopping their presses, not to replate with the latest breaking scandal, but to lay off their staffs, shutter the doors, retire the nameplates.

It may be news, but it’s not new. My family has been involved, off and on, in the newspaper game for more than a century. Each generation saw shifts in society and advances in technology challenge their publishing acumen.

My great-grandfather got into journalism in 1900. George M. Smith began writing for the Naperville (Ill.) Clarion fresh out of high school. After attending Wheaton College, just outside of Chicago, where his father taught, he worked his way through a succession of reporting jobs.

In 1913, he purchased the Du Page County Tribune, a weekly in Wheaton, setting himself up as editor and publisher.

Printing a newspaper in those days was a labor-intensive operation. Every line of type was set by hand, using individual die-cast metal letters, thousands per page.

Hot lead and Linotypes

In 1915, the Tribune purchased a new typecasting machine – a Linotype. Headlines still had to be made up by hand, but the body text of stories was cast in lines – slugs – by molding hot lead. Linotypes were complex mechanical contraptions, prone to breakdown, with 90-character keyboards.

The paper was successful under George’s leadership. To speed production, he invested in another. In 1933, in the midst of the Depression, it became a daily, and the nameplate was changed to the Wheaton Daily Journal. A subscription to the solidly Republican paper ran 5 cents per week.

My grandfather, Robert Smith, followed in his dad’s footsteps, writing a column for the Journal, and studying journalism at South Dakota State College – where he met my grandmother Eileen.

She’d been active in her high school newspaper, which was a full page in the local Milbank (S.D.) Herald Advance, printed every week. She studied printing and journalism at South Dakota State before graduating in 1938.

“There were not that many women in printing – really just a few of us in the whole field of journalism.

“At the college, we set some type by hand, but mainly with the Linotype. Working the hell box (where miscast slugs and wrongly-set type were discarded, to be sorted out later) wasn’t much fun. We had to go through and pull out all the letters and put them back.

“Everything was done by hand. The letterpress was hand-fed, which was a lot of work.

“Bob was very good at setting type. I suppose it came easy to me. I’ve been able to do a lot of computer work – at the museum and such – because of it, using a different keyboard than a typewriter.”

They both put themselves through college working for the college press – writing, proofreading, making up pages.

World War II came soon after my grandparents graduated, interrupting Bob’s endeavors in journalism with a stint in the South Pacific for him and California for Eileen. Two boys also arrived, my uncle Joel and my dad, Steve.

After the war, the Wheaton Daily Journal responded to its growing market.

“Everybody brought two papers – the Chicago paper (Tribune) and the Journal. People were working in Chicago, taking the train in.”

Many commuters began to identify more as Chicagoans than as members of their formerly sleepy suburbs. The ubiquity of radio and growing television market – pioneered in the ’30s by The Chicago Daily News – challenged the small suburban publishers.

George Smith died in February 1949, having spent his life putting ink on paper, telling stories.

My grandfather and his two brothers stepped in to run the family business. Bob took over as editor, the others managing the business side.

Hand-set to high-tech

While the presses weren’t hand-fed anymore, pages were still cast in hot metal. Steve Smith – my dad – recalls the press room as a noisy, messy place.

“My father used to come home with burns” from working on the Linotype, he recalls. “You talk about a complicated machine. And that was a tough bunch of guys. He had a crown on one tooth from getting hit with a wrench by a pressman.”

The changing business and inevitable conflicts among the brothers led to a sale of the Journal in 1953.

Bob went into teaching, first for a local high school, eventually becoming a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Before he died in 1975, he was working to move the college’s program to a new computerized system.

From hand-set to high-tech, in a lifetime.

My dad went to college to study printing just as technology was shifting.

In the late ’60s, newspapers were moving to more-efficient platemaking processes and high-capacity web presses.

Colleges were still teaching outdated photoengraving techniques, even as the new technology penetrated the business. A career based on a fading process didn’t seem too viable.

Besides, the art department held more attraction. It didn’t take long for my dad to drop his journalism and printing courses.

My journey through journalism began in high school, where I learned how to type, badly, and paste up a news page by hand, using hot wax and type output from a primitive computer system at the local Prescott Courier.

