Theme Classic Chalkboard footer question

I could not get the option to remove the author footer to work, so I commented out the ode in footer.php:

<?php
/**<?php if( $classicchalkboard_settings[‘footer_link’]) : ?>
*
* <?php esc_attr_e( ‘Classic Chalkboard Theme by Edward R. Jenkins’ , ‘classicchalkboard’ ); ?>
*
* <?php else: ?>

* <?php esc_attr_e( ‘Classic Chalkboard Theme by Edward R. