"My wife and I made a freighter trip to South America in May. It's slow travel, and it's taken a long time to catch up with all the correspondence and household chores that accumulated while we were away."

Don Carter

Sea Island, Ga.

"I left the active rolls at age 60, after 28 years putting out the daily miracle, to a slower pace of writing books, teaching (as writer-in-residence at the University of Alaska) and fishing."

John Strohmeyer

Anchorage, Alaska

"I'm working full-time as a professor in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University."

Sig Gissler

New York

"I've done the things I hoped to do - write a book; travel a fair amount; do enough free-lance writing to keep my typing skills in order; serve on various boards like the ACLU. ... I have also devoted a great deal of time to mastering computerized delivery of information ... (and) to visit Russia as a consultant with their editors/reporters."

Ray Jenkins

Baltimore

"I've been busy ... teaching at Emory University and helping to create a journalism minor there, serving on a state supreme court commission on lawyer discipline and the board of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, heading up opposition to an airport expansion effort that threatens the town of Oxford, taking Spanish lessons, traveling, gardening and riding my horse."

Claude Sitton

Oxford, Ga.

"I serve my former employer as its reader representative, or ombudsman. That keeps me in weekly touch with the newsroom, requires that I read the newspaper with more than passing interest ... I hold the Edward Estlow Chair of Professional Journalism at the University of Denver, teaching a course in ethics and responsibility."

Jean Otto

Denver

"On the day I hung it up as directing editor, I immediately began a fund-raising and organizing effort for a new statewide open-government/FOI coalition."

Frosty Landon

Roanoke, Va.

"I was just returning from a two-day visit to Grambling State University where the Newspaper Fund held its first board meeting away from a Dow Jones facility. ... (I'm) getting ready for a weeklong trip to Santiago, Chile, where I will meet with editors of AmericaEconomica. ... Three days after unpacking, I'm off again to visit summer interns."

Laurence O'Donnell

Ridgewood, N.J.

"I've evaluated student publications for the University of Alabama at Huntsville and recommended staffing, operating, financial and oversight procedures. I've helped judge state press association Better Newspapers Contests, am preparing a workshop on news writing and copy editing, and trying to get a sloop half my age into the water."

Patrick McCauley

Huntsville, Ala.