If you read the publisher’s column on Friday, you know this lifestyles editor is heading into the unknown, also called retirement by most people.

This was a decision made in concert with the Mrs. and family members, along with Father Time. Mother Nature chipped in as well, not so much in the decision to retire, but rather making these last weeks of work easier with cold temperatures, rain and some April snow.

Not too tough to work in an office when the weather is lousy. Sunny and 60 degrees would have made it tougher.

What lies ahead?

Cleaning and clearing the attic of “some” of the stuff accumulated over the 37 years we have lived here. During a quick look recently when it was too cold to do much else, it was clear quite a bit of the accumulation has been around longer than that. A couple of U.S. Army uniforms come to mind, along with whatever else the Mrs. and I brought with us when we got hitched.

Working at a newspaper was certainly different from when I was a steelworker. At the steel plant it was punch in, do your job, punch out. Repeat when scheduled to work. Didn’t have to think too much about that job, other than when you had to be there again. Then one day the plant closed without real warning.

So I ended up at the OBSERVER as a sports writer, then city editor, and now lifestyles editor. I have to thank then sports editor Jerry Reilly for hiring me. All I knew back then was sports and how to type. I was lacking in any knowledge about computers and had no knowledge of laying out pages or any of the other processes involved in producing a paper.

Bill Hammond, John D’Agostino and Chris Kinsler were excellent teachers and most of it eventually sank into my head and they deserve my thanks. Managing Editor Greg Bacon, and especially Lifestyles Assistant Vicki Notaro, helped keep the information straight and deserve my thanks for keeping my brain from looking like my attic.

To borrow a line from the Grateful Dead, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

And that’s not just since my employment at the OBSERVER.

I also have to give thanks to my parents for deciding to make the little baby that turned out to be me. A rocky road at times with me to be sure. Dad passed away in 1993 but I am blessed my Mom is still able, and ready, to offer me words of wisdom. As an old song noted, “Always be kind to Mother, she’ll be your friend to the end.”

Watching the world from the 1950s to now, it is quite obvious things have changed, and not necessarily all for the better. One thing that hasnt’ changed, at least yet, is that people drive cars, cars don’t drive people.

A final word of advice also comes from an old song, this one by the Doors and applies to drivers of vehicles and apparently age is not much of a factor when it comes to the use of electronic devices by many of those drivers.

“Keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel. … The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”

Now, I am at the beck and call of the Mrs., kids, grandkids and especially my four-legged buddy, Otis.