I’ve got one final thing to say: Thank you

The first time it happened to me was at least a dozen years ago at a restaurant in Marysville.

As I walked down the row of booths, a young boy started bouncing up and down excitedly and pointing at me. “There he is, mom,” he said. “There he is.”

Fearing I was being mistaken for someone who had done something horrible to the youngster, I continued to walk to my table with some trepidation.

As I neared the family’s booth, a woman smiled and said, “He recognizes you from your picture in the newspaper.”

Since then, I’ve been recognized more often then I’d like for that picture. More people than I want to admit have commented in recent years that I look considerably older than that picture.

The most recent comment, a nice one, came at Costco the Sunday before last as I slipped in looking a little grubby and sloppily dressed. “I enjoy your column,” a shopper said as she walked by.

Nice to hear, I thought, wishing that I wasn’t wearing sweatpants and had shaved at some point during the weekend.

This is sort of a rambling way of saying that the picture, with me included, is being retired.

For the past 15 years or so, I’ve tried to use this column to write about business people and events and to pass along all the information I could get about what consumer scams were going around and how to prevent them.

Today, in my last column, I simply want to say thank you.

The newspaper business is becoming extremely complicated and more about business these days than at any other time in my career. But it’s still one of the best things I can think to do. I’ve enjoyed the biggest share of it. It has made my life a shining example of how time really does fly.

I’ve greatly appreciated getting paid to learn about how things work and to get paychecks for things like watching Mount St. Helens blow up. I enjoyed covering the Legislature, although I agree with the old adage that you’re never quite the same once you’ve watched either sausage or legislation being made.

And I loved learning what it takes to succeed in business and in investments. For the latter, looking at my 401(k) makes me wish I’d worked on that end a little harder.

I started in Everett as a young journalist at a time when most of us interested in a career needed to move on every four years or so to bigger and better papers.

But as a Cleveland boy who once saw the industrial pollution in the Cuyahoga River become an inferno, I couldn’t leave the Northwest. I stayed for four years, then four more, and then four more until it’s added up to nearly 33 years.

With its relatively clean air and rivers and its mountains and ocean, the Puget Sound area has been like heaven to me. Throw in an occasional jaunt to the desert in Eastern Washington or a quick trip to British Columbia and its large and powerful fish and there’s really little reason for me to go anywhere else in the world. OK, you got me. I am also compelled to go to Alaska for its large fish and for the reindeer sausage, which I’ve never watched being made.

The people of the Northwest have come to be special to me as well, especially those in Everett, a melting pot of Norwegian and Croatian fishermen and a variety of other ethnic groups.

People here are more interested in what you think and what you can do than in what clothes you’re wearing or which car you drive. Or whether you show up at Costco unshaven.

I’m not disappearing from the paper completely. I plan to write an occasional story for the Outdoor section of the Sunday paper. That will be all the excuse I need to spend a lot of my time outdoors. You’ll find me either over water or alongside it.

If that’s not enough to keep me busy, I’ve also got some homework to do.

After many years of avoiding personal technology whenever possible, I’ve picked up a laptop computer, a smart phone, and an iPod shuffle all at once and I intend to learn how to use them.

All in all, my tenure here has been fun and interesting. Thanks again for helping to make it all possible.

Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com.