Dave Barry will take a timeout
The world is about to get a lot less funny, beginning in January.
Dave Barry, The Herald’s humor columnist for the past 20 years, said Tuesday that he will take an indefinite leave of absence from the newspaper. He may return in a year.
Herald editors wish Barry were making it up.
”Since Dave’s columns began appearing every Sunday in The Herald, an entire generation has been born, raised and reached adulthood,” said Tom Fiedler, The Herald’s executive editor. “Yet his unique sense of humor never grew up and never got old. Learning that Dave wants a breather is like hearing that Peter Pan joined AARP.”
Barry, 57, said he wants to spend more time with his family after a hectic summer trotting from the Democratic and Republican national conventions to the Olympics in Greece and around the country on a book promotion tour.
”I’ve never not had a column in a week in all of 30 years, even when I went on vacation,” Barry said. ‘At some point I said, `Well, maybe it’ll be OK to not do it for a while.’ And I didn’t want to wait until I hated it and I didn’t want to wait until I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got no more columns to write.’ ”
I just hope he keeps blogging.
[update] This has got to be a record. 315 comments here, as I write, and all of them are on-topic. Amazing.
2 Comments
Well, there’s no doubt the man deserves a break, but boy I sure hate to lose such incisive humor in such deadly serious times. More power to him though. If laughter is good for your health, as I’m sure some study claims, he’s probably extended the lifespans of his readers by twenty years.
I agree. I’m going to miss his columns, but if anyone deserves a break, he does.
I suspect it won’t last a year; though.