GOODBYE AND THANK YOU

After 23 years, Graham Thomson says farewell

I’m going to miss you.

I’m going to miss your emails and phone calls and finding the occasional old-fashioned letter from you in my old-fashioned mailbox. I’m going to miss the fact, which never ceased to amaze me, that you took the time from your busy day to stop by this little corner of the newspaper. I’ll miss all of you who wrote to voice your opinions of my opinion, whether you agreed with me or not.

Many of your letters were filled with thoughtful ideas; some had kind words; and I always appreciated those who needled me with a sense of humour. Others had so much vitriol I was tempted to call the poison-control centre.

Speaking of Twitter, thank you to those who followed me via tweets.

Most of all, thank you to everyone who subscribed to the newspaper, whether digital or, you know, paper.

To paraphrase W.H. Auden, you were my Tuesdays, my Thursdays and my Saturdays (and during busy weeks when I was writing extra columns, you were also my Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. You were my every day).

To all of you who wrote with particularly warm wishes over the past week, thank you very much. I am grateful and humbled.

To those who haven’t a clue what I’m babbling about, allow me to explain: after 23 years with one of the best newsrooms in the country, I am leaving the Journal.

This is me saying goodbye. My editors are kindly letting me have the floor once more, and not because my award-winning editor Sarah O’Donnell and my brilliant editor-in-chief Mark Iype want me to flatter them.

I have had a wide, rewarding and exceptionally interesting career at the Journal.

Only a fool would try to encapsulate a quarter century worth of experiences into a few paragraphs. So, let me try.

In my time I have been punched, threatened, cursed, spat on and shot at (almost none of this happening, I should add, at the Alberta legislature).

I joined the Journal in 1995 (from CBC TV ) at a time when newspapers had newsrooms the size of hockey arenas and enough journalists to invade a small country.

Back then, the Journal regularly sent its reporters on foreign assignments. That’s how an Edmonton-based reporter like me had adventures that included ending up in a Tijuana jail, visiting what was arguably the most polluted city in the world, being investigated by police in rural Russia, and on a couple of occasions sitting in a bomb shelter as the Taliban fired rockets in my general direction.

I have spent most of my time covering stories in Canada, visiting every province and every territory. You cannot travel from coast to coast to coast in this country and not come away impressed by the sheer size, the remarkable beauty and the universal warmth of the people.

But you have to leave Canada to truly appreciate it.

The stories that stand out for me are tales of human survival and decency amid terrible suffering — of a Russian single mother, an unemployed economist, selling her last pair of good boots to feed her three sons in the midst of a crushing recession.

Or the lessons we could all learn from a Syrian refugee family living day-to-day in a makeshift tent made of scrap lumber and plastic sheets in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley who insisted sharing what meagre food they had with me.

Or, a collection of brave women in Kandahar who attended a secret classroom daily to learn how to read and write despite threats from the Taliban.

Our politicians routinely complain about Canada, about taxes that are too high, government spending that is too generous and services that are too slow.

It is hard at times to take them seriously.

But that’s been my job for the past few decades. Not that I always took them too seriously, come to think of it.

I have covered every premier since Don Getty and have spent so much time at the legislature they should stick a plaque on me somewhere.

But, to paraphrase a line from Monty Python, I am not dead yet.

This is not really goodbye. More like au revoir.

I am leaving Postmedia (voluntarily I might add despite what some trolls on Twitter have been speculating) but I am not “retiring.” My future plans are a work in progress and might have me remain in journalism.

And let me emphasize that I leave you in good hands at the Journal.

Clare Clancy and Emma Graney are two talented reporters at Postmedia’s offices inside the legislature.

As for opinion writers, there are none better in Alberta (and possibly Canada) than Paula Simons and David Staples.

I’d like to thank my friends and colleagues at the Journal, past and present.

Most of all, I’d like to thank you.