The day I told my editors at The Bee that I'd soon be leaving the paper to take another job, I was walking through our front lobby thinking about the final column I'd write, this column.
Just beyond The Bee's lobby, there are a number of old front pages hanging on the walls, most of them marking historic events or prizes the paper won.
A headline on one of them caught my eye. It was a small story on a page that I'd walked past pretty much every day of my 10 years here.
It reads: "Erickson: 'Dogs at Pac-10's level,' " a nod to Oregon State's football coach (circa 2001) saying that Fresno State was just as good as a team from the Pac-10 conference. For you non-sporties: It's the equivalent of saying Fresno is just as good as a big city.
This, of course, is the kind of thing that makes a Fresno State football fan squeal. And beyond football, it's the type of praise and acceptance from the outside that this town seems so desperate to find, grab and rub all over itself.
Fresno is full of things that want to be other things, better things. A college football program that so many fans wish was in a more prestigious conference. A lifestyle some people wish was more like San Francisco or Los Angeles. A nightlife that others wish was straight out of Las Vegas.
So, as I write this column one last time, there's one thing I hope stays with people once I'm gone. Four simple words this city needs to learn to swallow.
Love Fresno for Fresno.
San Francisco shouldn't be our measuring stick, Fresnans. Neither should Las Vegas or Los Angeles.
I say "our" because even though I'm leaving The Bee, I'm not leaving the city -- and I plan to seek out the best of this city in my future here, just like I did when I was writing this weekly column.
Truth is, Fresno will never be like the huge cities that dwarf it to the north and the south. It's never going to be a beach city either. These aren't bad things.
It just means Fresno can be itself. We're an ag-rich community, blanketed with a diverse population -- talented people, driven people, enterprising people, who want to make the city better.
We're a place where someone with ambition and work ethic can go out and create something, be it a business or a performing arts festival. There's opportunity here, and because of that opportunity we have a city full of gems.
Is Fresno a utopia? Hardly. But if I can borrow a phrase from one of my early columns: "Fresno doesn't suck."
I've written many times about The Great Fresno Inferiority Complex. It's something I noticed quickly as a non-native, something I sought to combat with my words.
As news of my departure has spread the past two weeks, I've gotten the same wonderful compliment in various forms. Readers said my columns opened their eyes to things they didn't know about, and showed them it was OK to love Fresno.
Truthfully, that's all I can hope for. Well, and this: Don't stop now. Explore your city. Experience it. Love it for what it is. Don't tear it down for what it's not.
Mike Osegueda is leaving The Bee for Yahoo! Sports. He can be found on Twitter: @mikeoz. You can still listen to his radio show, Ozmosis,at 9 p.m. Sundays on New Rock 104.1.
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