Stingl: It's time to say thank you and farewell to the best job in Milwaukee

I was an unlikely newspaper columnist, and you're reading that in past tense because I'm retiring from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after 33 years here.

Most everyone in my northwest side Milwaukee neighborhood, including my dad, went to work at factories and in other blue-collar jobs.

I didn't know any journalists, unless you count the kids like me and my brother who delivered the Journal. Figuring that writers were probably born that way, I never bothered to help out at the Messmer High School newspaper. 

My first year of college was a disaster. I quit, then got some training at MATC and became an auto mechanic full time for three years. Perhaps I put new brakes on your 1970s-era car. 

But an itch for more led me to give college another chance, so I enrolled at UWM and stumbled into this wonderful profession, working first at the Beloit Daily News and Green Bay Press-Gazette before returning to Milwaukee and joining the Journal newsroom.

Halfway into a 40-year career, I applied for the Journal Sentinel's local columnist job that opened when the great Bill Janz retired in 1999. I fooled the top editor at the time, Marty Kaiser, into thinking I was the best choice for the position. Thank you for that opportunity, Marty.

There was no need to ever seek another job again. I had the best one in town, writing about local people, places, events and issues. My millennial kids didn't believe that writing whatever I wanted three times a week was really a job that paid actual money.

One of my first columns was about a Wisconsin guy who shot his washing machine because it refused to work. I remember calling Maytag to ask if pumping five bullets into an appliance would void the warranty. Turns out it does.  

This gave you, the readers, a sense of what I was looking for journalistically. And you have been calling and sending me touching, quirky, offbeat, even silly story suggestions ever since. Thank you for doing that. I have a pile of printed-out column ideas that I never quite got to; it's a foot and a half tall.

The newspaper most days is a mix of bad news and sad news, so I always felt like someone sitting down to a bowl of cereal in the morning could use a break from that. I had covered the Jeffrey Dahmer trial for the Journal in 1992, so maybe I was also making up for all the grim reporting I poured into the newspaper back then.

I wrote human interest columns because I'm interested in humans. Give me an ordinary person involved in extraordinary circumstances, and I was all over it. Politics I could take or leave. We have enough talking heads already.

To everyone who allowed me to tell their story, even though they were usually meeting me for the first time, thank you for your trust.

Over the years I've been paired with so many talented photographers and photo editors. A special shoutout to Mike De Sisti, who shot and produced dozens of goofy videos to go with my columns.

Editors gave me the freedom I needed, and copy editors caught my dumb mistakes. My fellow reporters often walked over to my desk with excellent ideas for columns. I can't imagine a more fun and stimulating environment than working in a newsroom, and I will miss it, along with daily sheepshead lunches in the Journal Sentinel cafeteria. 

Seven of my retirement-age colleagues are leaving with me, and most won't have the opportunity to say goodbye in print. You will miss business writers Rick Romell and Paul Gores; environment beat reporter Lee Bergquist; general assignment reporter Jesse Garza; Ideas Lab reporter John Schmid; food, home and gardening editor Nancy Stohs; and night news editor Bob Friday. Younger people will pick up where we left off and cover the news for you.

I am leaving voluntarily, as are my fellow retirees. It feels like the right time for me, though I will probably question the decision many times in the months to come as I struggle to remember what day it is. 

From the day I was hired here, Groundhog Day 1987, I have been treated fairly and given every chance to advance in my career. I've always been proud to say I worked for The Milwaukee Journal and then the Journal Sentinel after the merger.  

It's no secret that newspapers have struggled to thrive and survive in the internet age. I have ignored every buyout offer as the Journal Sentinel has downsized over the past two decades, but I'm taking this one. I've already signed up for Social Security and I'm looking to get me some of that socialized health coverage.

Retirement lost its allure for me when my wife, Denice, died in 2016. When I wrote about losing her, hundreds of you readers called and sent emails to console me and tell me about people you loved and lost. I wrote back to everybody. It was amazing grief counseling.

But I'm looking forward to not writing for a bit until the urge creeps up on me again. And spending more time with family, especially my young grandchildren. And I finally have a new woman in my life as of a few months ago, and she's retired and willing to keep me company.

The future looks bright and relaxing, but I'm under no illusion that it will be easy to walk away from the best job in Milwaukee. I will continue subscribing to the Journal Sentinel, and I hope you will, too.

To everyone who read any of my scribblings, thank you. See you around.

Contact Jim Stingl by Tuesday at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Follow him at Facebook or on Twitter @columnboy.