It's a colorful list: gamblers, convicted felons, Pulitzer Prize winners, devout Christians, dog lovers, chain smokers, sociopaths and at least one Elvis impersonator.

In my 35 years as a journalist, I have crossed paths with all of these, and more.

It does help to be a little off kilter. Really, what person in his or her right mind would actually seek out a profession that pays little, forces you to work weekends and nights and then requires you to write a correction every time you screw up. The daily grind is relentless; the search for truth elusive.

No wonder retirement has finally lured me away. On Monday, I will begin my first week without a deadline staring me in the face. Very weird.

My wife Leslie says I'm not really retiring. I'm graduating. Not a bad way to look at it. I'm also getting back the freedom I lost when I became a taxpaying adult. "You can be a kid again," a friend wrote me last week.

I landed my first full-time job in
the spring of 1975 when I began working for the Wyoming State
Tribune in wind-ravaged Chey-enne, Wyo. I was named sports editor and chief photographer, and for these twin titles I received the kingly sum of $2.50 per hour. That was minimum wage at the time.

I learned early on that journalists may one day gain fame, but don't count on a fortune to go with it.

One of the more memorable people I ever worked alongside was Kirk Knox, the newspaper's veteran police reporter. He was crusty, profane, and yes, endearing. When he appeared in the morning, he looked as if he had slept in his car overnight. His sports jacket and pants were always wrinkled and hung like a drop cloth over his skeleton-like frame. He wore a tie stained by coffee and singed by cigarettes, which he smoked constantly.

Whenever he sat down at his typewriter, he would wedge one of his hand-rolled cigarettes between his two front teeth. As he jabbered away on the phone, the cigarette would bounce wildly up and down causing a shower of ash to cascade down onto his typewriter and lap. It was quite the spectacle.

Kirk was so cheap he would park his car outside the newspaper building and feed the parking meter with just enough money so he could finish his story without spending a penny more.

One day, though, things weren't going well for Kirk.
He was following up on a
murder that had happened the night before and his interviews were taking longer than he had antici-pated. He kept getting up from his desk and scurrying down the stairs to feed coins into the parking meter.

On about the fifth trip to the street, the editor exploded out of his office. "Where the hell are you going," he thundered. When Kirk mumbled something about the parking meter, the editor reached into his pocket and hurled a handful of coins at Kirk.

"Get your damn story done!"

What a drama, I thought to myself. I can't believe I'm getting paid for this. It's so much fun.

Such were the delusions of a young journalist.

When I arrived at the Yakima Herald-Republic in the fall of 1982, I had the good fortune of working with Charlie Lamb, the night reporter. Charlie was a talker. I can't remember a conversation that didn't last at least 15 minutes. He could talk your ear off about anything, especially if it had to do with growing fruit or raising cattle. In his heart, Charlie was an old farmhand who just happened to be working at a newspaper all his life.

What made Charlie so fascinating was how he handled assignments. He would head out of the office in utter disarray, invariably forgetting to bring along a notebook to write on.

One night he went to cover a Chamber of Commerce event featuring a high-powered speaker. The convention center was packed with a who's who of Yakima. Before the speech began, Charlie could be seen going from table to table asking if anyone had a matchbook they could spare. Back then smoking in public places was still allowed so matchbooks were plentiful.

But Charlie wasn't there for a smoke. He needed the matchbooks so he could have something to write on.

Attending this event was the Herald-Republic's recently hired editor. He had never witnessed Charlie in action. Naturally he panicked when he saw the reporter hunched over a matchbook scribbling notes. So moments after the speaker had finished, the editor rushed back to the newsroom and started to write his own version of the event. Could you blame him?

But Charlie was a journalist, a seasoned veteran in a profession that thrives on an individual's talent to turn the mundane into something meaningful. Such was Charlie.

With only three matchbooks to rely on, Charlie banged out a story on his antique Olivetti typewriter. It ran the next day on Page One.

After that, the editor never worried when Charlie rushed out of the office empty-handed. He knew Charlie would return with the goods.

What I learned from Kirk and Charlie is this -- never make assumptions about people.

And always keep spare change and a matchbook within reach. You never know when they will come in handy.

* Spencer Hatton worked at the Yakima Herald-Republic for nearly 28 years, most recently serving as editorial page editor. He has retired and is now living on Easy Street.