Lon Allan

I began writing my newspaper column 45 years ago. For 31 years, the column was titled “Along the King’s Highway.” It mainly focused on life in Atascadero while I served as editor of the Atascadero News for 35 years. Then in 2004, I left the community newspaper and joined the news crew here at The Tribune. I was old enough to retire, and I did. But The Tribune offered me the opportunity to continue the column.

What’s in a name? Shakespeare tells us a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. Ewing Gym at Atascadero High School would serve the same purpose regardless of the name on it. Names are important from the first time we learn to write our own. Names remain permanent unless they get changed for one reason or another, such as a movie star who adopts a more marketable name or a writer who writes under a nom de plume.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Living as a single senior citizen, I’ve wondered just how I would go about “marketing” myself these days. I am a print person; it still doesn’t seem natural to just jump on the web in search of a mate. I remember reading those printed classifieds wherein a WMA (white male adult) is seeking a soul mate — someone to join in long walks on the beach who also loves cats.