A sad ending, but a tremendous new beginning

How did we get from 55 years at The Davis Enterprise to Day One at thewaryone.com on Substack?

[Bob originally posted this column on Facebook. It is now his first post in the new business, which launches today.]

---

(I did not have the opportunity to write a final, honest column about my 55 years at The Davis Enterprise. So I’m doing it here.)

This is a column I thought I’d never have to write.

Through these many years, the local owners of this newspaper regularly told me that as long as The Davis Enterprise existed, I would always have a job. I upheld my end of the bargain. They did not.

Several days ago I was informed, without explanation or warning, that I was being let go. My last day is today. The owners, with whom I’ve had a cordial and friendly relationship throughout my tenure, let someone further down the line break the news to me.

This person, my editor, told me that my column remained the most popular feature in the newspaper, but I was gone. Took about 30 seconds.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “Writers should write hard and clear about what hurts.”

That’s what I intend to do now.

Angry?

Sure, but not so much as stunned and hurt, given that after 55 years of dedicated service, they looked at my life’s work and casually and callously discarded me like a used Kleenex.

There was no thank you. No goodbye. Not a penny of severance. Just stone-cold silence. No golden parachute. In fact, no parachute at all as they pushed me out the back door of what I often lovingly referred to as the Starship Enterprise.

They even refused to pay for my accumulated sick leave. Not only did they hurt me, they hurt my family, leaving them to scramble for suitable health care.

Additionally, I was forbidden from transferring the thousands of emails I’ve exchanged with our readers over the years, denying me the chance to continue to correspond with the many friends I’ve made and thank them one more time for taking the time to read my thoughts and express their opinions and concerns, an exchange of ideas I cherished in our beautiful and highly intelligent town.

A close friend, upon hearing the news, noted that since Shelley and I have four kids in college at the same time, the timing of this couldn’t have been worse.

I told him, sure, poor timing, but we’re not worried for a second about those kids. They are all self-starters. They all have part-time jobs to complement their studies. They are up for any challenge, and no amount of rain can ruin their parade.

I’ve always enjoyed a strong and respectful relationship with the local owners of this newspaper.  I’ve never once said “no” when they’ve asked me to do more or make a public appearance or MC an event on behalf of The Davis Enterprise. I’ve always said “yes” when I’ve covered an assignment for a colleague who was sick or needed a day off.

I’ve never missed a deadline or showed up at the wrong arena for a basketball game. This newspaper has never had to print a retraction or a correction of anything I’ve written.

The thing that is so mystifying about this is that I can humbly and truthfully say that I have been an extremely good employee for every one of those 55 years.

The local owners of this newspaper are not paupers. For years, the company they run has owned multiple valuable properties in the heart of downtown Davis. They built their fortune on the backs of many people, including me. They took my very best for 55 years. They have no excuse for treating the longest-serving employee in company history in this way.

I know what you must be thinking. He used the company credit card to buy a Rolex or he took a secret trip to Paris when he told everyone he was covering an Aggie basketball game in Turlock.

Truth is, I’ve never had a company credit card or a Rolex and I’ve never been to Paris. But I have covered an Aggie basketball game in Turlock.

Or, some may be thinking, after 55 years, he must be making so much money that the newspaper can no longer sustain such a hefty salary.

Well, if you’re sitting down, I’ll tell you what I was making.  Frankly, it’s embarrassing. $26 an hour. After 55 years. You read that right. I was hardly breaking the bank. I was nowhere near being the highest paid employee in the newsroom. Not even close.

In a recent email to me - before the axe fell - the President and CEO wrote, “Your column has blessed our paper and community with immeasurable joy. Thank you for being the voice of The Enterprise and the heart of Davis.”

The joy was all mine.

And later, after he had attended an event that he asked me to MC, the CEO wrote, “What a spectacular performance as always. Many thanks.”

In another recent email to me - again before the axe fell - the Publisher of The Davis Enterprise wrote: “Your exceptional writing skills on so many different subjects and postings, AND that day job as the best columnist in the USA is past phenomenal. I’m designing a 12-pronged ‘hat rack’ so you don’t lose time looking for the correct cap for the next task on your whirlwind schedules!!!!. Go Bob Dunning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very, very much.”

I figured with four exclamation points, they might want to keep me around.

The same editor who delivered the bad news the other day, recently wrote, “This is an astonishingly good column, Bob. Masterful storytelling.” Later he happily explained to me that an “Advertiser has paid to have his ad adjacent to your column (hey, you’re popular.)”

As fate would have it, my last day at The Enterprise is also the day I have been scheduled for a colonoscopy, which means I’ll be getting the shaft twice on the same day, proving once again that God has a sense of humor.

But enough about me.

I refuse to let the hurtful events of the last few days blunt the 55 years of heartfelt memories I will cherish till the day I can no longer type.

I have always told people who asked me why I would stay at this community paper for so long that I had the best job in the world. I loved writing a daily column. Still do, even as the number of columns written approaches 14,000.

And I will be everlastingly grateful to that same Publisher, and that same President and CEO, who years ago allowed me as a single parent with two young children to work at home so I could be the kind of dad I always dreamed of being.

Those two kids, now all grown up with kids of their own, have the same fond memories as I do of those wonderful times we spent together so many years ago.

Ted and Erin knew every gym and football stadium on the West Coast, because they came with me to every game, whether in Hickey Gym or Toomey Field or the foggy Redwood Bowl at Humboldt State.

Erin still tells people she grew up in a press box.

