I was reared on the songs of Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams and the novels of John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac.

Subversives all, they said getting there is not the point.

Going there is.

Now, before it's too late.

Now, before they stop you.

Now.

Go.

Some people get nervous when they hear you've sold your house, your cars and most of your possessions, bought a secondhand motor home and are hitting the road with your beautiful wife and your old dog.

They demand to know precisely where you're going and exactly when you're coming back.

Don't know.

Can't say.

But when you tell them that, they give you a look that says, "I'm sorry, but responsible old people simply don't do crazy things like that. What would this world be like if everybody just up and did what they wanted?

"Anarchy, that's what!

"Perhaps you should take a nice nap and then sign up for decoupage classes at the senior citizen center on Wednesdays."

Then there are the other folks, the ones who look at you with longing in their eyes.

They understand. They know what it's like to have asphalt in your DNA.

It's not exactly a wanderlust that's driving HollyAnn and me to retire and hit the road for awhile.

More a wonder lust.

We wonder what a sunrise is like in Monument Valley or a sunset on the Painted Desert.

We wonder what it's like to stand in a field of Texas bluebonnets after an April shower or eat lobster on a dock in Maine.

We wonder what it's like to watch the salmon battle upstream to spawn in the Northwest rivers. Or to stand along the Little Big Horn where the men of the 7th Cavalry died with their boots on.

We wonder what it's like to drink margaritas in a Key West bar. Are there really cheeseburgers in Paradise?

We wonder which ball of twine is bigger, the one in Cawker City, Kan., or the one in Darwin, Minn.

We will be back, of course. Our roots are too deep in North Carolina. HollyAnn was born at the old Rex Hospital. Mama lies in the churchyard of Contentnea Primitive Baptist Church in Wilson County.

The people we love are here. This is our home. We will return, just as surely as the swallows come back to San Juan Capistrano and the buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio, both of which we'll be checking out.

Since this marks the end of my more than three decades as a metro columnist at this newspaper, I suppose I should at least give a journalistic nod toward the past. But I have to tell you, my heart isn't in it. I prefer the view from windshields rather than rear-view mirrors.

So let me confess to my greatest sins and move on:

Yes, I was wrong when I supported this war. I'm sorry.

Yes, I was wrong when I supported the Navy's plans to build a practice landing field where millions of migrating waterfowl gather in northeastern North Carolina. I'm sorry for that, too.

And yes, I was wrong to support Tonya Harding and Meg Scott Phipps. Blondes have always been my downfall.

But I take a modicum of comfort in the blessed assurance that I was right on the money about ripping up Fayetteville Street Mall and tearing down that god-awful civic center.

I've met and written about thousands of great people and a fair number of cranks in my time.

I helped some of them, and I'm glad I could.

I hurt some of them, and I'm sorry I did.

I've been prayed for and cussed out, cheered and threatened, laughed with and laughed at. I've had people tell me I'm their favorite writer. I've had others stare at me with blank faces when somebody told them what I did for a living. Both groups would be well-advised to expand their reading lists.

Don't get me wrong, I'm neither especially self-deprecating nor cynical about my life's work. I think I was pretty good at it. Fair to middling, at least.

So you can bet I'm proud of the thousands of Wake County foster kids who got Christmas presents because I wrote about Jane Richardson's Giving Tree project every December for 25 years.

And damn right I'm glad my columns about the USO brought in volunteers and cash to help military folks and their families.

Please don't stop supporting both efforts.

But I know who really did it.

It was you. You wrote the checks, and you did the work. You made me look good. Thanks.

When I came to work here in the bicentennial summer of 1976, The News & Observer was one of the best newspapers in this state.

Now it's one of the best in the country. I had very little to do with that, but there was never a day in my 31 years when I wasn't proud of this newspaper. You may get mad at The N&O, but no paper anywhere speaks louder for the voiceless and powerless.

This has been a great place to work.

These have been great people to work with.

There hasn't been much heavy lifting.

And it sure beats priming tobacco in the North Carolina summer sun.

That and a regular paycheck is about all you can ask of a job.

Thanks for the ride. See you down the road.

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