Taking the bad with the good

Mistakes, I made a few.

Yes, year's end is supposed to be about hope and joy. But my family has a long tradition of also using the season of light to gaze backward into the darkness.

To tote up misgivings. To hold a sort of loose ritual of rue, confronting shortcomings, could-have-beens and outright blunders.

Like, say, the time I wrote in this column that the Seattle City Council is "as tax-crazy as an IRS agent on Ritalin."

I regret this. For starters, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Councilwoman Jean Godden reminded me that Ritalin is used to treat hyperactivity, not induce it. And IRS agents don't levy taxes, they collect them. "Watch those metaphors!" she scolded, properly. (Except, I think it was a simile.)

But the real reason I cringe is not grammatical. That was one of several columns I wrote that whiffed on one of this year's biggest local stories, one that will resonate in our politics for years to come.

"They call this tax restraint?" a column I wrote in July fumed. Then in August: "As wallets scream, city feels no pain." Both lambasted our politicians as out of touch for heaping new taxes and fees on strapped residents.

We all know what happened next. Those strapped residents I was allegedly channeling marched to the polls and imposed, on themselves, one of the largest local tax hikes in my lifetime. For parks, for light rail, for Pike Place Market, you said yes, yes, yes!

So much for a tax revolt. What made these votes such a story is that in the teeth of a hard economic wind, people said: We want more from government, not less. And we're willing to pay for it.

Governor, state Legislature: Heed these voting results before you go all anti-tax on us and slash crucial stuff such as education. I was wrong about the mood of the people; maybe you are, too.

The other 96 columns I wrote hardly passed into print glitch-free.

In June I wrote about a Kitsap County millionaire who lost it all and became homeless. I thought I was doing the story a favor by listing all he once owned — two hot tubs, three boats, $250 Mephisto loafers. Until this: "A 1960 Cougar convertible."

Oops. They didn't make the Cougar until 1967.

E-mails and calls poured in. One man said he threw down the paper, so disgusted at my car faux pas he refused to finish my heartwarming article about the miracle of small things.

Point being: When it comes to errors, there are no small things.

So it was big when I botched the name of Saviour Knowledge, calling him "Serious Knowledge" in a column about a Central Area murder. Saviour is one of Seattle's little-known gems, a fixture on the troubled 23rd and Union corner who helps inner-city kids. When I apologized, he shrugged and said: "That's OK, man. Believe me, I've been called much worse."

There were columns I wrote that I shouldn't have (the theory that hijacker D.B. Cooper was transsexual tops that list). And ones I didn't write that I wished I had. Just last week I gave Mayor Nickels an undeserved pass on his snowplowing Waterloo. Now that the mayor has awarded himself a grade of "B," I wish I had followed the lead of a reader who wrote: "I can think of words to describe it that begin with the letter B."

Mayor, try embracing your inner regret. You can learn a thing or two through mopey navel-gazing.

Take me. This was one of the darkest years in the history of newspapering. To be blunt, we are not sure we're going to make it. Everyone's wracked with doubt.

Every day, somebody asks me: Are you looking for another job yet?

The answer is: No, I'm not. And I won't until they force me.

The reason is in these 98 columns. They ranged from mortgage mania to the ethics of snitching to the city's inane crusade to arrest bartenders. But it's the people who stick out. Ex-cons playing chess to drive crime from a bar. An Italian who cut hair in Seattle's Garlic Gulch for 60 years. Leave-me-alone Edith Macefield, whose hemmed-in house was Ballard's Alamo.

I got to write about the famous, such as Barack Obama and John McCain. And the unknowns, such as the Ethiopian grocer who always shows up no matter what. I got to help save one of Seattle's last horse farms, which was being taxed out of existence (the tax was reduced).

So my job had some rough with the smooth. What I can't imagine is not doing it. For work, you can't beat it. On that I can say: No regrets.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.