There were times when other newspapers came calling that I’d always say “thank you,” but Davis is the town where I grew up, Davis is the town I love and I have a challenging and fulfilling job writing for a tough and fair-minded audience, where half the town has a PhD and the other half thinks it should.

Besides, as my dad was so fond of saying, “Bloom where you’re planted.” And then he’d look you straight in the eyes and say firmly, “Don’t mess with happiness.”

One of my favorite roadside signs is the one I’ve seen numerous times outside a small tavern near Brookings on the Southern Oregon coast. “Free Beer Tomorrow,” it says.

Tomorrow never comes, of course, because it’s always today.

That’s the way it is in the newspaper business, too. The news of the day fades fast, to be replaced by something ever more compelling. That’s why they call it “news.”

When I started at The Davis Enterprise, we didn’t yet capitalize the “The” in our title. In 1970, the entire operation of The Enterprise was wedged into a small building on G Street. In the open newsroom, reporters’ desks were all pushed up against one another, with one writer’s mess spilling onto another’s workspace. There was a distinct smell from an odd mix of cigarettes and all-day coffee and ink from the pressroom that would bring spontaneous tears to my eyes if I experienced a whiff of that aroma today.

The noise in that building was overwhelmingly exciting. Ten manual typewriters all being pounded simultaneously at 60 miles an hour by 10 dedicated reporters. People yelling back and forth over the clamor as the mighty press roared into action just feet from the newsroom. Combine all that with a passing freight train less than a block away and it’s amazing any of us still have our hearing intact today.

It was an unequaled thrill to stand at the back of the presses and snatch the day’s first newspaper, much like pulling a loaf of freshly-baked bread from the oven.

You were always warned by the able pressmen to not touch the equipment, lest a loose shirt tail would get caught up in the rapidly moving machinery and make your body and blood literally part of that day’s edition.

“The press stops for no man,” they would say.

Over the years, this job has exposed me to so many wonderful people and events and joys that I never would have experienced otherwise.

For some odd reason, people named “Bob” keep popping up in my life through this job, giving me unexpected experiences to write about.

I got to hit baseballs off the great Hall of Famer Bob Feller, introduce the legendary Bob Hope as he appeared in Rec Hall, and trade groundstrokes with Wimbledon champion and world-class hustler Bobby Riggs.

And I’ll always cherish one unforgettable night at the Vets Memorial where I stood arm-in-arm on stage with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans as they sang “Happy Trails to You.”

Then there was the time, in 2008, when I was able to report from New York City as Pope Benedict moved down a ramp into the barren pit that was Ground Zero to embrace and pray with family members who had lost loved ones on 9-11. It’s a scene I will never forget.

I have loved to write about the many experiences life brings to all of us. Memories of Mom and Dad, of taking my oldest daughter off to college and of meeting the Red-Headed Girl of My Dreams in a steamy laundromat in Northern Idaho.

I never wanted to be a journalist. But I have always been in love with newspapers from the day I was old enough to read.

Of course, I always went to the sports section first. I especially liked the page with all the box scores in small type. So many numbers to pore over and wonder about.

Did Wilt Chamberlain really score 100 points in a single game? Did Willie McCovey really get two triples and two singles off the great Robin Roberts in Willie’s first day in the majors? Did Harvey Haddix really pitch a perfect game for 12 innings only to lose everything in the 13th? And who was this guy Paul Hornung, winning the Heisman Trophy on a team with a 2-8 record?

I’d then turn to the weather page, again attracted by all those numbers neatly arranged into highs and lows and inches of rainfall. It’s where I learned to spell tough names like “Phoenix” and “Albuquerque” and “Juneau” and “Tallahassee” and my all-time favorite “Sault Ste. Marie.” 

I loved to follow the always-changing time of sunrise and sunset from one day to the next as we picked up nearly two minutes of daylight each day between Dec 21 and June 21, then gave it all back by the time Dec. 21 came around again. I still love to do that.

And no day would be complete without checking the high temperature in Death Valley and the low temperature in Duluth.

On that late January day in 1970 when I first walked into The Enterprise office, Richard Nixon was president, Spiro Agnew was vice president, Ronald Reagan was governor of California, Vigfus Asmundson was mayor of Davis, gas at Al Hatton’s Chevron station on the Fifth Street curve was 36 cents a gallon, a three-bedroom, one-bath East Davis starter home cost considerably less than what a minimum wage worker in 2024 makes annually, the Kansas City Chiefs had just defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV, and Dave Rosenberg was a first-year law student at UC Davis.

When I started here I could only dream of one day having a family. I now have six kids and six grandkids, enough for my own football team, plus a punter.

Looking back with great fondness, I have much to celebrate.

I celebrate the truly great and talented journalists I’ve been blessed to work with. I celebrate the many people, places and issues this job has exposed me to over all these years. And most of all, I celebrate getting to live in a town I love and raise my family here.

To borrow a line from my favorite baseball movie, Field of Dreams, “Is this Heaven?”

No, it’s Davis.

And I now celebrate the opportunity offered to me to continue writing my column uninterrupted on a popular platform known as Substack, where you can find me starting today at thewaryone.com.

Yes, there is profound sadness as I leave the place I have called home for the last 55 years, but I am overwhelmed with an intense sense of optimism over where this new writing adventure will take me.

I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

My new email address is bobdunning@thewaryone.com

---

Ready to keep the conversation going?  Subscribe the to “The Wary One” and join our growing community of thinkers and readers.  Your financial support not only keeps the column alive but also vibrant and interactive.  Be a part of this journey from the start – every subscription helps us grow.  Visit the thewaryone.com to subscribe and let’s make history together.

---