I swear I am not making this up...

[rivergoat]

Dave Barry is retiring... sort of. Here's part his latest (last?) article:

The laughs stop here, at least for now

There comes a time in the life of every writer when he asks himself - as Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Hemingway all surely asked themselves - if he has any booger jokes left in him.
For me, that time has come. I've been trying to entertain newspaper readers since the '60s, when I wrote "humor" columns for the Haverford College News. I put "humor" in quotation marks because when I go back and read those columns today, I don't get any of the jokes. But at the time, they were a big hit with my readership, which pretty much consisted of my roomates.
After college, I got a job as a reporter at the West Chester, Pa., Daily Local News, where I was allowed to write humor columns. I thought they were pretty good, but after my third one, an editor took me aside and told me - this is an absolutely true quote - "you used to be funnier."
That was more than 30 years ago, and since then, hardly a week has gone by during which somebody has not told me that I used to be funnier. I sometimes got discouraged, but I kept at it, year after year, the past 22 of them at The Miami Herald. Why didn't I give up? I'll tell you why: I have no useful skills...

So this is a great job. And yet I'm quitting it, at least for now. I want to stop before I join the horde of people who think I used to be funnier. And I want to work on some other stuff. So for the next year, I won't be writing regular columns, though I hope to weigh in from time to time if something really important happens, such as a cow exploding in a boat toilet.
At some point in the next year, I hope to figure out whether I want to resume the column. Right now, I truly don't know.
So in case I don't get to say this later: Thanks to all you editors for printing my column, and thanks especially to all you readers for reading it. You've given me the most wonderful career an English major could hope to have. I am very grateful.
And I'm not making that up.

Dave Barry at The Miami Herald

DaveBarry.com

goat

 

[U2democrat]

no! I love Dave Barry! He's HILARIOUS!!!!!!

 

[sue4u2]

Bummer, I always look forward to his columns. Think I'll email him and beg him to reconsider. I think he funnier than ever...still!