CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Rex Huppke: Chicago Tribune’s ‘marketer of evil’ says farewell — what a time, what a gift, what a ride

Chicago Tribune - 2/14/2022

So a guy walks into a newspaper …

Nah, that’s not right.

Have you heard the one about the newspaper guy who …

Nope.

Yeesh, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to start this column. You’d think after all these years it would come easy, but it never does. And this one? This one’s a doozy.

I’ll cut to the chase: I’m leaving. After 19 years, this is my last column at the Chicago Tribune, and as excited as I am about what lies ahead, I type this sentence through eyes clogged with tears.

In many ways, I grew up here. I came in newly married and I’m walking out with two kids taller than me and a brain full of memories tied to every nook and cranny of this city and to people and places and moments across the country and around the world.

My God, what a time. What a gift. What a ride.

To clear the air, know this: The decision to leave is mine entirely. Later this month, I’ll become a columnist at USA Today. It was time for a new challenge, and I’m looking forward to writing for a national and international audience and receiving fresh hate mail from different locales. (Not that I haven’t appreciated the hate mail I received here. More on that in a minute.)

I feel lucky beyond measure to be leaving the Tribune on excellent terms, and I’m grateful to the folks in charge for giving me a chance to wind things down easy and say a proper farewell.

I leave behind one hell of a newsroom, filled with journalists who care about this city and about the critical job of watching over it. You need them, just as they need you, and I implore you to keep supporting the Tribune, as I will. This is a vital civic institution, and my friends here will always have the city’s back. Bank on that.

I suppose a goodbye column wouldn’t be complete without a montage of memories, and no montage is good unless accompanied by music. So I refer you to an old Neil Young song, “Sail Away,” which contains these lines: “See the losers in the best bars/ Meet the winners in the dives/ Where the people are the real stars/ All the rest of their lives.”

I’ve met rock stars and big-time politicians and professional athletes. But the people who stick with me, the people whose story threads were woven into my life, are just people. Amazing regular people.

Karen Moloney, the owner of a Naperville Dairy Queen who rallied her community to raise awareness of youth suicide and raise money for prevention, all while battling cancer.

Evans Robinson and Antonio Pickett — known as Chip and Lil’ Tony — two reformed West Side gang members who devoted themselves to helping young men make better choices.

Dolores Castaneda, the angel of Little Village, one of the most unassuming people I’ve ever met, but a tireless activist for her community with the heart of a lion and boundless compassion.

Brother Jim Fogarty, a man who over and over again stood between warring gangs while they were shooting at each other, offering his life up to keep them from taking another.

These, and so many others, are heroes. They are a part of me, and I’m so much better off for having the honor of sharing their stories.

Now to another song lyric, this from the Indigo Girls: “I have no need for anger with intimate strangers.”

Some of you don’t like me. I understand that. It has never been a columnist’s job to be liked by everyone.

But I’d actually like to thank those who have eloquently and often graphically expressed their disdain. You have given me fodder for a long series of “Reader Fan Mail” columns, and your barbs have often given me a good laugh. On Thursday, right after I announced that I’m leaving, I saw a Facebook comment that read: “The average IQ of the Tribune staff just jumped 20%.”

That’s both objectively funny and painfully accurate.

The point is, I harbor no anger toward anyone who has loved to hate me. You kept me on my toes. And as a gesture of goodwill, I will quickly confirm all your conspiracy theories:

1. Yes, I did receive daily talking points from the Democratic National Committee. They were written by Barack Obama and delivered by a carrier pigeon with socialist leanings.

2. Yes, I did know where all the bodies are buried, and that’s why the Tribune kept me around so long.

3. Yes, I am fake news, an idiot, a marketer of evil, a commie, a Marxist, a loser, a “looser,” a shill for the DEMONrats, a weakling, a coward, a (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) and a hack.

Feels good to get that off my chest.

As for the rest of you, the kind, misguided souls who liked my writing: Thank you.

Thank you for taking time out of your lives to read my words, for letting me into your brains, for sending thoughtful notes I never had time to respond to and for making me believe that sanity, in this strange and often unhinged world of ours, will surely prevail.

I’ll lean again on a song, and these words from The Grateful Dead: “It’s a far gone lullaby/ Sung many years ago/ Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come/ Since I first left home.”

A long chapter ends, a new one begins.

I wish you all nothing but peace, health and happiness.

Take good care.

rexhuppke@gmail.com

©2022 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.