Back on Board

Spilled ink and other stuff

First, please forgive my recent absence from posting here on Substack. Life kind of came unglued at the end of December and I think I just hit a wall of exhaustion after a long year. Diane and I were dealing with so much stuff after her serious health scare around the holidays, and I was just trying to keep my head above water with deadlines.

I said goodbye yesterday to one of my dearest best friends ever, Finnegan. Finn came into my life in March of 2013 during a difficult time for me, I’m convinced, to just help me get through it all. I had moved to Dallas Texas in August of 2012 having lost most everything important in my life. My First wife, Debbie, to cancer in 2004. My Father died 8 months later in 2025. My second marriage was over. The Rocky Mountain News had closed in February of 2009 and by the time 2012 rolled around I had little left in savings and my house in Parker had to be sold. Off to Dallas I went in hopes of finding better opportunities and a new life. I stayed so busy there with past commitments to freelance jobs that I had little time and energy left to pursue much of a life outside the four walls of my apartment and the field, stream and grove of trees located directly behind my apartment . I was alone and lonely. Adopting a dog seemed like a good idea. A friend there in Dallas helped me adopt Finn from the North Texas Schnauzer Rescue. Michell Anderson even paid the adoption fee. I was that broke.

It was love at first site for Finn and I and so we began our journey together.

The area behind my complex called Waters Edge was beautiful. It referred to it as the Shire or simply the field. The little island in the picture above was full of Box Turtles indigenous to the are.

It was like having a giant lawn in your backyard that you never had to mow.

Finn and I began to take long walks throughout “The Shire” exploring this little slice of heaven in the Dallas area.

We often sat on this bench together, watching the river stream and the birds who loved the water. It was the embodiment of the 23rd Psalm: He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

It was healing for us both. I took him everywhere in those early days to bond and grow together. They say that all good things must end and so it was with the Shire. In March of 2014, bulldozers arrived, tearing down trees and vegetation to put in a new sewage system (right next to a stream) rendering the walking trail and the Shire obsolete They pave paradise and put in a Sewer system. I returned to Denver to attend the Rocky Mountain News 5th anniversary, reconnected with old friends and decided to return to Denver. The wrecking of the Shire and the Right Wing politics of Texas made the decision easy. We moved back to Colorado.

Finn and I settled in the Centennial area where we found an appropriate park to continue our strolls and later to Arvada where we located another great park with a large pond and ducks. Lotsa Ducks. It was at that time I decided to create the comic Strip “Finnegans Field”.

The strip was short-lived. I ended it without much explanation or fanfare. Here today. Gone tomorrow. But the Truth was that due to the decline of income after the Rocky, dwindling freelance opportunities and the dissolution of my second marriage I was forced to file for bankruptcy. I hated admitting to defeat but I had no other choice. The judge ordered all of the art I had created during my entire career to be seized as assets. (Yes, you read that right. All of it.) I pulled Finnegan’s Field to try and save it from the courts.

As luck would have it, during the last, final days of the Rocky, I had arranged with my editor and publisher John Temple to help me find a way to keep the art so that no one else could own it or use it without my permission. The art could not be counted among my personal assets. So an arrangement was made with the Rocky’s ownership that would protect me later. It was a fortuitous move. My lawyer presented the arrangement made in 2009 and the judge quickly folded and I kept ownership. But the whole ordeal had left me leery and I never found the energy or inspiration to continue the strip.

Diane found Finnegan scrolling through Facebook one day in 2018, looked at the guy he belonged to and the rest is history. Diane and I had known each other decades before as part of the steering committee for Points for People, the foundation that Broncos kicker Rich Karlis had started to help abused and battered women. She fell in love with my dog, Finnegan, and realized we came as a package deal. And so it was, Finn suddenly had two bothers, Tucker and Dexter and the entire family settled back in Centennial.

As the years rolled by Finnegan was diagnosed with diabetes. We gave him daily insulin for 5 years. He lost his eyesight, which almost always happens with dogs who get diabetes. In 2023 we said goodbye to Dexter. In 2024 we said goodbye to Tucker. And now, yesterday, it was Finnegan’s time to cross the Rainbow Bridge. It was, without a doubt one of the hardest market days of my life. Finn and I were like brothers really. His sweet kind unconditional love mad my world a better and brighter one. I can’t imagine life without him but we will mourn his passing and do our best to put the pieces of our hearts back together. Fortunately in early 2025 we adopted another rescue pup named Reilly. He will see us through.

In the days ahead I will begin to post to my Substack once again. Again forgive me for my hiatus the last month or so. As I reboot my posting here I’m asking for your help. If you would be willing to take a quick survey about what you want as far as content please let me know. Thank you all for your Patience during this time and for allowing me to share some of my deeply personal thoughts and memories. I have always intended on being transparent here. And so I am.