COMMERCE, Texas — Life is a journey that is full of surprises. Some of them sadden us. The one that has just presented itself to my wife and me, however, fills me with excitement.

We came to this college town today to discuss an opportunity that fell out of the sky. We met with Mark Haslett, a friend and former colleague of mine. We worked briefly together at the Amarillo Globe-News, but I knew him before that, when he was news director at High Plains Public Radio in Amarillo.

He now is news director at KETR-FM, the public radio station headquartered on the campus of Texas A&M University-Commerce.

What’s the surprise? Haslett has asked if I would be interested in writing for the station’s web site. The potential assignment that awaits me is quite similar to the first part-time freelance gig I scored shortly after quitting my post at the Globe-News; I wrote blogs for Panhandle PBS for a time.

This project is still a work in progress. Haslett and I haven’t yet set a start date. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that it’s not far off at all. Yes, we still have some more details to work out.

My wife and I — along with Toby the Puppy — are getting ready to move into a new home in Princeton, in eastern Collin County, which Haslett told us over lunch today is in the KETR-FM coverage area. He prefers that I write about issues pertinent to Collin County and the area surrounding Princeton, which is a growing community in what — for the time being — sits in one of the few remaining rural areas of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

OK, so here we are. Retirement remains a wonderful life for my wife and me. It does present some opportunities that we cannot foresee. This is one of them.

I don’t yet know where this particular journey will take us. I am grateful that my friend believes I have something of value to contribute to his listenership at KETR. There also might be some radio air time to discuss this new project and where we intend for it to go..

Meanwhile, I’ll be able to write about whatever moves me as we get settled in at our new digs in Princeton.

And so . . . the journey continues.