David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published April 1, 2003

All good things must come to an end

This is the column I didn't expect to write, not now anyway. I knew this day would come, but I didn't expect it to come so soon. I'm hanging up my keyboard. I'm calling it quits. This is the last column I'll be writing for the Crossville Chronicle.

The reasons are many. First and foremost, it's an issue of time. Developing ideas and crafting them into what I hope is a fairly insightful and entertaining weekly feature can be a drain, especially lately with a toddler in one arm and an infant in the other. I suppose I could limp along spewing out mediocre columns week in and week out, but that's not me.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and if I can't measure up to my own standards then I have no business wasting valuable space in a newspaper. I don't want to write columns that inspire people to shake their heads and mumble, "Boy, he's really gone downhill." Who knows? Perhaps I reached that valley years ago.

So time and quality are two issues at work in this decision. Another reason is that I'm tired of getting nasty, vile correspondence from readers who disagree with me. I consider myself a fairly thick-skinned customer, but some of the e-mails I've gotten in the past six months or so have really been below the belt. One person, who didn't have the guts to add his name to the e-mail, wrote, "I find it baffling that any publisher would employ you to write anything. You are without a doubt one of the dullest and least imaginative columnists I've read in my 50-plus years. Do us all a favor and save the newsprint for something worthwhile."

I get those all the time. It was kind of funny and first, but now they've built up to the point where I feel as though if THAT many people are unhappy with my efforts than it's obviously time to cease and desist. Certainly I can find something more productive to do with my time than provide grist to my critics. Life's too short to take abuse like that for long. I could better spend my time with my children, who aren't nearly so scolding of my undertakings. When they get mad, it's usually because I put the kibosh on a pre-dinner cookie, or perhaps I wasn't able to change a dirty diaper quickly enough. Good intentions of course, so I can live with that kind of criticism.

The final reason for my exit from pages of the Chronicle is that I feel I've explored all issues worth exploring. In this age of 24-7 television news coverage in which anyone with even a modicum of "relevant" perspective is given a televised stage upon which to bellow and rant, I find it difficult to come up with fresh ideas that haven't already been driven into the ground.

As the old saying goes, there are always two sides to every story. In America, however, two sides are just the beginning. Today, even the sides have two sides, and those sides have two sides, ad infinitum. We live in a society where black-and-white issues have been replaced by barely distinguishable shades of gray. There are no absolutes anymore. There's no right or wrong.

Today's court of political correctness mandates that every opinion, no matter how outlandish or asinine, is worthy of equal time. The fringe has crept into the mainstream, and it's muddied the waters forever. Anyone with courage enough to differentiate between right and wrong, black and white, yes and no is automatically labeled thick-headed and intolerant.

Well, I'm one who thinks that issues are often clear, that once you remove the hidden agendas and special-interest fog, the answer is as plain as the nose on your face. Call me naive and unsophisticated if you like, but that's how I see most issues. Not all of them are so clear, but most are.

Finally, in closing, I'd like to say goodbye to the people who have supported me over the years. I sincerely appreciate their inspiration and positive feedback, even when it came in the form of constructive criticism. I could have chucked the column years ago, but those people kept me going. I'll miss them. Truly, I will.

And if all of that weren't bad enough, consider this. Today is April Fool's Day. I'll be back
next week. You didn't think you were really getting rid of me that easily, did you? This is a plumb gig.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.