Time to end this column after 11 years

I should have quit on high note, like "Seinfeld."

Too late for that.

So now I'm writing my final column after nearly 11 years, wishing it had stayed more relevant right up to the end, wishing I'd been more entertaining for the readers who stuck with me all this time.

A columnist who writes about politics or celebrities or business or local goings-on or history has lots of fodder. Writing about yourself and trying to make it relevant to the folks who take their valuable time to read it -- that's something else entirely. Especially when your life doesn't change remarkably from week to week. No kids or grandkids growing by leaps and bounds, no exciting travel to speak of, the same spouse for a decade.

I used to be a little more interesting. When I wrote my first column for the Southeast Missourian in September 1994, I'd just ended my engagement and was dating some new fellas, and, of course, they provided a lot of material. Like the one who gave me the tops of six equestrian trophies screwed into a piece of lumber for my birthday. "I found it at the flea market, and it reminded me of you," he said.

Never mind that I didn't own a horse, ride horses and we'd never discussed horses. He was just incredibly cheap.

Or the really dumb guy who confused CDs with CD-ROMs. But he sure was pretty.

Then I married, and there were all sorts of things to write about in our first year. Like who should leave when you're trying to throw each other out but both names are on the lease. "You get out!" "No, YOU get out!" That's the sort of thing etiquette books don't tell you.

We moved to Pensacola, Fla. The new location provided a lot of material -- for instance, why can't Florida fleas actually be killed? Why, after being poisoned, do they merely become stronger, more poison-resistant superfleas?

My insane Pensacola editor provided column inspiration as well. I'll never forget the day I asked her whether she'd had time to read one of the news stories I'd submitted. "I took a whack at it, swallowed a couple of No-Doz, splashed some water on my face, and now I'm trying to read it again," she growled.

If you've been following me, you know the rest -- a disastrous 10 months in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the crush of displaced Yankees nearly made me a hermit, and then the Southeast Missourian took me back as a manager.

And now here I am in St. Petersburg, enjoying the career opportunities those last three years at the Missourian afforded me.

After receiving these sorts of opportunities from the Rusts, the family that owns this newspaper, and from Joe Sullivan, the editor and my former boss, and after having the privilege of sharing my life with 20,000 subscribers and their families each week, I don't walk away from this column lightly.

It has been a cathartic activity, a way to work out what's in my head at the indulgence of a reading public.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for that. I hope you got a laugh or two from some of my tribulations with weight management (or mismanagement), marriage, office politics and home and pet ownership.

But now you deserve these column inches to be filled with something a little more entertaining and informative than I'm able to be these days.

I will miss you.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor for the Southeast Missourian. She resides in St. Petersburg, Fla.