Dear Diary:

What a long strange trip it’s been, and as I skip out of the Track Shack after too many years of chronicling the foibles, follies, fun times and amazing Tales from this sometimes-Naked City, I feel the need to pause for a trip down memory lane.

I easily have enough memories to fill a tell-all, but many people, including myself, would need to shed this mortal coil before it was published. The upside is, I would have a stellar excuse for not covering the book release party…

So this, Dear Diary, will be my memoirs, and toiling on the Inside Track has been nothing if not entertaining. I’ve covered Super Bowls, two World Series, a pair of NBA Finals, two Cups – Stanley and Ryder – and NHL and MLB All-Star Games. There were presidential inaugurations, Augusts on the Vineyard with a pair of POTUSes, celebrity weddings and, sadly, too many funerals.

I’ve chatted up royalty – British, American and Hollywood – as well as the aforementioned presidents. I’ve been kissed by Tom Brady, seen Ben Affleck’s bare back, gone on the road with Aerosmith and uncovered a lot of stories people still talk about: John Kerry dodging the state tax on his new yacht, Taylor Swift’s Kennedy Wedding Crash, Robert Kraft’s new romance, Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen’s first date, the plot to the super-secret “Seinfeld” finale … I could go on, but you get the drift.

Our need to keep Track readers up on the lowdown, got Gayle Fee and me banned from the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. It happened during our first trip to LA for the NBA Finals when a friend took us to sup at the Sanctuary to the Stars on the Sunset Strip. We wrote about it, natch, but you’d think we trashed the place or rang up a $47,000 bill and refused to pay. Yes, I’m looking at you, Lindsay Lohan. But, it seems we broke the cardinal rule of the CM: What happens in the Chateau, stays in the Chateau. We’re told our photos are posted at a security desk with a Do Not Admit order.

Speaking of out-of-the-way venues, I know we told you about our very first interview with the young Red Sox GM Theo Epstein — in a beer cooler at The Paradise during the first “Hot Stove, Cool Music” event. The club was hotter than Hades and it was the Cool-est space we could find to interview the MLB’s boy wonder. Theo took the grilling — and the cooler – with good humor and aplomb, qualities he’d need in the years to come.

While we’re on the Sox subject, we wormed our way into the team’s post-World Series celebration in 2007 at The Palm in Denver and so did Maroon 5. The band just happened to be at the restaurant when the party broke out and Adam Levine & Co. couldn’t believe they were lucky enough to be partying with the World Series champs and their Car Bomb-guzzling fans.

Meanwhile, the Sox and their fans couldn’t believe Maroon 5 was headlining their victory party — and Gayle and I couldn’t believe we were hanging with Adam and the boys in the kitchen at The Palm! (I’ve been secretly crushing on “The Voice” judge ever since….)

The team’s epic 2004 win in St. Louis was more of a blur — and not because I was with the delirious Boston fans who literally drank the home of Budweiser dry! I was in agony.  The week before, I broke my foot before an ALCS game in Yankee Stadium but soldiered on – and by that I mean running (!) out of the stadium to get a quote from Matt Damon!

The Cambridge homey was more interested in Curt Schilling’s ankle than the left foot that was bulging out of my sneaker. Schilling got two bloody socks and a World Series ring when he Reversed the Curse. I had to give away all of my Prada shoes and spend every day since in clogs. Curses!

Now, let’s talk about 21 years covering parties. There were hundreds and hundreds, most of which were forgettable. But there were some soirees that stand out. In early Track history, there was a swish “Skating in the Park” party at the fab Four Seasons where sticky-fingered society types made off with the Hermes scarves that were part of the tablescapes. Not all were returned, even after the Track’s shame-on-you story ran, BTW.

But our favorite memory from the Park party involved our lunch-bucket mayor who pronounced the name of the fancy-schmancy French designer house as “Hermies.” We crack up every time we drive by the Boylston Street boutique.

The late lamented Mass. Film Office’s Oscar Night bashes – the early ones at the old Bostonian Hotel – were gold, Jerry, gold! I swear we never watched the awards show except for the night “Good Will Hunting” was up for nine Oscars.  

Before heading to the MFO bash, we stopped at the L Street Tavern celebration just in time to see Robin Williams win Best Supporting Actor and call the people of Southie “a can of corn.” The place erupted like the Bruins just scored a game-winning goal in overtime. OK, maybe it was louder…

But life on the celebrity beat isn’t all canapés and caviar. There are trials and tribulations to Track work too. There was the time I covered an American Institute of Wine and Food party at Julia Child’s house in Cambridge. Well, maybe not “covered” since I walked through the dining room of my personal heroine, the first celebrity chef, the woman whose kitchen is now in the Smithsonian, with my skirt tucked up in my pantyhose. I’m surprised Julia didn’t find me the next morning in her pantry curled up in the fetal position with crumbs of her beloved Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers in my hair.

I could have cried, but to tell the truth, this gig has made me weep on the job exactly twice in 21 years. I’ll only dish about the first time – the day the Coast Guard called off the search in Nantucket Sound for John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane. I know readers thought we were obsessed with John, whom we dubbed “the hunk di tutti hunks.” Well, we were. He was great material. And he was the No. 1, all-time Sexiest Man Alive. Period.

Through our too-short Track acquaintance, John was a gentleman who always answered my questions. We shared potato chips in a campaign car during Uncle Teddy’s Senate race against Mitt Romney. He joked “Aw, who let YOU in,” at a party George maggie threw at the San Diego Zoo during the Republican National Convention in 1996. (Glen Johnson, who now flacks for Secretary of State John Kerry, is my witness.) And the Track was the first to report that he tied the knot with Carolyn Bessette in that hush-hush Cumberland Island wedding down in Georgia.

I could go on, but my new life calls. So as I wrap this up, Dear Diary, I need to give a shout-out to a few key people. First off, to my partner, Gayle, who has become a sister to me over the 30 years we’ve worked together. There’s Ken Chandler, our former editor who put us together 21 years ago, and our publisher Pat Purcell, whose support has been unwavering.

We’ve had five fantabulous assistants over the years – Sean Westmoreland, Nichole Gleisner Dooley, Erin Hayes, Simone Press and Megan Johnson. All were invaluable and ever so much fun. We’ve also had a number of copy editors, but I must single out Dick Swanson, who was always a good sport and could rock a sweater vest like no other.

And there’s Steven Syre, the best husband any girl could have for 25 years — but the worst Globe source.

Finally, a goodbye salute to the city, the readers, the pols, jocks and celebs who have been good-natured for the most part, and always entertaining.

My next entry, Dear Diary, will be from my next life or Act 2, as I like to call it. In the meantime, check out my blog, The Foodsmith on Tumblr, and follow me @LauraRaposa on Twitter!

As “The Town” star Ben Affleck said before the fade to black: “I know I will see you again — on this side or the other.”

 Laura