The past 4,490 days have been pretty darn fun

By admission, traditional math has never been my strong point

I blame it all on the latest and greatest new-fangled educational notion from the 1960s —“New Math.”

This, I swear, sent me spiraling into some calculational black hole. It made passing eighth-grade arithmetic stretch into summer school 1967 and freshman algebra do the same in 1968.

And later, there came the need, and struggle of course, to pass a “math equivalency” exam in order to receive a teaching certificate from Eastern Washington University.

In someone’s mind, knowing those critical skills — adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions — were vital in English, teaching sentence structure and discussing the state of the Middle East as part of social studies.

But that was so 80s you know.

Now ask me what Eric Barriere’s passing percentage was last Saturday as the Eagles destroyed the University of Maine 50-19 to advance to the Football Championship Subdivision national championship in Frisco, Texas on Jan. 5, 2019 and I don’t even need my Smartphone to know that it was about 70 percent.

Another number I know (maybe) is that as Dec. 20 dawns and you are reading this, there are 12 days — or is it 11? — until the end of 2018. And technically that means my retirement from the Cheney Free Press after some 4,490 days. If my bad math is correct, that is?

In other words, the CFP website recently told me on Dec. 17 that’s over 3,300 stories, not including non-bylined pieces and dozens and dozens of special section stories which generally do not show up in a search.

My byline and photo credit will, however, creep into 2019 as I follow the Eagles to Texas. I had the great fortune of telling that story eight years ago during Eastern’s march to the 2010 FCS title, a 20-19 over Delaware.

What’s ahead? In no particular order there’s going rafting when the rivers call, coaching some youth hockey, a stack of book projects, swearing less at golf by possibly getting better, some travel — and maybe even reading for FUN?

This journey started on a whim when I answered a help wanted ad in the local daily where I had worked part-time for some 20 years. I wryly suggested in an email that instead of plucking some 20-something out of journalism school at the university down the road that the Free Press take a look at what the self-proclaimed “old guy” might offer.

They took the chance at interviewing and then hiring a then 53-year-old, an age often overlooked in a job pool teeming like entrants in the swim leg of a triathalon.

Five Washington Newspaper Publishers’ Association first-place awards, and a handful of other honors tell me there has been some success with the gamble.

My first duty here was Aug. 17, 2007 when then EWU athletics director, Bill Chaves, was introduced to the media. That effectively began my 650 or so weeks to “feed the monster” as Free Press editor John McCallum calls churning out what sometimes seems like an endless string of stories.

I often joked with Chaves that since I did his new kid on the block intro, that he should author my exit story. But he beat me out of the Cheney city limits, departing earlier this year to the athletic director job at the University of North Dakota.

It’s been a largely wonderful 100,000-plus hours, the exceptions being some of the insanely-long Tuesday production days getting the paper ready to press first thing every Wednesday.

Or one day greeting a glow of sunrise to the east and thinking of Rod Stewart’s gravelly voice belting out “Maggie May” where “The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age.”

But the good times found at headline-grabbing places like Frisco, Portland at the 2015 NCAA basketball tournament, a Fairchild Skyfest, or even the obscurity of an elementary school cup stacking contest, have all made an impression.

As have the people from athletes and coaches on the rise — Cooper Kupp or Beau Baldwin — to dedicated community volunteers who work endlessly for nothing other than the good they give back.

There is some sadness as the retirement road ahead beckons.

And that is because this newspaper business, which I have been a part of in some way for just short of 50 years, seems to have a shaky future. Papers are such a vital part of the communities they serve, yet it seems that virtually everywhere there is a struggle to survive.

That’s another concept I have yet to grasp.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.