Goodbye, farewell and amen.

Back in February 1988, I left Uncle Sam’s canoe club and walked into a ramshackle building that no longer exists on Wilson Street in Brewer.

Fred Martin, publisher of The Register, grabbed me by the arm, took me up a flight of steps, and sat me down behind an old Compugraph typesetter, and I commenced to setting type.

A week later, “Between White Lines” appeared in The Register for the first time. That column has appeared in some form for much of the last 15 years. At the time, I would have bet The Register would have lasted longer.

I owe Fred a lot.

This version of “Between White Lines” will likely be the last to appear in The Weekly.

My family and I went to Kentucky last month for a funeral. We’ve decided to go back again, this time for good.

I have been away from my family with the exception of a couple of visits since 1974. It’s time to go home.

Where have the last 15 years gone? They are rolled up into a fast-forwarded blur of thousands of games, thousands of words and thousands of good people, the people being the most important.

I got married and we had a child. I had a daughter graduate from Bangor High School and Regis College. Now, I have a daughter playing PAL softball in Brewer.

I worked at a number of weekly newspapers in the area. Some no longer exist, such as The Register, The Bucksport Free Press, and SportsWeek. I edited Maine Golf Magazine. During those times I learned a lot about the area and about its people.

I had several opportunities to leave, but I stuck it out here, hoping that someday I’d get in the door here at the Bangor Daily News. It finally happened. I got the job I wanted, a high school sports beat here. And now that I finally have it, I’m giving it up.

Crazy, huh?

I’ve been very lucky that the people I’ve worked for have given me pretty much a free rein with Between White Lines.

Jeff Shula, now a teacher at Searsport High School, was the first editor of The Weekly, and in the five years I wrote the column for him, we never had a disagreement.

After an unwanted hiatus from The Weekly, I was given the opportunity to return. Current Weekly editor Roxanne Moore Saucier has been encouraging and has a great sense of humor. NEWS sports editor Joe McLaughlin has bailed me out of mistakes and tossed good column ideas my way.

I’ve enjoyed the e-mails, comments, and phone calls (both good and bad).

I once made what I thought was a cute remark about a politician, and I received a letter saying that the letter writer enjoyed my column but “stick to sports.”

I’ve tried to. I know I’ve strayed from time to time. As I’ve tried to point out over the years, when you get down to it, the most important things in life are not sports-related.

I much prefer knowing that most of the kids I’ve covered have turned out to be better people than players. Or that most of the coaches teach morals in addition to help-side defense.

I have a list of people who I should thank but can’t. The list is too long and, I’m sure, incomplete.

I will thank Dan and Elaine Priestley for welcoming me into their family, and for being such wonderful grandparents. And for their understanding as I take their daughter and granddaughter far away.

I thank Bill Lyons and Dan Hart for keeping me sane during the lean times.

I thank Joe McLaughlin, Dave Barber, Pete Warner, Jessica Bloch, John Holyoke, Andrew Neff, Larry Mahoney, Jim Goodness and Michelle Pelletier on the sports desk for their friendship and camaraderie, and for being so supportive of our decision to leave.

My thanks to Mark Woodward for making it happen for me here at the NEWS.

I thank Eddie Pinstripes.

My thanks to those of you who took the time to read this space over the years.

And I thank Fred Martin for sitting me down behind that old Compugraph typesetter 15 years ago.

What’s come since have mostly been just idle thoughts from a mind gone haywire.

After June 9 Don Perryman can be reached at donperryman@the-messenger.com.