Bill Kirby: How do you say goodbye after 45 years?

This is the day the Lord has made …

– Psalms 118

What do you say to the gracious host after you've had a wonderful evening, but see it's time to go? Whatever it is, let me share it now because I have to take a break. I have family members who need more of my attention.

I began writing columns for this newspaper in the 1970s, and you have been so kind to read them.

Thank you.

Previous columns:

• Who invented the no-swiming-30-minutes- after-eating rule?

• Readers will ramble, language is a scramble, life is a gamble

• Some wave to clouds, others crowd the waves

• If it's time to work it out, I prefer to duck out

Thank you for inviting me to attend your church suppers and to speak to your civic groups.

Thank you for sending me all those postcards. Even the ones with bad handwriting or the one that got me subpoenaed in a contentious couple's divorce trial.

Thanks for the children's crayon drawings and summer vacation souvenirs and the homemade crafts, including the mouse-trapping device made of clear packing tape and cardboard paper rolls.

Now I'll have time to figure out how it works.

Thanks for your poetry and copies of your self-published fiction. Some of you have talent, and some of you need therapy.

Thanks for the cookies and brownies. (The co-workers who sat near my desk thank you, as well.)

Thank you for the discoveries. Over four decades, I found out that if you do anything long enough – no matter how modest the talent – you end up becoming somebody people know. And when people know you, they ask you to do fun things.

I have thrown out the first pitch at an Augusta GreenJackets game and dropped a puck at an Augusta Lynx hockey game. I have judged a high school beauty contest and the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee.

I have spoken to almost every civic club, garden club, men’s club, women's group and church senior luncheon in a dozen counties, including one in Avera, Georgia, in which only four showed up to clap politely after my hour-and-a-half drive to get there. (The peach cobbler was worth it.)

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

But I think it's time to go.

ONE LAST JOKE: A small airplane was carrying three passengers over a remote section of the country. Crowded into the aircraft were a Boy Scout, an elderly Catholic priest and Augusta's popular newspaper columnist.

The plane suddenly developed engine trouble and began to lose altitude. The pilot turned to his passengers and said grimly, "Sorry, guys. We've only got three parachutes, and I'm taking one of them."

With that he quickly jumped from the plane.

As the engine sputtered and misfired, the newspaper columnist looked at the other passengers and said, "Fellas, I'm sorry, but I am Augusta's favorite newspaperman. Why, many could not make it through the day without reading my clever insights. They need me; they love me. And I've got to speak to a civic club next week!"

With that, he snatched the canvas bundle near the door and leaped out.

The plane's engine stalled and everything got quiet.

The old priest looked at the Scout and said, "My son, I've led a good life. Save yourself and take the last parachute."

The youngster looked up and grinned.

"Don't have to," he said. "Augusta's favorite newspaperman just jumped from the plane with my knapsack."

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Longtime Augusta Chronicle columnist Bill Kirby says farewell