Boyle column: Farewell, but not goodbye

Well, that went by fast.

The 27 years with the Citizen Times, I mean. It seems like just yesterday when I set up shop in a small, rented house on an Edneyville apple farm to cover pretty much everything going on in Henderson County.

OK, that was actually 1995, not exactly yesterday, when I was hired to be the Citizen Times Henderson County bureau reporter, back when we had bureaus. My home office boasted a Tandy laptop that displayed about three lines of text and required a glacially-slow dial-up internet connection, an old 35 mm camera with a light leak, and a fax machine that would not cut faxes at the end of the page, so I'd come home to a gigantic scroll of police reports and press releases.

Rest in peace, fax machines and Tandy laptops.

At any rate, these days I've got an iPhone for pictures and messages ― and the gray hair and impressive paunch to prove that a few decades have slipped by.

But in a lot of ways, the years have flown by. I firmly believe that's because I've so thoroughly enjoyed my job here at the paper, which evolved from covering Henderson to becoming a health reporter based in the main Asheville office, then general assignment reporter, then a columnist for the past 20 years.

More:Boyle column: 25 years, and a whole lot of fun, at the Citizen Times

The Answer Man gig was a happy accident, as I desperately needed a Monday column one week and decided to turn a few reader questions into 20 inches of copy. Voila! A franchise was born!

In a word, it's been fun. Whether laughing to the point of tears with fellow reporters Jennifer Bowman, Tonya Maxwell, Dale Neal, Mark Barrett, Clarke Morrison, Carol Motsinger, Mackensy Lunsford, Barb Blake, Romando Dixson, Melissa Williams and others, or dressing up as a unicorn to surprise former writing coach Brian Ponder, the job has never been boring.

And that's not even the journalism part. I'm just talking about my fellow journalists, probably the best part of the job.

If you haven't guessed, or been reading the paper, I'm leaving the Citizen Times. Friday was my last day, and on Nov. 7 I'm going to work for another journalism outfit here in town, the nonprofit investigative publication Asheville Watchdog.

I can't even begin to cram in all the great memories at the Citizen Times into one column, but suffice it to say I've ridden in a World War II era B-17 bomber, been a passenger in a dump truck the size of a house on the I-26 project in Madison County, and I piloted a high-powered riding lawn mower as part of a race at the Mountain State Fair. Came in third, by the way, but also did not flip it over and die.

Oh, I also drove a motorized recliner a guy in Fairview built for New Orleans Mardi Gras festival. That chair would fly, folks, and it looked great in the drive-through. Sadly, I kid about the drive-through. I drove it in the Food Lion parking lot.

I'm not proud of this, but a few years back I also donned a Bigfoot costume to make a video in downtown Asheville for a departing colleague, in the process cutting a pretty solid rug with a busking drummer. I once made a "gingerbread" house for the Grove Park Inn's annual competition that collapsed so bad I had to make the roof out of lasagna noodles.

And I may or may not have pretended to be a dog for a video at the Air Dogs competition at Bele Chere. I missed catching the tennis ball in my teeth, but I did cause a young girl to blurt out to her mother, "That's not a dog!"

On the serious side, I've covered heart-wrenching homicide trials, emotional public hearings, tedious development meetings that lasted seven hours, and far too many murders, house fires and floods.

More:Boyle column: Kayaking backwards down the poopy French Broad River

I've got to say, driving down U.S. 70 in Swannanoa during Hurricane Frances in 2004, and watching the five-lane road dwindle to one passable lane, was, shall we say, exhilarating.

That event, and last year's flooding in Haywood County, really bring home just how tenuous life is. Interviewing folks who've lost loved ones or everything they own makes you feel lucky for what you have.

On the lighter side, I've also interviewed a woman who was attacked by a rabid beaver on ... wait for it ... Beaver Lake. I say "lighter side" because it all worked out OK for her in the end, although she did have to go through the rabies protocol. OK, she may debate use of the word "lighter."

I've talked with topless women in downtown Asheville fighting for the right to go topless, even though it's legal in North Carolina. "Eyes up!" I kept telling myself. Let me tell you, some reporters were very interested in my videos from these interviews when I returned to the newsroom.

I wrote about a police chief who attended diaper parties and had to leave office in disgrace. On that note, please, do not ever Google "diaper parties" in a crowded room, as I made the mistake of doing in the middle of the newsroom. Hey, it was the early days of the internet, folks. Who knew?

On the serious side, I've also written stories that got the policy on overdoses at the county jail changed, after a woman was left unattended and died from a methamphetamine overdose. They had given her Narcan, which reverses opioid overdoses, not meth.

Never has the job been boring. In fact, it's been incredibly fulfilling.

Hey, as Answer Man I discovered that you can actually bury a body in your own yard (not too close to the water line, though), and that Buncombe County, despite its apparent love of steaming troughs of mashed potatoes, very likely will never secure its very own Golden Corral, even though I fielded approximately 912 questions about one allegedly coming.

My colleagues have put up with me all these years, including some unfortunate incidents when I went a bit far with a megaphone I owned (a particularly mean editor literally took it away from me, if you can believe that), and some practical jokes that went a little awry, including an incident with a note claiming a colleague's jacket was so dirty it was infected with anthrax.

Apparently, that's not real funny just a few weeks after 9/11.

In short, I really feel like journalists are my tribe. Despite all the abuse heaped on us at times, we're mostly a bunch of dedicated curmudgeons with sick senses of humor who can't stand when people lie about important things. The work has always energized me, partly because it's important, partly because it's fun.

But to be honest, I'm also worn out by the state of modern, corporate journalism. Companies have to make money ― I get that ― but 15 years of layoffs, furloughs and an ever-shrinking newsroom left me thinking I've got to find a better way to finish up my career.

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I think AVLwatchdog, as a nonprofit, will fit that bill nicely. I'm impressed with their work, and I look forward to becoming part of their team on Nov. 7.

But I will really miss my colleagues, and you good readers, although I hope you follow me over there. That's another phenomenal part of this gig: talking with readers, fielding their questions and kicking around ideas.

You're never boring (OK, the Golden Corral obsession got a little tedious), and you've always been an appreciative bunch, for the most part. Of course, there was also the reader who left me a voicemail after I wrote a column about gun control that started with, "You have got to be the dumbest (expletive) on the (expletive) planet."

It got worse from there. Bizarrely, she suggested that requiring insurance for gun owners would never work because people would steal their policies.

Okey, dokey ...

But overall, I feel truly blessed to have spent nearly three decades here, fielding questions, writing stories and really getting to know this community.

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You too have kept this job fun, and I'll always appreciate you. I hope we can stay in touch, and you can always feel free to reach out to me via the contact information below.

To me, nothing in journalism is better than helping folks, and that includes people with questions who just want some answers. I've made a career out of it, and had a lot of fun in the process, so I'm always amazed when people suggest it must drive me crazy.

It's been the greatest job in town, and this is a great place to live and work.

So remember: I'm only moving to another job, but I'll be right here in town. Let's keep in touch, and maybe even down a cold beverage together one day.

And remember: no jokes about anthrax being on my clothes.

God bless, and thanks for all the memories!

This is the opinion of John Boyle. You can reach him at 828-337-0941 or at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Boyle column: 'Farewell,' but not 'goodbye'