ELSA N. BARRETT

ebarrett@tucsoncitizen.com

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.

Multimedia manager Daniel Buckley

The song is on a collection of various artists called “Conjure” – a jazz setting of poetry by Ishmael Reed. The tune is titled “Dualism 1.” The words (sung by Taj Mahal) are:

“I am outside of history.

I wish I had some peanuts.

It looks lonely there in its cage.”

After the instrumental break it returns with:

“I am inside of history.

It’s hungrier than I thought.”

I pick this song because history has just swallowed the Citizen whole.

Book reviewer Larry Cox

It would have to be “Thanks for the Memories,” originally introduced by Shirley Ross and Bob Hope in the 1937 Paramount film, “Big Broadcast of 1938.” The song is wistful and a little sad, exactly how I feel as we get nearer to the final edition of The Tucson Citizen. A close second comes to mind after reading some of the nutty, over-the-top, hateful comments posted by some of our readers on the paper’s Web site: Bessie Smith’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”

Features editor Teresa Truelsen

I would dedicate “Closing Time” by Semisonic. Not only is its sentiment appropriate, but it reminds me of happier times at the Citizen, when former sports editor Peter Madrid would sing the one line – incessantly – early in the morning.

Arts writer Chuck Graham

This is a sad one to write, after working 35 years at the Tucson Citizen, but only one song keeps coming to mind. That would be Bob Hope singing “Thanks for the Memories.”

Reporter Ryn Gargulinski

I am in a bubble

I am in a bubble

I am in a bubble

A bubble

Covers

Me.

“The Bubble Song” (2009) by Ryn Gargulinski

Copy editor Rose-Mary Grzasko

This dedication goes out to my comrades in print journalism as we follow the path of the dinosaur (many of us became such during our years at the Citizen): “Time of Your Life” by Green Day.

“For what it’s worth,

It was worth all the while” . . .

“I hope you had the time of your life.”

I know I did!

Events coordinator Elsa Nidia Barrett

The first song that came to my mind is the ’80s rock song, “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen. But the more I thought about it and dozens of endearing memories (about growing up at the Citizen) flooded my head, I could think of only one melody: Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

“But/ nothing/ I said nothing can take away these blues/ Cause nothing compares/ Nothing compares 2 U.”

Online content editor Mike Truelsen

“Still Be Around” by Uncle Tupelo

It’s about loyalty and dedication and coming out the other side of tragedy/addiction and hoping someone is there when you do.

“If I break in two, will you put me back together?

When this puzzle’s figured out, will you still be around?”

Arts writer Otto Ross

“The Times They are A-Changin’ ” by Bob Dylan

“Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon

For the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who

That it’s namin’.

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin’.”

Cartoonist Arnie Bermudez

“Where the Birds Always Sing” by The Cure

“The world is neither fair nor unfair

The idea is just a way for us to understand

No the world is neither fair nor unfair

So some survive

And others die

And you always want a reason why”

Copy editor Dave Petruska

I’ll go with The Beatles’ “Good Night.” I probably would have picked Billy Joel’s “This is the Time to Remember” if it hadn’t been used for the Lute Olson farewell.

Online editor Dylan Smith

Joe Jackson’s “Sunday Papers”

“Sunday papers don’t ask no questions

Sunday papers don’t get no lies

Sunday papers don’t raise objection

Sunday papers don’t got no eyes”

Metro columnist Anne T. Denogean

“Another One Bites The Dust” by

Queen

Reporter B. Poole

Sheryl Crow’s “Can’t Cry Anymore”

“It’s never ending

It could be worse

I could’ve missed my calling

Sometimes it hurts

But when you read the writing on the wall

Can’t cry anymore”

And too much time I’ve been spending

With my heart in my hands

Waiting for time to come and mend it

I can’t cry anymore”

Voices editor Paul Schwalbach

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Gordon Lightfoot and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

“That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed.” Sounds like us.

And really, for the whole f—— song. As nauseatingly hypersentimental as it is, on our last day, it will be fitting. “Fellas it’s been good to know ya.”

Reporter Heidi Rowley

“Ticket to Ride” by The Beatles or “Unbreak my Heart” by Toni Braxton

Reporter Alan Fischer

Joey Ramone, from a goodbye album he wrote and made while dying of cancer. The title song is “Don’t Worry About Me.”

“Ahh nothing lasts forever

And nothing stays the same

Feeling numb all over

And totally deranged

When you finally make your mind up

I’ll be buried in my grave

You don’t know what you want

You don’t know what you need

You don’t know what you want but you want it”

Information specialist Mary Watt

David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” I feel like the astronaut out in space without a lifeline, with a circuit that’s gone dead.

“Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon, Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.”

Designer Jan Todd

“Sounds of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel

Former features editor Dina L. Doolen

As corny as it may sound, my dedication song to the Citizen would be “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. In my 11 years working at the Citizen, that’s exactly how I felt. We were family, warts and all, and when adversity hit, supervisors and peers insisted that our real families came before the Citizen. Also, if the song was good enough for baseball great Willie Stargell and the Pittsburg Pirates, it’s good enough for the Citizen. Best wishes to all.

Designer Jen Lum

It’s too easy to be cynical about everything that’s happened, so instead I’ll dedicate my favorite ode to an ended relationship, “You and I Both” by Jason Mraz.

“You and I both loved

What you and I spoke of

And others just read of

Others only read of the love, the love that I love.”

I’ve never been able to accurately describe to nonnewspaper people just how much I’ve loved my job and the people I work with. I will miss the Citizen dearly. Thanks for a great run.

Calendar editor Rogelio Yubeta Olivas

After getting ridiculed by my co-workers for my first two picks (“My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler), I’ll go with Charanga Cakewalk’s “Tu y Yo (You and I.” The love song not only adds some Latin spice to the Citizen playlist, it truly describes how I feel about the paper. It’s about two lovers who are linked forever.

