Some involved with the operation vow they will find a way to keep E&P alive but the odds are long. Like the industry it covers, E&P is a dinosaur destined for the scrap heap.

The end comes 40 years after I used E&P’s classified ads to find a new job. In 1969, the managing editor at The Roanoke Times decided my services were no longer needed because I failed to tell them I had dropped out of college and wasn’t actively pursuing a degree — a condition of my employment.

I got the word on a Friday morning, pulled the latest issue of E&P out of my desk and found an ad from The Alton Telegraph. They were looking for a reporter. I called the phone number and they invited me out for an interview the following Monday. I flew into St. Louis, was picked up by a newsroom assistant who drove me across the Mississippi River to Alton and an interview with managing editor John Focht. He looked over my clips and offered me a job on the spot, at double the salary I was earning at the Times. Two weeks later, I drove the 670 miles from Roanoke to Alton and started a new job that lasted nearly 12 years.

Things were different in those days. Jobs were plentiful and a reporter with a folder full of clips could move from paper to paper with ease.

Those days are gone and, apparently, is E&P after the upcoming issue.

Goodbye old friend. You were there when I needed you. I wish I could return the favor somehow today.

I’m 62.

Next month, Social Security kicks in.

So, do I feel old?

Nah.

Although I recommend Drupal for complex, content-heavy web sites, the popular open-source CMS can be a drain on server and database resources. The installation on Muse had grown to 147 tables. By migrating the data to WordPress, I reduced the table count to 14 without losing any content, images or links. Using WP’s permalinks feature, I set up a url structure that exactly matched Drupal’s “node” system so all my legacy links work without a hitch. The site now loads much faster and reader feedback has been positive.

As a writer and photographer, WordPress is much better for the creative process. Writing is seamless and the program’s handling of images if much more intuitive than Drupal. I will continue to use Drupal for Capitol Hill Blue because the CMS is more suited to a complex site but I’m happy with the easier-than-expected transition to WordPress for Muse.

Rain is still falling and wind rustles through the trees on a morning that seems more like October. Unlike the dog, I mind getting wet and retreat to the back porch while she continues the morning adventure.

Weatherbug predicts the drizzle lasting through the morning. Saturday stayed cool and cloudy throughout the day and the addition of rain adds to the chill in the air.
Chewy finally finishes her sojourn in the rain and returns to the dryness, food and water of porch. I head for the coffee pot and computer for my morning business. Yard work headed the agenda for today. That plan goes down the drain with the rain. Just as well. Arthritis likes wet weather but my body doesn’t like the aches and stiff joints. As Sun Tzu says, better to retreat and live to fight another day.

Sunday morning coming down. Bring on the welcome relief of boredom.

I’ve known I’m the second-fiddle Doug Thompson columnist for years, but never wrote about it. I didn’t mind much, and assumed nobody else would notice or care.
Last week, though, I started getting e-mails from people asking about “my” article claiming that Bush, who struggled with alcoholism, may be showing signs of a relapse.
The time has come to make some distinctions between the Dougs. After all, we both write columns available to everyone on the Internet. Those columns have been straightforward about the president’s shortcomings. Doug and Doug are both big guys will full beards. I’m not as gray as D.C. Doug, but I’m catching up.

One other correction. I’ve read the other Doug’s work for some time. He’s good. Damn good. Second fiddle? Hardly.
An example from a recent column about Hurricane Katrina:

This debacle also marks the death of local or state accountability. Everybody sang the praises of New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani when he took responsibility for his town. It’s all right to talk about local leaders when they do well, apparently. Fingers started pointing at Louisiana leaders only after the counterattack to defend the president began.
I can’t believe that people are defending Louisiana leaders and attacking Bush, or defending Bush and attacking Louisiana leaders. Nobody in any position of responsibility will get out of this with a clear conscience or a whole skin.

Good stuff, a brand of skeptical reporting you don’t see often enough in today’s mainstream media.
Another example:

Jesse Dirkhising was somebody’s classmate at Lincoln Middle School.
Dirkhising, 13, died in 1999 in Rogers. He suffocated while gagged, sedated, tied up and left on a mattress. Two men were convicted of rape and murder in that case.
Fewer than 100 books with sexual content, scattered along the rows in five Fayetteville school libraries, are stirring up more fuss about risks to children than Dirkhising’s death did.

It’s easy for me to sit in my mountaintop retreat and write scathing columns about national leaders. It’s another to live in a relatively small town like Fayetteville, Arkansas, and write that the problem of sexual abuse against children is more than dirty books in the school library. Towns like Fayetteville don’t take kindly to newspaper columnists who challenge preconceived notions and traditional norms. I wrote a column like that during the 60s for The Roanoke Times and the 70s for The Telegraph in Alton, Illinois, and know all too well what can happen when you take on the status quo.
I’m a regular reader of the other Doug Thompson’s columns. More than once I’ve stopped and said “damn, wish I’d said that.”
Take some time and read his stuff. You’ll be glad you did.