After some schooling at the University of Arizona, I wrote and edited copy for a string of Tucson alternative papers whose names are mostly lost to history.

I served a stint as editor and publisher of ¿K? Magazine, an arts and culture monthly, in the mid-1990s. Despite the streamlining of the desktop publishing revolution, print publishing remained an expensive proposition.

Learning the code

In the late’ 90s, I moved into Web design, learning an alphabet soup of languages: html, xml, js, css and more.

A few years ago, the Citizen was kind enough to take me on, and eventually let me manage the Web site.

In the short time I’ve been here, the technology we use has dramatically shifted. From basic html pages to rich applications that feature video and databases, the addition of reader comments and forums, the focus of the Citizen online has changed along with the culture of the Internet.

But the impressive values of the Citizen staff have remained: accuracy, fairness, truth.

This may well be the last piece I write for a daily newspaper. It leaves me with a bit of an empty feeling, sitting at my desk, preparing for the Citizen’s last edition, knowing that my family’s history with the printing press has stopped rolling.

The family paper, having changed hands several times through the years, continues as the Wheaton Sun – a suburban weekly that’s part of the Sun-Times group.

Yes, they’ve got a Web page.

And like many newspaper chains, the Sun-Times recently filed for bankruptcy.

I hope to carry on my ancestors’ legacy of reporting. Given the trend, that will have to be in some online-only capacity. I’ll miss the smell of fresh ink, but I enjoy the 24/7 challenge of keeping the news fresh.

No matter if it’s delivered by a paperboy on a bike, or via the never-ending stream of the Internet, it’s all about telling stories.

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Ink in the blood

Many Citizen staffers have families with long histories in the newspaper business.

Alan Fischer’s father, George Fischer, was in the newspaper industry his entire life. He started as a carrier for the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald as a youth, and held a number of jobs there before becoming a pressman. He brought his skills here, working as a pressman for Tucson Newspapers from 1965 until his retirement in the late 1980s.

B. Poole’s mom, Norma Poole, and sister, Cathy Rowe, were typesetters for newspapers in Illinois during the ’60s and ’70s.

PK Weis’ grandfather PK Weis Sr. was a reporter for the Moberly (Mo.) Monitor in the early 1900s. Senior began his career as a printer’s devil when he was a young boy.

Polly Higgins’ grandfather Rathbun R. Higgins wrote a column called “The Stamp Man” for the Chicago Heights Star from 1948 to 1960 and resurrected it for the Columbus (Ind.) Republic 1967-82.

Garry Duffy’s father, Joseph L. Duffy, was an assistant to Roy Howard, of Scripps-Howard newspapers, in the late ’40s and early ’50s.

Fernanda Echavarri’s great-grandfather Jesús María Benítez Martínez, was a columnist for the local daily in Querétaro, Mexico, from 1973 to 1997.

Randy Harris’ grandfather was circulation manager of the Danville (IL) Press-Democrat from the age of 15. His mother was women’s editor for the Marion (IN) Chronicle-Tribune in the ’60s and ’70s.

Bruce Johnston descends from three generations of journalists on both sides of his family. Both of his great-grandfathers owned weekly newspapers in Canada; one of them brought the first Linotype into the country. The papers passed on through the next two generations in his family. One still publishes today, although no relatives still work for it.

Ray Suarez’s grandfather Edgar worked for TNI in the mailroom and advertising. Grandmother Beatriz was a switchboard operator, while Ray’s father, Stephen, worked in the composing room. Aunt Selina works in circulation for Gannett, while another aunt, Eloina, worked the switchboards. All told, Ray says that his family has put in 117 years working for TNI and the Citizen.

Part of the fun at working in the Citizen Features Department was that it didn't always take itself seriously. Case in point: the Citizen's inaugural mustache day earlier this year.

“Auf Wiedersehen.”

“Please pack your knives and go.”

“Your show has been canceled.”

“You are not the biggest loser.” (Um . . .)

Or, because I am addicted to “Rock of Love,” “Your tour ends here.”

But Bret . . .

