​Wow. Writing this week’s column is harder than I thought it would be. I keep starting and deleting and starting and deleting and … well, 16th time’s a charm, right?

OK, here goes:
Dear Friends, 
This is my last column. After much thought and not a little argument with myself, I’ve decided that the time is right to end this 20-year experiment in goofing around and getting paid for it. It’s someone else’s turn now.
I think this song says it all:

“Hello, I must be going,
I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going.
I’ll stay a week or two,
I’ll stay the summer thru,
But I am telling you,
I must be going.”

– By Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, sung by Groucho Marx
Kinda gets you right here, doesn’t it?

Oh well, it got me right there. Either that, or the pizza I had for lunch is backing up on me.
Anyway, I’ve been looking at farewell columns from other writers and if form is to be followed, a little history is in order. Therefore …

This column really traces its roots back to The (late and lamented) Indianapolis News, where I was pop music critic in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I took the job seriously, but I never took myself that way, and as a result couldn’t resist joking around in reviews and music columns when the opportunities presented themselves. 

(Best moment as a critic: phone interview scheduled with Ringo Starr of The Beatles. The phone rings at the appointed time and I pick it up. “Hello, Mike, this is Ringo,” says the voice at the other end of the line. And I say, “Ringo who?” I thought it was hilarious. Ringo did not.)

Anyway, one thing led to another and when The News merged with The Indianapolis Star in 1995, I went off the music beat and became a humor columnist. Actually, I think they couldn’t figure out what to do with me and just gave me the job hoping something would come of it. At any rate, I grabbed it and never looked back. Well, not until today anyway.

I went freelance in 2003. Freelance, in case you didn’t know, is another word for “salary reduction.” I didn’t care. I liked working for myself, and I liked the newspapers that picked up my column. Still do. I thank them for their continued support of my work, and I thank you, all of you, for reading what I wrote.

I don’t really know what the future holds, other than it won’t hold column writing. I may have another book in me – we’ll see about that – or I may never put another word to paper other than to make up a grocery list.
“Everything has to come to an end, sometime,” wrote L. Frank Baum in “The Marvelous Land of Oz.” But Robert Frost said there are no ends and beginnings, only middles. I like that better.

So I guess I’m in the middle of something new. I’ll take my leave of you on that note, and with this Irish blessing:

“May you always have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you, and all your heart might desire.”
​
Thanks again. Be good to each other. I’ll be seeing you.
Your pal,
Mike

Maybe it’s the change in seasons. Maybe it’s my impending birthday. Maybe it’s just because I’m weird.
All I know is that I have been having the strangest dreams lately, and if they weren’t so entertaining I’d want them to stop.

Mostly they revolve around two subjects: smoking, which I haven’t done in a long time, and work, which I also haven’t done in a long time if some people’s opinions are to be counted.

Smoking first.
It works like this: I dream that I am smoking. Simple enough, right? Except that it is the most vivid dream I’ve ever had. When I dream it I can taste the tobacco smoke. I am aware of it going into my lungs. I feel it exiting as I exhale. And as all this is happening I feel incredibly bad about breaking the promise I made when I quit.
Now’s where it gets peculiar.

The whole time it’s happening, I am aware that it’s a dream. It’s like I’m participating in it and observing it at the same time. And so I know it’s not real, that I’m not really smoking, while marveling at how real it all is. Asleep, mind you.

And then I wake up and for a moment I feel terribly guilty about it all.

The meaning of it? Beats me. Except maybe it just illustrates how powerful is the hold that cigarettes can have on you, years – 13 years, in my case – after you quit them. I’ve talked to other former smokers who tell me they have the same sort of dream and the same sort of associated feelings of failure and guilt. How nice that we have something to share.

Now, the other dream, the work dream, isn’t quite so vivid. In fact, it’s a little muddled. Basically, it mashes all the newspapers I worked for – there were six – into one big conglomeration of blown deadlines, missed assignments and yelling editors. In other words, a pretty accurate recreation of what used to be just another day at the office.

I went to the Internet – you know, that place where everything is 100 percent true – and found that I’m not having the most common of workplace dreams ... the ones about being late for work or showing up naked. No, my workplace dreams aren’t that entertaining.

(According to an article I found online, another common workplace dream is about not being able to find the rest room. Supposedly this represents a fundamental need being unmet. Obviously, this article was not written by a man of a certain age. We all have dreams about needing to go to the bathroom, the meaning of which is pretty clear: We have to go to the bathroom. Duh.)

I don’t think the work thing is all that hard to figure out. I spent 30 years of my life working in newspaper offices, which are great depositories of weirdness. I obviously stockpiled a good deal of that weirdness in my subconscious mind, and every once in a while some of it leaks out in the form of a dream. 

Oh, well. It’s not like I can stop them, so I might as well enjoy them. It sure beats dreaming about monsters under the bed or going to school in my pajamas. Oops. Just watch. I’ll probably be having those dreams tonight.