Has it really been 36 years?

My mother always wanted me to be a doctor.

She wanted it so much that when I got my first newspaper job as a sportswriter in Rockford, Ill., I actually thought about writing letters home on doctors’ stationery. I figured that would make her happy for awhile.

Eventually, Momma Stein became comfortable with me following my heart, which eventually led me to the Sun Sentinel 36 years ago.

The area was obviously very different then. Fort Lauderdale had a dump of an airport, and the first things you saw when you drove out of there onto Federal Highway were Pancho’s Shell-o-Rama — trust me, it was a landmark — the Hi-Way drive-in, and a couple of strip clubs. No doubt many traumatized visitors just turned around and went back where they came from.

But I stayed. The airport changed, the area changed, The newspaper business changed. I changed. I got married and we have a great son. And as a columnist, I tried as best I could to be a mirror reflecting our community.

I wrote something around 3,500 columns, and hopefully most were coherent. The first one, as I recall, mentioned how I got towed my first week here, a great introduction to the area. I wrote the early columns on typewriters — kids, go to Google to see what a typewriter looked like.

This will be my final column, and there are some indelible images after so many years.

I was around to see John Lomelo have a bust of himself erected in the lobby of the old Sunrise Musical Theatre, where the late mayor would hang out after often driving around town in his black Cadillac, waving to his adoring groupies. Big John wound up in prison on mail fraud, which cost me a few quick columns, but it was fun while it lasted.

I saw former Sheriff Nick Navarro bring in an army of deputies to raid a small record shop — they actually had record shops back then — that was selling tunes by 2 Live Crew. Nick, suffice to say, was not into raunch.

I got to interview Fabio, and stand near Nelson Mandela. I don’t think any doctor can make that claim.

I drove through the notorious speed trap town of Hacienda Village — population about 100 — which got itself dissolved when the mayor/ sheriff gave a speeding ticket to an unhappy state legislator.

I saw highways built — I was such a genius I wrote that the Sawgrass Expressway was a “road to nowhere” waste — and I watched as seemingly every square inch of Broward became developed and overdeveloped.

Yes, I admit I harped on too many guns and too many pit bulls in South Florida and a few other things. Big deal. So hit me with a tire iron, why don’t you?

Every wild, weird national story always seemed to have a South Florida connection. That hasn’t changed, and continues to make our area fascinating.

And I can’t forget to tell you how much I appreciated you folks reading my opinions for so many years — and taking the time to let me know your opinions, often in very colorful language. To the folks who said they taped one of my columns to the refrigerator, you should know that’s the highest compliment a columnist can receive.

When I look back on it all now, I have to admit one thing — I never regretted that I didn’t become a doctor.

Gary Stein can be reached at garyastein@aol.com, or on Twitter@SSEditorial.