From The Desk Of …
I FEEL SORRY for my wife. Having me around the house for a few hours a day is, at best, tolerable. When I come home from work on Friday, June 5, I’ll be there for good. As I announced in a tweet series in March, I am retiring after almost 41 years with PWI and its affiliated magazines.
“I’m not sure this retirement thing is going to work,” I’ve been told on more than one occasion by the woman who came to work for G.C. London Publishing Corp. as graphic artist Darlene Fallo in 1983 and left as Darlene Saks in 1985. She has her routine, and my being around is probably going to mess that up. “You’d better find something to do all day.”
Before I consider how to save my 36-year marriage, let me say goodbye to something that has consumed my life for nearly a half-century.
When I started in the wrestling publishing business, I was—quite literally—a kid. A friend and I thought we could put together one of those wrestling newsletters that were publicized in the fan club sections of the national wrestling magazines. Just before we were ready to get going, my buddy told me that his father had been given an opportunity for employment in Hong Kong. Great for him, but I was 14 years old and left to launch the publication on my own.
I summoned my courage and decided to go for it. That decision probably changed my life. I learned skills between the ages of 14 and 17 that I would develop in college, and finally help me land. While at that job, it dawned on me that the newspaper lifestyle was not all that wonderful: working night hours, weekends, holidays.
