Then you already know this is the biggest thing happening in Longview:

The 800-member strike had been a long time coming, and it came on a day I was filling in as city editor. I’ll just say that so far we’ve done a fair and thorough job.

And as the news gods would have it, on Day 1 of the strike the City Council voted to move forward on a new water system, taking the first $300,000 step of what could be a $30 million to $55 million bid to replace a fully functional water system with a little too much silica.

Summer — the season of slow news days — is over.

But it did give me time to do some big-picture stories.

One of my favorite things to report on is ideas. To start a conversation, surprise readers and affect policy. That’s the dream, right?

For example, one idea to reduce the ballooning costs of public defense is to decriminalize driving with a suspended license.

And I took a look at one idea that’s been coming up again and again — body cameras for police officers. Here’s why a quarter of the country’s police forces use them and just five percent of Washington state’s do.

On the justice beat, this murderer’s sentencing was heart-wrenching, and the courtroom was tense over the sentencing of a drunk driver who almost killed two young women and himself in a head-on crash.

Oh, and the sheriff of quaint Wahkiakum County took in a box of plastic explosives from a woman who found them in a storage unit.

On the feature front, I chronicled the drag-racing Gorans family, who took one last trip down the blacktop this month.

I’ll leave you with this photo of a small brush fire north of town while sending thoughts to the firefighters and families affected by the record-breaking fires in this parched state.

There’s an early start to what will likely be a brutal fire season in the West, even on this side of the Cascades.

Two officials drove me around one of the area’s larger fires this week — Douglas firs burning as birthday candles for me — and my photos of the trip took the front page Wednesday. Here’s one:

Elsewhere, in my continuing efforts to be Good At Everything, I’ve taken on the cops and courts beat in addition to covering Longview’s government and people.

That has already kept me busy with another death in the county jail, a murderer looking for a new trial 15 years later and our famous local hotelier digging himself into a hole. Allegedly.

There’s also my favorite data-based story so far, a look at the shared costs of the drug problem in the county.

But it’s not all doom and gloom in Cowlitz County, right?

Take the cardboard boat regatta, for example. Or my widely shared look at a year in the legal pot industry.

Then there’s the occasional W from our Cowlitz Black Bears — seemingly only taken after 11+ innings when I cover the games.

See, we have fun.

I hit nearly 400 Daily News bylines in my first year, and I’m proud of every one. Every story and every source has made me stronger, faster, better.

Or so I’m led to believe via the reception of this recent story about the upshot of the state’s renewable energy requirements and the local utility’s moves to meet them. It’s thoroughly detailed yet digestible — maybe like a green energy bar. Take a bite!

Earlier, I kept up the heat on the PUD’s recall drama through both a records request and a keen ear.

On the lighter side, I again got to combine my passions of writing and beer by writing about a beer made just for a local, Boston-qualifying marathon. Listen:

The Northwest beer scene is so pervasive you can’t even go 26.2 miles without running into it.

I also got to write about shit — highly treated sewage called biosolids, rather — in this story about their controversial use in pastures in the county to the west, Wahkiakum.

And those school zone speed cameras some call necessary for child safety and others call a cash cow? They made the city a profit of $500,000 last year.

Also, I judged a cupcake contest and wrote about it, NBD.

I climbed aboard the Oscar B as the first light was breaking in Astoria. The tide was coming in, and this ferry was due upriver. Two seasoned mariners — who knew from the look of me I was an inlander by birth — were headed out on the Columbia River, as they’d done thousands of times before.

One was obviously better at talking to the river than talking to others, and the other was less than revealing about the namesake of the boat, his father.

So the sound of the engines and the bark of sea lions provided the soundtrack to much of Friday’s trip delivering the new Puget Island-Westport ferry, one of few Washington/Oregon routes remaining on the river — and the last of the Lower Columbia ferries.

It was a routine trip for the pair of retired river pilots, but for me it was an opportunity, a way to craft poetry out of the historical record that may well be referred to in 50 years when yet another ferry takes its place.

Back on dry land in February, Longview got a new city manager and found out its golf course manager was sleeping in the clubhouse.

And then there was the curious case of one man trying to reason his way out of a camera-trap speeding ticket — with science!

Back again to the water, a stink is being raised about the stink that could be caused by protections for smelt limiting the city’s ability to flush a man-made lake in the heart of Longview. (Yes, it would smell worse than the paper mills when it rains.)

Finally, one medical marijuana patient stands up to what he calls a “hostile takeover” by the recreational pot industry and the state Legislature.

The morning I met the Pollocks, I woke up to find someone had gone through my car outside my home overnight. My wife’s too.

That left me shaking my fist pretty hard at Cowlitz County as I drove to the Oak Tree in Woodland early Saturday morning to meet my hunting party.

My vitriol only lasted the drive, as a warm welcome and a seat at the table of eight melted the fresh ice around my heart. I felt like part of the family, not an intruder on a cherished tradition. They were as curious about me, a native North Dakotan walking far from home, as I was of them.

By the time I was back at my car at the end of the day, I had forgotten why my owner’s manual and a few old cassettes were scattered around the passenger seat — true Christmas spirit had reigned.

I hope this story spreads some of that spirit and does well by the memory of Dick Pollock, a longtime reporter and editor here at The Daily News. A big thank you and a Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the story.

And there you have another month blown by like so many leaves loitering in the breeze.

September ended with a first for me – the Associated Press picked up my story about the state compensating a Longview man for a decade of wrongful imprisonment, so I’ve had my biggest audience yet.

And was I ever happily surprised when I saw Ashtown Brewing had framed my story on their year anniversary and the state of beer in the city. Hey, any excuse to write about beer, a statement which luckily comes city editor-approved.

Thank you @TDNLifestyles & @readbrooks for the article! pic.twitter.com/STCTWIBgKE

— Ashtown Brewing Co. (@ashtownbrewing) September 29, 2014

A recent Sunday centerpiece I was warned would “open a can of worms” on Longview’s troubled water was highly read and, being a story on water, highly commented upon.

Oh, and did I mention I went hunting for a bear (attack site)?

It’s a good life.