Sixteen years after I retired as senior editor, I’m back as a regular J. columnist. It’s a homecoming of sorts, and I know all too well what it’s like to be away from journalism.
In 1992, the year I turned 50, the Oakland Tribune, where I was a longtime features writer, went belly-up and was sold to a media conglomerate. Suddenly, I was out of work. Moreover, I had just sold my longtime home in Walnut Creek, after my divorce, and was in escrow for a condo in Alameda. But with the loss of my job, I lost the condo.