Like so many reality contestants who have tried their darndest, I am cast from the wonderful serial that is the Tucson Citizen. The tribe, it seems, has spoken.

It’s sad, of course, to get kicked off the island before you’re ready. I like my tribe mates. They make me laugh and they make me think.

But enough about me. The closing of the Tucson Citizen is far beyond one writer. It’s far beyond one local daily newspaper.

Since Gannett announced its decision to sink the “for sale” sign in our lawn in January, the Scripps-owned Rocky Mountain News and Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligence have bitten the dust, and the fate of Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle is shaky. McClatchy’s Miami Herald is on the market. And on and on. It’s old news, this domino game, with fewer and fewer papers to report that news.

It’s easy enough to see why multinational news corporations didn’t see all of this gloom and doom headed their way. Newspapers, in good old-fashioned, ink-on-paper form, have survived many challengers over the years. But while radio and television were dealt with, the Internet proved a greater opponent than the newspaper chains were able to understand. Danny Bonaduce was sent into the ring to fight Mike Tyson.

Of course, technologies aren’t animate, but it sure seems like there has been a lot of fear of the machine. Our parent companies have forgotten the old “guns don’t shoot people, people shoot people” notion, though it seems so simple: The Internet doesn’t attract people, people attract people. Readers have flocked to a medium that works for them and away from one that doesn’t, and too many news corporations distracted themselves with the print product, insisting the problem was aesthetic. Ah, to be able to use that “lipstick on a pig” analogy and sound original.

The light at the end of this absurdist tunnel, the Godot we’ve been waiting for, has been here all along. And this is where I find comfort for the many talented people I have had the pleasure of working with, as well as our counterparts at dying newspapers across the country: Good writing is always good writing, and good information is always good information. We may be displaced for a while, we may have to break up the family as we forage for work wherever we can find it, but talented journalists will always be needed to tell the stories that are our cultural currency.

A new model is needed. While I like to think there will always be a New York Times in existence (and online-only counts), daily, local news organizations need to be reimagined. And that’s exciting. We’re at a point where we’re rediscovering what it means to communicate to one another. The system is broken, and we’re at the point where replacing the engine just doesn’t make sense. Scrap it, start fresh. It just might be nice to have the vehicle locally owned again.

Still, it’s been a good ride. I never felt the corporate hand when I ventured into the community to meet the many amazing artists and musicians who live here, to interview everyone from a tough, 6-year-old Tucson Roller Derby girl-in-training (skate on, Madeline BootyFly!) to an 80-plus-year-old woman revisiting her family history. You’ve all been kind to let me share both the stories that circulate in my head and the ones I’ve found in Tucson.

For now, though, it’s time to pack my pens and go.

The fun never stops at the Citizen. Former Features designer Christine Seliga tries to prevent Rogelio Olivas from being sucked into the pneumatic tube system and winding up with the crazies in Composing.

I’m either in love with or co-dependent on the Tucson Citizen. It’s hard to know the difference.

After leaving twice to work at bigger newspapers, I returned within three months to the Citizen. I just couldn’t stay away.

At the other papers, I felt like just another cog in the machine, someone whose name the publisher didn’t even know. Departments didn’t even mingle with one another.

They were so different from the Citizen, where everyone knew one another and where the editors and employees made staffers feel like family.

That feeling of family is what’s helping many of us get through this wrenching time – but it’s also what’s causing the most heartache, because we’re losing loved ones.

Fellow employee Gabrielle Fimbres described it best. When she found out that Gannett was selling the Citizen, she said she felt as if she had just unexpectedly been served with divorce papers from someone whom she still adored but who didn’t love her back.

The situation’s been tough. Many of us can’t sleep at night and we’re deeply worried about finding work in this troubled economy. Like many Americans, we’re afraid of not being able to provide for our families and of losing our homes.

We’re desperate for jobs. Many of my fellow employees are applying for positions for which they are way overqualified, which is a shame because they are so talented and good at what they do.

It’s unfortunate that they just can’t work for our competition, The Arizona Daily Star, whose employees also are insecure about their future in this Internet-cable TV age where newspapers are becoming a dying breed.

