Last Words

A few years back, when I was working at the Times Herald-Record up in New York, I had a hot story. A millionaire pizza-chain owner got whacked in his own mansion on the banks of the Hudson and I thought I knew who did it before the cops figured it out. It was one of those stories that kept me up until 2 a.m., and I poked into the office in Middletown to put some thoughts into a computer.

The place was dark save one terminal on the city desk. In my memory, it was a Wednesday and the carpet was stained. The guy toiling in the wee hours was Oliver Mackson.

The thing is, I knew he’d be there. He was always there.

He slept on a couch in a little office so much that some of us kids wondered if he even had a home. I don’t mean to romanticize this.

That night, I spilled my guts and Mackson mopped it up, then said, Look, be careful, but be brave. Stay after this guy.

About 30 minutes later, I hear snoring. There sat Mackson, in his roller chair, head back, sound asleep. You can measure dedication in neck pain better than column inches.

Fast forward. Mackson drove me and Kruse to Newark last week after our annual pilgrimage to the Catskills to commune with the spirit of our mentor. He told stories that stretch two decades, about nicknamed judges and wrinkled cops and bodies found in woods. He refused to let us pay toll on the Thruway.

In 19 years at the Record, Mackson has sprung an old man from jail and hassled mobsters just enough. (One told him to “Get home safe.”) He filed dispatches from Siberia and Israel and Ground Zero, but he always wrote for the people of the Hudson Valley.

Today is Oliver’s last day at the Paper With Three Names. He leaves on a high note, well-deserved honors for a story about a heinous crime.

He said farewell to readers today:

Reporters move on all the time. There are plenty of good ones still here. We have old pros like Tracy Baxter, who’s doing some reinventing of his own. We have Mike Levensohn, who’s kicked over rocks that would have broken all my toes. We have young guns like Adam Bosch and Doyle Murphy, Heather Yakin and Meghan Murphy. We have reformed sportswriters like Keith Goldberg and old-school sportswriters like Kevin Gleason, who covers everything from the pros to the kids with the touch of a poet. We have the hardest-working photogs and webmaster in the news business. We have a copy desk that makes more saves than a hockey goalie. And we have an alumni network that stretches from the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post and National Public Radio. The longer I stayed here, the less I wanted to be one of those distinguished alumni. I wanted to be the guy who stayed local. I’m glad I did. I can say with absolutely firm conviction that no luckier man ever wrote for a living, with better editors watching my back and better reporters who worked hard to get started and who stayed in touch as they moved higher up the food chain.

We have the hardest-working photogs and webmaster in the news business. We have a copy desk that makes more saves than a hockey goalie. And we have an alumni network that stretches from the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post and National Public Radio.

The longer I stayed here, the less I wanted to be one of those distinguished alumni. I wanted to be the guy who stayed local. I’m glad I did. I can say with absolutely firm conviction that no luckier man ever wrote for a living, with better editors watching my back and better reporters who worked hard to get started and who stayed in touch as they moved higher up the food chain.

He’s going to work for the public defender, good and noble work. And we all quietly wonder where he’ll sleep.