The right thing to do when quitting a column is to write a fifteen-minute resignation piece thanking your readers and saying goodbye in a hail of fireworks. You can all relax because I am not quitting. I just take long breaks between columns unless I feel like writing them a mere two months apart.
My excuse for lingering or, arguably, malingering, is that baseball is timeless. That being said, it makes no difference whether I write my next column in a week or if I wait until the Cubs play in the World Series.
When you realize you can’t catch lightning in a bottle, you should stop running around your yard with a bottle during electrical storms. It doesn’t mean you can’t pursue lightning bugs when the weather is nice. Sometimes you catch a praying mantis and people are impressed. The translation of this paragraph is that I can turn a phrase when I feel like it to cover up the fact that I haven’t been following the Cubs closely.
I bring up resignation only because resigning has become popular among columnists who have either become aware of or been told that they are no longer within the age demographic of their publication. I admit that the resignation bug has been in my ear. No one has said anything to me about resigning. And yet a funny thing happened when I pulled the bug out of my ear. I found that it was a praying mantis and I put it in a bottle.
I could write this column forever and just might. As long as you understand that by definition “forever” means that if my next column isn’t written until the Cubs win the World Series, I will have succeeded in writing this column forever.
By Rob C. Christiansen