With the closing of the Citizen, some journalists and readers have lamented the loss of a second source for local news coverage in Tucson. But readers also will miss out on having two distinct (and often opposing) voices covering entertainment in the Old Pueblo. No more dual reviews of movies, restaurants, books and plays, which disappoints me because our critics were always fair, objective, knowledgeable and just as good (if not better) than the competition’s.

Like many of my colleagues, I have no idea what I’m going to do next. Journalism is all I’ve known since graduating from the University of Arizona in 1985 and working at papers in Yuma, Phoenix, New York City and here.

But I’m glad I have interim editor-publisher Jennifer Boice and associate editor Mark Kimble to help shepherd me and my co-workers through this trying time. Jennifer, who’s been at the paper for 25 years, truly is one of us and cares deeply about our welfare. When she cries with us, her tears are genuine and heartfelt.

I’ll never forget Mark because when I started working here in the early 1990s, he encouraged me to ask for a raise. Without me even asking him, Mark accompanied me to the publisher’ office and argued my case. I got my raise that week. Thank you, Mr. Kimble.

As I wind down my career at the newspaper, I find myself working 12-to-14-hour days instead of the usual 8 to 10. I tell myself it’s because I have lots more work to do. But deep down I know it’s because I want to spend as much time as possible with my Citizen family in our home. After 18 years (off an on) as a copy editor, page designer, reporter and entertainment editor, I dread my third departure from the Tucson Citizen on May 15 – because this time I can’t come back.

———

Stupidest headline I ever wrote

“Man drowns to death” – almost as bad as saying someone was murdered to death.

The two words on the police scanner that always drew a collective groan from the newsroom

“Rectal bleeding”

What I always wanted to tell callers complaining about a missing Jumble or astrology listing:

Get a life!

The life lesson I will take with me

Never let a boss abuse you emotionally. I did – but I never will again. To others in the same situation, no job is worth your dignity. Call the abuser on his behavior, or quit. You’ll be a stronger person for it.

What I’ll miss most

• Interacting with readers and the thrill of discovering new music talents and sharing them with others.

• Working with our great Features staff, including the incomparable Chuck Graham, whose stuff I began reading (and enjoying) when I was in junior high; the wacky Dan Buckley, who always brought a smile to my face; the always hip Polly Higgins, who schooled me on pop culture; the irascibly charming Larry Cox, my partner in snark; Kristina Dunham, who made all our stories come to life with her dazzling page design; our super talented young writer Otto Ross, who restored my faith in today’s youth; and my right-hand gal, Elsa Barrett, who always had my back.

What I won’t miss

• Whiners who say there’s nothing to do in Tucson. Bull! The Old Pueblo has plenty of options for fun. You just need to open your mind, get off your lazy butt and explore the city.

• The cowardly online posters who hide behind a cloak of anonymity to spew their bile and link all the woes of the world to illegal immigration. What will you do without us?

Future career options

Telenovela writing school; Tiger Beat intern; plus-size model

Otto Ross began his writing career at age 9, penning a story about a superhero mouse.

“The Times They are A-Changin’ ”

Come writers and critics who prophesy with your pen . . .

When I was 9 I wrote a 20-page book about a superhero mouse titled, “ONYAY.” This was the magic word he would say before throwing the cat into the sink or lifting the school. For illustrations, my mom took me to a local pet shop and we posed mice in tiny Superman capes. I still prefer to take my own photos.

Twelve years, multiple journalism classes and a brief stint with the Arizona Daily Wildcat later, I landed a three-week internship with the Tucson Citizen.

My first assignment was a Calendar cover story about local painter David Tineo, whose eyesight has been deteriorating over the years, making it more difficult for him to pursue his passion. I could not have asked for a better assignment. Being able to write about such an extraordinary man who has managed to overcome such adversity was something I hardly expected to be doing in my first week. I was covering a story that I legitimately cared about and that I thought the public would as well.

I can’t forget the gratification I experienced the following week when I saw the center-spread photo of Tineo in front of his mural. Aside from the awe of seeing my byline, I truly felt that I was doing something significant, something that would make a difference to somebody, anybody, maybe just him.