LARRY COX

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.

GABRIELLE FIMBRES

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.

“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.

CHUCK GRAHAM

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.

ROGELIO YUBETA OLIVAS

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

“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.

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

The costumes upstage the actors in the new adventures of those eccentric rednecks from Tuna, Texas, the state’s third-smallest community.

Not that the actors in “Tuna Does Vegas” are bad. Far from it. But the costume designs are even more hilarious in this nationally touring production presented by Broadway in Tucson.

Jaston Williams and Joe Sears are onstage playing all the characters, just as they always have since first creating “Greater Tuna” back in 1981 with Ed Howard, who is also the director.

This triumvirate then created “A Tuna Christmas” in 1989, which went on to enjoy a successful holiday run on Broadway in 1995. That triumph was followed by “Red, White and Tuna” in 1998. While all three plays have become popular moneymakers in regional theater, Williams and Sears still like to go on tour now and then to show the rest of the country how it’s done.

On the opening night of their most current production, “Tuna Does Vegas” at the downtown Fox Theatre, Williams and Sears were up there once more giving life to Arles Struvie, Bertha Bumiller, Petey Fisk, Vera Carp, Didi Snavely and all the others.

Lifetime fans – shall we call them the Tuna Nation – will be happy to learn a few more characters have been added who are uniquely Las Vegas. Which brings us back to those fabulously vivid get-ups designed by Linda Fisher. For openers, Bertha makes her entrance wearing a lime green vest over a shocking pink blouse, with pink and green flowered slacks contrasting nicely with her helmet hair.

Aunt Pearl Burras spins the chaotic color wheel even faster when she walks out wearing a dress that looks to be designed by Omar the tent maker. Scarcely more than a muumuu, it is covered in a busy print flaunting flowers with red, yellow, green and blue petals. To this she adds a little lime green hat adorned with more plastic flowers and fruit, plus a sturdy pair of black shoes with squatty, comfortable heels.

You get the idea. But while the women dress like peacocks on a suicide mission, the loudest and most spontaneous applause broke out when the Vegas hotel elevator doors opened to reveal a gargantuan Elvis impersonator. To say that he is larger than life doesn’t even begin to be large enough.

Plotwise, the story opens early one morning at radio station OKKK where Arles and Thurston Wheelis are still doing the farm reports and playing vintage country music from the 1950s. Arles and Bertha have been married so long they want to fluff up their love life by renewing their vows with a second honeymoon in Las Vegas. After Arles innocently mentions this on the air, all the Tuna townsfolk suddenly find reasons for a Vegas visit, too.

It takes all of Act 1 before we have been reintroduced, as well, to the station owner Leonard Childers, the waitresses Inita and Helen, hapless little theater director Joe Bob Lipsey and the gun-loving Didi, who runs Tuna’s only secondhand gun store. Just before intermission, all of them are heading for their rooms in the low-rent Hula Chateaux Resort and Spa.

When they return for Act 2, the seductive side of Sin City begins to warp some of the more rigid among Tuna’s traveling townsfolk. Those less committed to maintaining their morals find opportunities for self-expression are beginning to blossom.

The humor gets a little edgy from time to time. There’s a good bit of drinking, some profanity, a doobie is smoked, raunchy winks about sex are bandied about. Not that anything is R-rated, but it still seems a bit surprising for a family show. Several politically incorrect jokes about Mexico were greeted with more gasps than laughter. Other parts of the country probably don’t feel as sensitive about border issues.

Even so, Williams and Sears got a standing ovation. Their comedy may be getting a little dated, their politics stuck in the 1980s, but on opening night, nobody cared.

IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Tuna Does Vegas” performed by Jaston Williams and Joe Sears

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St.

Price: $25-$50

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Grade: B-

Larry Cox

Q I purchased this item at a local flea market and not even the person I bought it from knew what it was. Even though everyone in my immediate family has examined it, no one has a clue. Can you solve this mystery for us? – Donna, Tucson

A You have a pie bird that was used to vent and support the crust and act as a ventilator for pies, especially fruit and berry ones. According to “300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles” by Linda Campbell Franklin (Krause, $29.95), pie birds have been in use since the early 18th century. They were especially popular during the 1890s when dozens of “pie chimneys” were manufactured in both ceramic and glass.

In recent years, pie birds have become collectible, especially ones depicting hens and roosters, pigs, birds, cats, frogs, Dutch girls, bears, and licensed characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. As with most collectibles, prices are determined by several factors including condition, rarity and desirability. Typical prices are Donald Duck, circa 1940, $150; white china bird, British origin and from the 1920s, $65; a chef on a pedestal, $35; and a “mammy,” probably from the 1940s, $175.

It was necessary to vent pies, especially ones such as the humongous pie on wheels that was made in January 1770 for Sir Henry Grey in London. This special pie included the following ingredients: 2 bushels of flour, 20 lbs. butter, 4 geese, 2 turkeys, 2 rabbits, 4 wild ducks, 2 woodcocks, 6 snipes and 4 partridges in addition to 7 blackbirds and six pigeons. The pie weighed 168 pounds and required two men to carry it to the table. Although it is not reported that pie birds were used, some type of ventilation had to have been necessary to make certain it cooked through and through.

Some sources that might be helpful are Piebirds Unlimited, a quarterly publication for collectors, P.O. Box 192, Acworth, GA 30101; and dealer Deborah Vanden Heuvel, Global Galleria, 209 Riverwalk Circle, Cary, NC 27511. Also experts Lillian Cole, 14 Harmony School Road, Flemington, NJ 08822 and Linda Fields, 158 Bagsby Hill Lane, Dover, TN 37058.