I was reminded yesterday by the features editor of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jill Williams, that I hadn't been in the newsroom for a long time. I didn't realize how times change; tastes change; and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was a place of excellence -- where the readers' needs come first.

But I have been a reporter longer than Jill. And you don't have to be Bob Woodward to know that whenever someone says that a decision is not personal, but "business," that person means one of two things: It is indeed personal or it's just plain vindictive.

Jill Williams, who did not like my column, was telling me this as she fired me.

She was explaining that my column, which has run in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for 21 years -- would no longer be there.

It WILL still run in other newspapers, including the (other and dearer) one where I began my career, The Capital Times in Madison. It will be archived on this site, where you can read it, also.

But it won't be in the newspaper where my column became well-known - where I wrote when my husband died, when my first child was born, when I wrote my first novel.

Of course, sentiment has no place in a newsroom. I agree with my ex-editor on that. And I haven't kept up with the needs of the readers.

Actually, Jill wasn't going to tell me this personally.

She wrote that e-mail to me, pointing out how I no longer understood the dynamics of a fast-paced and ever-changing newsroom (ever-changing in part because no one gets news from newspapers anymore) because I found out from a reader that I'd been axed.

In a form letter sent me by a reader who assumed this was MY choice and wrote to try to dissuade me, my direct editor said, "The SYNDICATED columnist Jacquelyn Mitchard will no longer be featured..." as if a big wind had come along and blown me away.

When I wrote a note to Jill, said that she naturally assumed that Tribune Media (which has distributed my column for ten years, as well as the writings of hundreds of other writers) would tell me.

She thought it was really Tribune Media's job to to inform me personally.

And of my hope that I might say goodbye to people with whom I've had a conversation every Sunday morning for 21 years ... well, Jill basically said he would forward my vexatious letter to the BIG BOSSES, as if I should fear them now. There's a tradition at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called "the long crawl." It's the position a reporter assumes when he or she has left and wants to be for a job when things go bad out there. A good friend did that some years ago. She did get a job -- and constant, utter disrespect and humiliation along with her paycheck.

I'd rather not.

In fact, I'd rather be a mail carrier.

Back to Jill.

She didn't really think the syndicate would tell me.

She just didn't want to.

She has "put me on waivers" before -- pointing out to me that my column should NOT be political, and just always have more heart and soul than brains; it should include some humor (but not too much) and be useful every day to the citizens of Milwaukee.

And, you know, it hasn't always been a great column.

Sometimes, it's only been a good column, and once in a while a real dumb column. An old friend of mine once said that about writing and baseball that getting a hit three of five times at bat was a good average; and I've maintained that average. But I haven't done it well enough to meet the standards of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. When I was a reporter there, I was often told I wasn't among those who were the pride of a newspaper known for its sparkling writing, its incisive reporting and its glorious tradition of beautiful presentation and multitudes of national awards.

Because of personal reasons, I left to become a speechwriter for Donna Shalala, then a magazine journalist, then an author.

I won awards, got on the New York Times bestseller list; but I never cracked the ranks of the top reporters in Milwaukee. Though many former friends (and some who still are my friends) work there and love it, others simply learned that, after working at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there nothing else higher to which they could aspire.

However, it was not losing the account that bothered me.

It will hurt my heart, although not my wallet, not to be featured in the newspaper whose readers I loved.

What wounds me was not being able to say goodbye.

Through that column, I've met good acquaintances and dear friends. I received 300 letters the day after I wrote about my husband's death, and 200 more the next day. Some of them were from readers who never agreed with a word I said. I answered every one personally.

It seems to me ungentle and discourteous to try to slide an individual -- despite how little esteem one might feel for that person -- under a rug, hoping no one will notice.

But that was always the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel way.

Years ago, when the Journal and Sentinel merged. a random hit list of reporters were eliminated. Some were so-so; some were excellent writers whose minds the paper simply couldn't control. They were given moments to pack a few cardboard boxes and escorted to the elevators by security guards, while their colleagues watched in silence. It was a sort of Joe McCarthy thing, the key word here being "silence."

No one dared speak for fear the ax would fall next on him, on her.

I was long-gone by then.

But twenty years ago, when I still worked there full-time, I was told that the newspaper's generous maternity leave would not apply to me because my newborn son was adopted, not... well, "real." However, the woman who had to tell me that soon quit her management job, because she found doing such things repugnant. She lost money and status, but gained tremendous respect.

I guess I did need a kick in the pants.

I'm steaming now; but I'll cool off.

My essays have been anthologized in twelve books over the past two years.

So I won't be silent. I'll still be in other newspapers, from Iowa to Maryland, will write novels for adults and teens and picture books for kids, and continue as an editor for Wondertime magazine and an occasional contributor to Parade magazine.

But if you're a reader who had your Sunday-morning coffee with me for all those years, and you see this, please listen.

I care for you more than you know, more than you'll ever know. In my time of shadow, you sustained me. In my time of harvest, you celebrated with me. I will never forget you; and I hope you will never forget me.

All things have a natural place of ending; and their ending does not invalidate their worth.

So,'bye Milwaukee.

No one writer is ever as important as a newspaper, and despite my chagrin at my impolitely engineered demise, I know you'll continue to rely on wonderful writers such as Whitney Gould and Tim Cuprisin and Joanne Weintraub, Gita Sharma Jensen and others.

The truly great columnist Molly Ivins died yesterday of breast cancer. And though I'm not fixin' to die for a long time coming, my last word in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would have been to pay tribute to a writer who never used a Derringer to fire off a shot when a Colts Dragoon would do.

We should all learn a lesson from Molly and say what we mean without fear, before it's too late.

In the time I have left, I hope to write some things that provoke, some things that make people laugh and cry -- to go on, as I wrote in my first column, to do the verbal equivalent of singing and dancing.

It will just be on other stages.

with love,

Jackie M.