The Green Ford: Bob Dunning’s Farewell and Fresh Start

Shelley Dunning shares memories of Bob's 1972 Ford LTD and his unexpected departure from the Davis Enterprise. Celebrate his past and new journey on The Wary One.

Note: Below is the essay Shelley Dunning wrote after learning Bob Dunning was no longer going to be working at the Enterprise on May 8th, 2024.

By Shelley Dunning

Decades before I would ever know him, Bob Dunning was touring the streets of Davis and the highways and byways of Northern California in a 1972 Ford LTD.

Lovingly referred to as “The Green Ford”, it was new(ish), olive green with bench seats and brocade trim. It was the preferred mode of transportation for Bob and his two babies,Ted and Erin, to make late-night trips to the Davis Enterprise newsroom to lay out the sports page, to get an after-school soft-serve ice cream cone at Dairy Queen and to travel to Chico and Humboldt, San Francisco and Santa Clara for Aggie football and basketball games.

Bob loved The Green Ford and the memories it held. Over the years, our four kids and I have heard countless stories of the adventures Bob and his two oldest kids had traveling together. Long before seat belts and car seat laws, Bob would bundle his two little ones into the front seat and off they would go to tour the Redwoods, report on Aggie football and explore all the little towns between Modesto and Mount Shasta.

Eventually, as time and highway miles took their toll and as repairs became more expensive and parts harder to find, that sweet carriage would be replaced by a more efficient, less expensive and, according to the world, “more progressive” vehicle.

Bob, Ted and Erin loved that green Ford. They loved it so much that, rather than selling it to someone who might not love it enough or hauling it off to a junkyard, they retired it to a storage lot on the edge of Davis where it gathered dust and deteriorated in the sun. As the years went by, the monthly storage fee was paid on time in the hope that someday that car might be restored to its original glory and once again grace the streets of Davis.

This week, Bob and our family got some sad news and it has me thinking about that car and everything it meant to Bob.

Last week, the editor of the Davis Enterprise called our home to tell Bob that he was being “let go.”

Now, we all know that change is inevitable and that all good things eventually come to an end. But some endings are harder - sadder, more sudden, more painful, more unkind - than others. 

This is that kind of ending.

Since he was 23 years old, the center of Bob’s life, and subsequently, the center of our lives, has been the Davis Enterprise. If there was a story to be told, happy or sad, good or bad, funny, weird, perplexing, you would find it on page two of the Enterprise next to Bob’s photo. If it was important to our town, Bob would make sure you knew about it and what he thought about it. 

Tens of thousands of columns over 55 years. The snoring lady and the toad tunnel; the murder of an immigrant student at Davis High; pepper spray on young protesters; the tragic loss of a young police officer…

Thanksgiving week in 2015, our family was in Seaside, Oregon on vacation. One morning,  Bob’s cell phone rang. Davis had lost a special and very important person and the people of Davis and beyond needed to know. 

Bob spent that day and night making and taking phone calls from all over the country. He asked questions, listened to stories, took notes. He stayed up all night writing a story that would recognize and honor Jim Sochor, one of the most influential people Davis had ever produced. And he did it in a tiny seaside motel room with four little kids in sleeping bags on the floor, falling asleep to the Disney Channel. I realize as I write this today, he did it in spite of his own sense of loss and sadness. He wrote the story and it was beautiful.

Remember that unkind ending I mentioned earlier? It came out of the blue. There was no warning and very little explanation. No gold watch. No “thank you” and zero communication from the owners he’d worked for his entire life. No goodbye luncheon. No “Thanks for loving this newspaper and making it your life’s work.” Simply the words, “We’re letting you go.” 

It was careless and cruel. 

To say that this time has been difficult would be an understatement. We keep telling Bob during this surreal and devastating time, “Your column isn’t ending. Your column isn’t going away. It’s like that time you had to give up your 1972 Ford; or the time you took Erin to college in Arizona; or when they tore down the stadium at Toomey Field. Loss. Sadness. Unimaginable change. And then you move on, sometimes to bigger and better things.

I will tell you that Bob never planned to retire from the Enterprise. No matter how bad things might get or have gotten, Bob was committed to staying - taking on more responsibilities, writing more, writing better and rolling with a lot of painful punches. Whatever The Davis Enterprise needed or wanted, Bob was there.

Bob won’t be writing for the Davis Enterprise anymore. Today that feels awful.

As a family, we’ve decided to make this the best thing that’s ever happened to us. If the former vehicle for The Wary I was an outdated, clunky, unresponsive-to-all-the-love-and-time-and-devotion-put-into-it-jalopy, then his new vehicle is a state-of-the-art, self-driven, smooth-ridin’, corners-like-it’s-on-rails Rolls Royce in the form of a new website and home on Substack.

As Bob, with a tremendously heavy heart, trades that Green Ford in for a shiny new car with fancy gadgets and controls he has yet to understand, we hope you’ll join him for the ride. We hope you’ll continue to read his thoughtful coverage of this town we love, disagree with his opinions on important issues and applaud him when you agree. We hope you bet on college football games based on his expert “picks” and fall in love with our Aggies at the beginning of every new season.

As Dr. Seuss said, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Today in the Dunning house, we’re smiling through our tears. With a career spanning 55 years, Bob was the longest running newspaper columnist in the country. Even more notable is the fact that he loved every single day of that career. Not many people can say that. 

And now, he has a fancy new ride waiting for him. It feels scary and we can’t guarantee that there won’t be bumps in the road. But Bob will continue to write his column and he will continue to keep Davis honest and unique. 

Bob doesn’t have the Enterprise anymore. But he has you. And really, that’s what always mattered—and still matters —the most. 

I hope you’ll join him for this next leg of the ride. I can’t wait to see where he takes us.

Bob’s new email address is: bobdunning@thewaryone.com

Read his column and sports coverage at thewaryone.com