BURLINGTON - When Mike Royko closed up his cabin on Bohners Lake for the last time, he hoped that another couple would enjoy the sunsets as much as he and his first wife, Carol, enjoyed them.

The late Chicago newspaper columnist paid tribute to those sunsets, the cabin and his first marriage in a column titled "A November Farewell," the first one he wrote after taking nearly two months off following his wife's death in 1979.

Royko put the cabin, in the Town of Burlington, up for sale the following spring, closing a chapter in his life.

Nearly 30 years later, a Northbrook, Ill., man wants to pay tribute to Royko, by bringing that column, and two others, to life on screen.

Norman Skul and a crew spent the weekend shooting scenes, in and around the City of Burlington, for a film adaptation of two Royko columns. Skul has plans for a third.

"A November Farewell" showed a softer side of the often acerbic Royko, a newspaperman who didn't suffer fools gladly, especially in the world of Chicago politics.

At the point in his career when he wrote the column, Royko had already spent nearly two decades making a reputation for himself as Chicagoans' favorite columnist and Chicago politicians' worst foe.

At the end of his career, Royko's columns were syndicated around the country in an estimated 600 newspapers.

He wrote nearly 8,000 of them during his more than 30-year career. He wrote in each of the last four decades of the 20th century for three Chicago dailies, only two of which still exist, the Sun-Times and the Tribune.

Skul said he rediscovered Royko later in life and thinks many of his columns are timeless, which gave him the idea for the project.

He is not sure where the filmed scenes will end up. The Internet is a possibility and Skul bought the domain name http://www.royko.tv, where he hopes to post the completed work.

Skul's taking a risk and hoping that, if it does take off, he might share Royko the writer with a new generation of readers and "maybe give diehard fans a bit of a different look.

"Love him or hate him, you couldn't dismiss him. That was the interesting thing about him," said Skul, who admits he did not read Royko daily and started appreciating him after he died. "Maybe it's because he never sold out. I think what endears people to him is that he could poke fun at himself."

The weekend's filming included shots at Royko's lake cabin, which is now the permanent, year-round residence of Peg Sorenson and her husband, Sol Fisher. Sorenson grew up on Bohners Lake, just up the road from the abode.

When the house went up for sale again, Sorenson and Fisher bought it from the woman who bought it from Royko. The couple still gets the occasional query - "Is that the Royko house?"

Nancy Klauck, who bought the cabin from Royko, left Sorenson and Fisher a copy of "A November Farewell" as a wedding gift.

"Every evening is the way he described. It's almost a miracle," Fisher said. "It's a beautiful spot."

Madison newspaper columnist and author Doug Moe was delighted to hear that someone was trying to bring Royko's columns to life.

Moe, who now writes for the Wisconsin State Journal, published a biography, "The World of Mike Royko," nearly a decade ago. He loved Royko's columns, but never figured he'd write a book about him.

Royko inspired a lot of people to get into the newspaper business, Moe said.

Moe, 52, remembers reading Royko columns when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Royko had joined the Sun-Times, after the Chicago Daily News closed.

Royko is an underrated writer, said Moe, who considers him history's greatest newspaper

columnist.

"One of the things that made him so good was his range, especially when you write as much as he did," Moe said. "He'd have a funny (column) one day, a poignant one the next day; one on the Cubs."

If any columnist deserves this kind of treatment, it's Royko, Moe said.

Skul, who wrote the script for the film adaptation of "A November Farewell," is paying for the project himself.

Many of the people working on the film are current or former students of Chicago's Columbia College. The school also made equipment available to the crew to use on the shoot, Skul said.

Skul said he got the blessing of Royko's widow, Judy, to proceed with the project.

He plans to package three of the video columns together to show to Royko's family, his former newspaper colleagues and industry people. Skul hasn't decided on the third column, but he thinks it will be a political one.

He doesn't know what will come of it all.

"Worst-case scenario, this is an overdue goodbye kiss to Mike," Skul said.