- December 20, 2024
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We didn’t make too big a deal of it, but the Ormond Beach Observer celebrated its one-year anniversary a couple months back, in September. And boy, I still remember those first few weeks vividly.
“The city’s counting on you, Mike,” my editor Brian said, on bended me, when he offered me the then-undefined job of associate editor. “Your wit. Your charm. The city of Ormond Beach is counting on you.”
Now, anyone who knows me knows I’ve always been the hero type, never the kind to run from a challenge. So I grabbed my carpal tunnel wrist braces, and my safety goggles, and I got to work.
In the past year, I’ve written groundbreaking, award-caliber stories and singlehandedly created one of the most passionate and engaged readerships in all of newspaper — both in Florida and internationally (at least that’s what my resume says).
But like all good things, this, too, has an expiration date.
After this week, my column will no longer be featured in the Ormond Beach Observer. Brian McMillan, the paper’s managing editor, will be taking over Page 6 from here on out. He’ll be attending extra government meetings, meeting with more of you for interviews and he’ll be your primary contact for story ideas and letters.
Want to get in touch and say, “Hi,” or maybe send him a furious diatribe about how disappointed you are about my departure? Email [email protected].
As for me? I’ll still be around, taking over the web/social media duties for the Ormond Beach and Palm Coast papers. If you’re interested, you can still catch my column online (ormondbeachobserver.com) and linked through our Facebook page.
If you’re not interested, or if actually happy to see me go, I ask that you please stop being a meanie and keep those feelings to yourself. I know I act tough, but I’m actually super sensitive.
And I’m sentimental, which makes it hard not to imagine what the sappy, TV-style, series-finale montage of my time in this city, and of the Ormond Beach Observer’s launch and startup, might look like. Wow, where to start? There would obviously be an acoustic-guitar-driven song about beginnings and endings playing in the background. That’s a given. And then, center stage in the highlight reel would be Matt Mencarini, our first staff writer, and slow-motion scenes of him stone-faced, sitting at City Commission meetings and in the office. And there would be me, slow-motion sitting at my computer and in the office. And there would you, slow-motion sitting maybe in your kitchen or on your couch (while we’re at the office).
You just can’t reproduce those kinds of memories. Take it from someone who knows: I’ve done a lot of sitting in my day but, Ormond, you always had the best seats.
So thanks to everyone who has sent in a complimentary line or letter about my work the past 14 months. It’s probably in large part to you that I was ever able to get away with this for so long in the first place. No matter what, we’ll always have pithy banter and pointless social observations — and really, isn’t that what life’s all about?
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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