Since then, the Tucson Citizen has given me many other opportunities to further explore this aspect of journalism. On another assignment, I sat on the low cushions of a local Afghan restaurant while the family that owned it explained that in their culture serving people food is an honor, not a chore. At a local library, DJ T. Richard Smith told me about the racism and adversity he overcame to become one of Tucson’s most legendary radio personalities. In another story, the smooth-talking street magician, Crow Garrett, graciously offered me tips on how to pick up ladies using a bit of magic.

I am fascinated by people and the stories they have to tell. For the last nine months the Tucson Citizen has allowed me to make a living conveying these stories to the community. I am sincerely grateful for the time this paper and its staff allowed me to perform this service.

“Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin’.”

Recently, all newspapers, not just the Tucson Citizen, have fallen on hard times. Whether it’s the Internet or the economy or a cruel combination of both, traditional newspapers all over the country have been fighting to keep their heads above water. Every day seems to be the bearer of bad news for this profession that many of us hold so near and dear.

I don’t know what the future of journalism holds or whether print media can survive, but I do know that the ideals of the profession will endure, in one form or another. With the exception of police officers and firefighters, there are few other professions in this world that so highly value their duty to serve the public. While journalism can sometimes be a thankless job, there are people who dedicate themselves day in and day out, not for recognition but because they believe in the fundamentals that journalism represents. They believe that the public has the right to be informed in an accurate, dependable and professional fashion.

While I am new to the world of journalism, I like to think that through my time working with the Citizen I have begun to embody these ideals as well. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find work as newspapers sink and hiring freezes. For this reason I have been considering eventually getting a degree in teaching to ensure that I will have an income once I graduate. However, I don’t think I could ever turn my back on journalism. There is too much I would miss: The fascinating people, the fast pace, the exhilaration of creating and the accomplishment of a job well done. Then there is the overwhelming excitement of deadlines, including buckets of coffee, lack of sleep and the night terrors of thinking you’ve missed one. It’s a journo’s life for me. If that doesn’t pan out I could always go back to writing children’s novels.

Having the opportunity to work with the staff of the Tucson Citizen has opened my eyes to all of these things, both the exhilaration and the night terrors. While I did not get to know all of the staff as well as I would have liked, simply seeing their dedication has showed me what selfless and devoted people journalists are. I am so thankful to every one of you for that and wish you all the very best. Here’s to you, ol’ Tucson Citizen.

This is a sad time for newspapers. It is also a sad time for me.

Since losing a newspaper is much like a death in the family, the fact that the Tucson Citizen is ceasing publication has left me with a feeling of crippling loss. Within a day or two of the first announcement in February, I found myself in denial, the first of five stages of grief as outlined in “On Death and Dying,” the 1969 bestseller by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

I told myself that this could not be happening, because belts were tightened and there had been assurances by Gannett that the paper was safe after the latest round of cuts. My denial was quickly followed by anger, a red, hot rage. How could corporate America be so heartless?

Even though my pain was deep, I wasn’t alone in feeling such despair. One afternoon as I left the paper, I saw a colleague in the parking lot, crying. Nothing I could ever say would lessen the pain that we both felt. As I drove home that afternoon, I wondered if corporate executives ever think about the impact their decisions have on people? Profits are important but what about the cost in human terms of the people who make those profits possible?

As time marched on, I found myself playing out various scenarios in my head. Perhaps, if the skeleton staff at the Tucson Citizen worked a little harder, or if a buyer could be found, maybe, just maybe, the paper could be saved. Not even I believed that.

A week or two later, the depression I had deepened even further when I read a sampling of hateful postings from our readers who seemed jubilant the paper was on life support and probably would not survive. Why do some people feed on the calamity of others? What joy is there when people lose their jobs and possibly their homes? It was shortly after that when I realized I didn’t care anymore. Maybe closing the paper was for the best.

Gallows humor was one of the last stages I experienced and then came acceptance.

When the last issue of the paper rolls off the presses, I have prepared myself emotionally for whatever happens. Nevertheless, there remains an empty feeling, and I am sad.

