Love, Cindy and Mike, too.

I’m not sure if you should call yourselves dinosaurs. It should be dynasty. There was never anything more fun than radio broadcasting spot news with live remotes from everywhere and phoners from the field. I loved election nights where we went wall to wall at the Wisconsin stations where I worked.

Getting my start in radio was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had to ad-lib, write short declarative sentences, and know a thing or two about my community. How can that be a bad thing?

My main worry is the future. Where do the new “journalists” learn their trade, earn their stripes, prove their mettle? Will they go to county board ad-hoc sub-committee meetings, stay outside closed door sessions of the city council, or any of the other grunt work we all once did as part of our jobs?

Probably not. That’s the shame because doing those jobs made us better when the “big” stories came along. Plus isn’t there something nice about living in the trenches and having stories about them once your hair started turning silver?

Oh well, embrace the future, right?

With Minick retired, you finding freelance work all around, Terry back in school, and Nick looking, hopefully your radio days will be distant fond memories as you guys bask on some beach because of your Powerball winnings.

Mertens.