Since I announced earlier this week that my 'time' at the Daily Times was coming to an end, I've been humbled by the outpouring of support and kind messages.
Readers flooded my email, Twitter and Facebook accounts with kind words. Many of them noted how the job has changed and the many circumstances in the last few years that have made the job even more difficult.
Well, they were right about that.
But it's not the toughest job.
They should try being married to me.
I arrived at the Daily Times on June 14, 1982. Flag Day. In a few weeks that would have 38 years.
One year and four days later, I tied the knot with Patty Perley, a Downingtown girl.
She has been beside me every step of the way since. Actually, even longer than that.
We met in 1978 at The Record, a daily newspaper in Coatesville that shares a dubious distinction with too many newspapers. It no longer exists.
She worked in advertising. I was a new hire in the newsroom. She always says that the first time I strode through the advertising department on my way to the composing room - no doubt resplendent in my spongy green pants and yellow ban-lon top - she knew she was going to marry me.
Thus started what I refer to as an 'extended' dating period. OK, it took me four years to propose, and then mostly because she was tired of waiting.
I didn't have a dime to my name. Had an apartment in West Chester I could not afford. Only ate because I went to dinner at her house every Thursday night, and her Italian mother would load me up with enough groceries to get me through the week.
The first time my wife opened the refrigerator in that old apartment, she was confronted with two things - hot dogs with a mysterious white slime on them, and beer. She has not trusted my food choices or preparation since.
If you want to know what it's like being married to a newspaper editor, I highly encourage you to ask her. She'll be more than willing to detail what it involves.
She likely did not know when she said 'I Do,' she was marrying not just me, but the newspaper as well.
It was tolerable years ago when our daily focus was that beloved print product.
In recent years, with the advent of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle, it has morphed into something else altogether.
In a word, it has a tendency to be overwhelming.
Working nights, weekends and holidays was one thing.
A menage a trois - her, me, and my laptop - probably was not what she had in mind.
I think it finally hit home with me what she has been dealing with back on Aug. 13. We were sitting in the waiting room of a Virginia hospital, awaiting the birth of our first grandchildren.
She was nervously peering at the window waiting for our son to appear with word of the arrival of twin boys.
I was staring at my laptop.
Yes, you could say my priorities were a little mixed up.
That's about to change.
I'll likely never repay her for all the years she spent playing second fiddle to 'my mistress,' the newspaper.
Now it's her time.
I wonder how long it will take her to get tired of having me around?
Comments