Memory can be comforting, especially during difficult times. I originally arrived on the doorstep of the Tucson Citizen because of a promise I had made to myself years before. I vowed I would never work for either a person or a company I didn’t respect.

After being treated rather shabbily at another publication in Tucson, I quit. Because I love writing and it is an important part of my life, my next move was to meet with Michael Chihak, the editor and publisher of the Tucson Citizen. After a brief conversation that lasted no more than five minutes, I was hired one autumn day in 2002. I agreed to write two weekly columns that would continue until Michael no longer found they fit the paper or I decided the work was no longer fun. That was the totality of our agreement. We shook hands and I began my work as a columnist at Arizona’s oldest daily newspaper.

For the last seven years, I have had more than just fun working for the paper. The friends I have made there will continue to be my friends even though the paper that brought us together will soon be nothing more than microfilm and dusty clips.

I love newspapers. I get excited when I hear the crackle of police radios, hear a reporter doing a telephone interview, or see the latest issues hot off the presses. What made the Tucson Citizen so extraordinary was the sense of family that existed in the newsroom. Simply put, the Tucson Citizen is and was a special place and it will always be so in my heart and memory.

Because this isn’t a perfect world, there are things that I won’t miss. At the top of my list are the mean-spirited anonymous comments posted by what I hope are a small minority of our readers. More often than not, the comments are vile and racist and have no place in a civilized society.

Even topping those comments is a personal e-mail that I received several years ago. After reading one of my book reviews, a woman called me a “liberal pus-sucking pig.” As if that wasn’t enough, she ended her little poison pen message by saying that she hoped I died of cancer. If she had wanted a bull’s-eye hit, she got it. I received this message just three days after I had returned to Arizona from burying my mother in Arkansas. Mom died after three terrible years fighting cancer. I consider myself a strong person but I remember even now how I wept after reading that hateful e-mail.

This finally brings me to the end.

Goodbyes are never easy and I hate saying them. I’ve had to say too many of them in my lifetime. There are so many things I could say and so many people I should thank but, as the closing of this proud old newspaper has taught me, there is never enough time.

I am sad.

When I was a child, there was little love in our family for journalists.

My grandfather, a federal judge in Tucson, spoke of newspaper reporters who botched the facts, or twisted them to fit the story.

When I told Grandpa that I yearned to be a journalist, he did a pretty good job disguising what must have been disappointment. He loved us so much and would never have discouraged our dreams.

I knew from the time I started my “Dear Gabby” column in the student newspaper at St. Michael’s Parish Day School that I wanted to be a journalist.

I wanted to tell people’s stories.

I walked into the Citizen newsroom Jan. 7, 1985, as a journalism student at the University of Arizona.

I knew I was home.

The image of the adrenaline-charged editors jumping up from the news desk to yell “Stop the presses,” still brings a shiver.

My early days were spent filing photo negatives and answering phones. Then I became a real reporter. I covered cops and courts. I covered Mexico. I wrote breaking news and in-depth projects. I was doing what I dreamed of, telling the stories of people in the city I was born and raised in, the city my ancestors lived and died in.

I became assistant city editor, and later assistant features editor.

Then came the babies. After becoming a mom, I worked out a deal that allowed me to work part-time, mostly from home. I wrote about fetal alcohol syndrome. I wrote about drug-addicted parents. I wrote about violent children.

They are unforgettable, these stories of a lifetime.

There was the elderly woman, dressed in black and clutching rosary beads as she prayed at the base of a mountain of rubble in the heart of Mexico City.

Her daughter’s family lived in a high rise that tumbled during an early morning earthquake that left more than 10,000 dead. She prayed for a miracle that somehow her family had escaped.

It was a miracle that never came.

There was the hulking, blind man with mental illness who was led shuffling and shackled into the courtroom after voices in his head told him to kill his mother, whom he said had inflicted cruelty upon him for decades.

There was a young woman with all her possessions piled into an abandoned shopping cart as she headed to a shelter after completing rehab. Free from methamphetamine after a 13-year addiction, she was starting a new life for her and her boys.

There were the heroes, too many to count.

