Bet you thought I forgot about my blog. Nothing like that. But between a house full of family (and one visiting pet pooch) during Thanksgiving week and the beginning of the year-end fastening of loose ends on the business side of the newspaper operation, I haven't found much time to pontificate (no doubt to the disappointment of the handful who write, usually disparagingly, but who don't have the courage to sign their names and still haven't caught on that I don't OK "anonymous" posts).

What's made my plate a bit heavier these days is the departure of the publisher of The Independent, our company's twice-a-week paper in Hillsdale, Columbia County. Add that title to the Freeman in Kingston and the Taconic Press weeklies in Millbrook, and you have a sense of why I'm seeing so much of the inside of my car.

Grant Cover, my former publisher colleague in Hillsdale found greener pastures upstate, so the search is on for his replacement. We have some good candidates, so hopefully that position will sort itself out shortly.

Today, however, I would be remiss if I didn't salute Lenny Bovee, who has been on the production side of the Freeman for about four decades, starting as a kid in our former home at the foot of Broadway. Lenny, the best dressed man in production anywhere, is retiring as foreman of the Composing Room. He's been a great friend and colleague. I wish him well. And I understand he'll be working greeting diners at Frank Guido's new restaurant in Midtown Kingston. Next time you're there, say hello and congratulate him for a fine career.