Bud Herron: No use fighting the feeling of ‘no mas’

OK, OK. I’ll admit it. I am a quitter.

I may not be a big-time, famous quitter like Roberto Duran, but I still think my quitting deserves some recognition.

Duran is the Panamanian boxer famous for screaming, “No mas, No mas” (“No more” in Spanish) in 1980 as he quit in the middle of a fight with Sugar Ray Leonard in front of a packed crowd at the Louisiana Superdome and a television audience in the millions.

Admittedly, I am a small-time quitter compared to Duran, if my accomplishment is measured in terms of worldwide notoriety, but when evaluated based on the number of quits, I am even with the Panamanian.

A couple of weeks ago, I emailed Dave Stafford, the editor of The Republic’s editorial page, and told him my final Sunday column would be August 28.

Dave was somewhat shocked. (Dave has only been in charge of this page for about a year and likely was not aware this is the third time I have quit writing this column “forever.”)

Since retirement from full-time newspaper work 15 years ago, I have had a love-hate relationship with writing. Besides the repeated bouts with producing this Sunday column, I wrote articles for a while for the newspaper’s various magazine supplements. And, for a long time before the death of my friend Charlie Biggs, who owned the now-defunct Star-Journal weekly in Hope, I wrote columns for that newspaper.

After both Charlie and the newspaper died, I joined a group of residents to launch an electronic version of the paper (HSJ Online) and wrote online columns published there.

Then Chuck Wells, former publisher of The Republic, asked me to write this column each Sunday. I declined at first, then decided, “Why not?”

At times I tired of writing or just felt my enthusiasm for the craft wane, so I quit writing. Then, after a while, I felt the pull to write again and each time The Republic welcomed me back.

A few weeks ago, something inside me screamed, “No mas. No mas.” As a peer in the business told me years ago when I was trying to decide when to retire from full-time newspaper work, “That’s not something you need to plan. When the time comes, you will know it.”

Well, the time has come.

I had intended just to quit writing and let the column simply disappear, but Dave told me I needed to write something to let readers know I was quitting again — this time for good.

I told him some readers would miss the column until the Monday after the last one was published. Others wouldn’t miss it at all, but would be happy they no longer had to skip it.

In the end, Dave talked me into writing this piece of closure.

After Duran’s embarrassing “quit” in the fight with Leonard, the Panamanian continued to keep coming back for one more fight. Finally, at the age of 50, after “quitting” three times and returning to lesser and lesser challengers, Duran hung up his gloves and started selling bottled water.

Today Duran is 71 and is the brand ambassador for Panama Blue, his native land’s premium bottled water.

As for me, I have no plans to begin promoting “Columbus Brown” bottled water from the Driftwood River. Neither do I have any plans to write columns.

My thanks to those who read my columns and to The Republic for publishing my thoughts. I certainly had a lot of fun.

Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007. Contact him at [email protected].