Gail Leland was the first hero I met along the way. Her 14-year-old son Richard was murdered in 1981, and his killer was never caught.

Gail and her best friend, Gloria Fritz, helped others going through their same hell. Gloria’s adorable 7-year-old daughter, Cathy, was murdered in 1982.

The two moms sat in their living rooms and talked with other parents who had lost children to murder. Today, 27 years later, Gail continues her mission, always missing her friend, Gloria, who died from cancer in 2000. Through Parents of Murdered Children and now Homicide Survivors, Gail has helped thousands of Tucsonans devastated by the murder of a loved one.

There was quiet rancher Jim Corbett, who was prosecuted for helping Salvadorans fleeing violence in their homeland. He offered food and shelter to the tormented.

There was Teresa Kellerman, who 31 years ago adopted John, a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome. What started as a mom advocating for services for her son led to Teresa educating people around the globe about the permanent brain damage caused when a pregnant woman drinks alcohol.

There were Laura and Bill Henderson. When Laura said her prayers at night, she would ask God to let her live long enough to see her grandsons into adulthood. The couple, in their 70s and 80s, were helping with homework, packing lunches and carting kids around after the boys’ parents could not care for them.

The Hendersons were among thousands of Tucson grandparents left to raise children, usually when parents are lost to addiction, incarceration, mental illness or death. They found help and a family at the KARE Family Center in Tucson.

There was Mark Loebe, a young man struggling to figure out who he was. He had pieced together his past, one in which he was so terribly beaten as an infant that he nearly died.

But he survived, and was adopted. Mark dreams of someday becoming a dad. For now, he helps other youngsters who have been abused.

They are the stories that live in my heart, and in the Tucson Citizen archives. I am forever grateful to those who shared their lives with me.

It has been a privilege to write about the city I love so dearly. I am thankful for my grandfather, my parents, my brother, my husband and my three children for all their love and support, as well as my incredible Citizen family.

I hope I made you proud, Grandpa.

Only in the Citizen did readers learn how to do the Electric Slide, thanks to dancer extraordinaire Elsa Nidia Barrett.

It’s hard to believe that more than 27 years have passed since I walked into the Tucson Citizen newsroom.

I clearly remember that day. It was like walking into the land of giants, because everyone was about 2 feet taller than me. The office was noisy and smoky and everyone was running around like a chicken without a head.

I was terrified and just wanted to turn around and go home. But I’m glad I didn’t because my world changed forever on that day. I was exposed to a very different breed of people and new attitudes.

There was never a dull moment working at the Citizen. Every day provided something different: breaking news stories of killings, bomb threats, serial killers, earthquakes, and a shuttle explosion. Nowadays, the newsroom is not as noisy or smoky and no one’s running around like a chicken without a head. It’s a different Citizen now, with mostly everyone chained to their desks.

But that feeling of terror I experienced my first day has returned, and it’s even stronger. My Citizen is closing its doors and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

With it go my feelings of stability, my meaningful work, and most of all, my great, caring friends. I will miss talking to the people in the community, getting information about everything happening in Tucson – from gallery openings, to fiestas, movies, book signings, and family-friendly events.

I will miss talking to co-workers Rogelio, Gaby, Polly and Chuck about the best dishes in town, the newest films, the best CDs and everything else going on in our lives. I will also miss my weekly discussions with Jennifer and Teresa about television shows, including “Lost,” “24,” “Bones,” “House,” “Damages,” and “Life on Mars.” Our little get-togethers started when we discovered we were all huge fans of Joss Whedon’s teen dramas, “Buffy” and “Angel.” I wouldn’t had been able to keep with all those shows if it wasn’t for Señor Dave Petruska, one of the sweetest persons in the Citizen. Year after year, he kept me up to date by recording some of my favorite shows.

Throughout my roller coaster of a life the Citizen was the only constant. No matter what happened, I found refuge in my work and colleagues.

I will miss working at the Citizen. It was more than just a job. It was a huge, caring family. Adios, mis amigos.

It’s my final column.

I knew this day would come, though I actually figured I’d just drop dead in the middle of writing something and that would be that.

