George Brown
By George Brown

It was about this time of year in 1998 that Bill Latham, publisher of The Clermont Sun, approached me with the idea of writing a Senior Services column.

I was CEO of Clermont Senior Services at the time and was glad to have yet another outlet to share information about the agency’s services.

A great deal has changed since then, including the color of my hair and an ever increasing inability to blow out the birthday candles.

The content of this column has changed over the years as well. In the early years every column was about some activity or program offered by Clermont Senior Services.

But around 2002, on a whim, I decided to write a humorous story about our dog, Lily (she was little more than a pup then and passed away last year at 13.) Several readers commented about how much they enjoyed that column, which sparked an interest to tell more stories.

Before long the stories more or less took over, and completely so since my retirement three years ago.

Only twice in all those years have I missed the weekly deadline, the reasons for which I do not recall.

That translates into 884 weekly columns, minus two, over the past 17 years. If you’ve not already figured out what I’m leading up to, it is this.

I’ve decided it is time to take a break. I’m not going away completely, but in the future I will only be writing from “time to time”.

This has not been an easy decision to make. As any author can tell you (whether he or she writes a column for a small weekly newspaper or novels that hit the New York Times best seller list) it is the kind and appreciative words of readers that fuel a writer’s creative juices to continue writing.

This has certainly been true for me, and doubly so because I did not set out to be a story teller, or ever imagined I could be. The credit largely belongs to you.

So what is it that has finally given me the courage to abandon you, the faithful readers of my occasionally serious but more often than not silly stories about my childhood, backpack adventures, or Yvonne running me off to our backyard camper for misbehaving?

The answer is a lot of things, but mostly it is to spend more time with family.

Not having to meet a weekly column deadline will allow me to devote more time to family (okay, I admit it will also allow me to spend more time hiking.)

Over the years, more than a few of you have encouraged me to put some of my columns into a book or even to write a memoir. Perhaps one day I will. In the meantime, I have created a blog titled, “Truths, Half Truths, and Little Brown Lies”, where I will continue to write and even include pictures to go with the stories. If you are computer savvy, you may want to follow my blog (just Google the title.)

If not, I’ll still see see you right here from time to time on the opinion page of The Clermont Sun.