When I came to Tiffin, the city threw me a parade.
Sort of.
It was late September when I finally got around to moving here. And I paid no attention to what was going on during the weekend I decided to move.
It was Heritage Festival weekend. And my house is on the south side of town, right off of downtown.
Coming into town from the north on Sandusky Street, it took me about 40 minutes to figure out how to get to my house because the streets were blocked off - the Saturday morning parade was about to start.
I ended up on the parade route on Washington Street about 10 minutes before the parade stepped off. Me in my car and my father behind me in his truck - with every material possession I owned in the back.
A few people sitting out for the parade waved. I waved back.
Hey, look, the Clampetts are coming to town.
Life here at The A-T was never dull. I never knew what I was getting into when I rolled into work. Some days, not much happened, and some days I had to play exterminator.
One of the jobs I held in my time here was the police and courts beat reporter. I used to make my way to the Seneca County Clerk of Courts Office in the old courthouse every day to read through all the stuff that had been filed for the day.
One day I was in there reading and taking notes when the silence was broken with ear-drum piercing shrieks of the women who worked in the office.
I'm looking around trying to figure out what on earth was going on. I see a little brown bat fluttering around lost. Poor little guy.
I remember seeing bats all the time when we were out fishing when I was a kid. We'd wave out poles in the air to see whether we could get the bats to swoop down and hit our poles.
Anyway, by the time I figure out what's going on, one of the women in the office (who shall remain nameless) is swatting at the bat with something, screaming all the while. I walk over to the front door of the office, open it, wait for the bat to fly into the hallway, and then close the door. As I'm doing that, one of the women in the office (same one, still nameless) is cowering behind me clutching my jacket.
I got to be the hero that day.
I never could figure out what readers would find upsetting, either.
One letter writer called a headline I had written "scurrilous" after we ran with a story on a pretty controversial issue. I'm not kidding when I say I had to look up that one. I always wanted to use it in a headline, but I never found the right spot.
One participant in a lawsuit, while he was on the stand, pulled a clipping of one of my stories about the lawsuit from his pocket and was waving it over his head claiming it was inaccurate. And he was under oath.
Didn't expect that one, either.
And sometimes even the weather would throw me a curveball. One of the first fires I covered was the convent fire in New Riegel. It was a nice day, and I own a motorcycle, so I rode out there to cover it.
And then Mother Nature got me good. For a while in the afternoon it poured. I was soaked. By the time I got back to where the bike was parked, it was early evening and the rain had subsided. I hung my helmet off the handlebars. I grab it, and about a quart of water came out.
The volunteer firefighter directing traffic nearby thought that was pretty funny.
And just like my time here at The A-T, things in life come unexpectedly.
Life has changed quite a bit for me, actually. I got engaged to an absolutely wonderful woman a few months ago. A change in career is coming, too.
I always wanted to try law school, but never really had the nerve.
Christa, my fiance, gave me the kick in the tail I needed, and the extra courage to give it a shot.
It's funny how that works. Without her, I would have always just talked about trying law school and never actually doing it.
So, Tiffin and Seneca County, I say so long. It's been a hell of a lot of fun.
But please don't throw me a parade on my way out.
Ryan Good is news editor for The Advertiser-Tribune.