When I started at the Citizen back in August of 1987, one of my friends said, “Why are you going to work there? They’ll be out of business in a few months.” Turns out he was off by about 21 1/2 years.

So what now? Honestly I’m not quite sure. My phone hasn’t been ringing off the hook with offers. But with Gannett saying we were up for sale, I’m sure many were convinced someone would step up and buy the Citizen. Nobody really wanted to believe this day would come.

On our annual evaluation forms there was a place for employees to list the job you feel qualified for that you’d like to be considered for next. For the last few years I’ve always written “Spaceman” in that slot.

The fact is I really liked what I did here. I met interesting folks. I watched history unfold in front of my eyes, and got to write about it or videotape it to share with our readers. I met politicians, scientists, artists and musicians of every sort. One of my first feature stories was on a dog psychologist. Arf! I reported on marches, watched the Phoenix Mars Lander touch down, watched Tohono O’odham pick saguaro fruit, and spent a wonderful time with an Apache violin maker. I fell in love with the music of the mariachis and the colorful pageantry of folklórico dance.

I watched the summer solstice sunrise over San Xavier Mission through the viewfinder of my video camera, and nearly got trampled to death at the odd football game. I spent literally thousands of nights in concert halls, walked the campus with a near-nude performance artist, and watched the Aaron Copland of Australia, Peter Sculthorpe, drop Coke cans I’d scooped off the floor of my car’s back seat to listen to them plink and plunk.

I saw kids grow up and blossom, and short lives come to a close. And when the presses roll for the last time, I will be there to record it. In all likelihood I will be the last man out after editing those last bits into our farewell video.

But I will write for these pages no more, and it’s highly improbable I will again be a journalist.

Back in 1987 when I signed on as a music critic and features writer I had a reason for doing so. People were excited about downtown becoming an arts district. I was president of the Central Arts Collective gallery downtown and had been supporting myself with a mix of work as a composer, photographer’s assistant, performance artist, freelance writer and recording engineer prior to the Citizen hiring me.

It was a huge trade-off. On the plus side, I was in a position where I thought I might help get artists’ dream of a city of the arts off the ground. On the minus side, my work as a composer was deemed a conflict of interest, and had to be put aside. At that point I figured the Citizen would be a temporary gig and I’d get back to writing music in a year or two.

Instead I discovered the endless stream of amazing talent this city has produced as well as the array of talent we’ve been introduced to by organizations such as UApresents, Borderlands Theater, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Arizona Opera and so many more.

How many composers on hiatus get to be inspired night after night by the greatest musicians of our time while they slowly and privately evolve their own voice? Mind you, I still stink, but it’s not for lack of good examples.

Over my 21 years at the Citizen I was tempted many times to leave. But year after year I was convinced that there were many more important stories to be told of folks from this special place like no other in the world.

It has been a privilege to serve this community and in some small way reflect a tiny corner of the beauty and life Tucson has shared with me. I thank our readers for their indulgence, their generosity and patience. I wish the town all the best, and I will miss our readers more than I miss being 17.

So what do I do now? I don’t know. It looks like my dream of putting on my second opera may become just another victim of budgetary axes. That’s life.

One thing is certain. Unless NASA decides it needs grizzled, semi-chunky prospector types to mine the moon and opts to honor my spaceman post request, I’m not going anywhere. Tucson is my home. You can take the job away but it’s going to take a lot more than that to make me leave.

The hardest part of this is saying goodbye to all the wonderful folks I work with here at the paper. They are dedicated, hard-working, highly intelligent and more fun than one can legally have with clothes on. They have a dedication to and perspective on Tucson like no other team in the business.

In the end there is one great consolation. Our slogan has always been “The Citizen is Tucson.” We meant it, and we earned the right to say it every day. As we leave, we know that Tucson is a better place for our service, and it will become an even better place as we all find other ways to serve.

If you want to stay in touch I’ve set up a crude Web site with a blog (http://web.me.com/dbtucson/Daniel_Buckley_onda_web/Welcome.html), or you can reach me via e-mail at dbtucson@gmail.com.

Adios, amigos. See you around.