James River Journal will live on as a book

Today's James River Journal installment marks an end to the series.

Photographer P. Kevin Morley and I began the journal -- a story a month for a year -- last November.

Among the things we've learned:

Some people love fishing even on a rainy December night as a big storm approaches.

You can eat an oyster straight from the James and survive.

You must eat that oyster slowly, making sure you get all its taste.

You shouldn't drink coffee before spending three hours in a blind on a winter morning waiting for an eagle to land.

You can snorkel in the city with huge catfish so docile you can touch them.

The river can look beautiful even as it fights to cope with pollution.

Mainly, we learned that people of all ethnic groups and political persuasions love the James. They love talking and reading about it.

I will miss sidling up to strangers along the James and asking them their thoughts on the river.

I won't miss rising before 4 a.m. in winter to reach some distant point before sunrise.

I will miss being there at sunrise as watermen headed out to their oyster grounds or scientists wired the explosives in their eagle trap.

The James River isn't going away, however, and neither are we. The Richmond Times-Dispatch will continue to cover the river, but not in series form. Tell us if you hear of a good story.

And the James River Journal will live on as a book, "James River Journal: A Year in the Life of a River."

-- Rex Springston