About Town: Last Stop

Every town has its odd little traditions. Ours was this column — a weekly dispatch about buses, parades, yard sales, chalk drawings, and the occasional philosophical note on water bottles. It was never front-page news, but it lived happily in the margins, like a neighbor who waves from the porch every evening even if you’ve long forgotten their name.

We’ve recently come to accept that our readership, while loyal, is not vast. About twenty stalwart souls still click, scroll, or skim. (That number may shrink further the moment someone realizes they are being counted among “the loyal.”) We cherish you all, but twenty feels less like a bustling readership and more like a book club that forgot to pick a book.

Columns end for many reasons. Editors lose patience, writers lose interest, or readers lose track of the link. Ours is ending because the math no longer works out: we are spending several hours each week inventing elaborate metaphors about sidewalk chalk for an audience roughly the size of a modest dinner party. And while we do enjoy dinner parties, we suspect you’d prefer to eat without being compared to municipal infrastructure.

Still, we’re proud. The column lasted longer than most goldfish, three city council slogans, and at least one former mayor’s haircut. It chronicled a season or two of our little city’s quirks, and we hope it occasionally made you laugh, nod in recognition, or squint in puzzlement.

So here we sign off. If you’re reading this, congratulations: you are one of the twenty, and you will forever hold the title of “Most Dedicated Reader of About Town.” The rest of the city will carry on without us, sidewalks will still collect chalk, and buses will still lurch into choreography.

And us? We will be the neighbor waving from the porch — only this time, no column to explain it. Just a wave.

Thank you for reading.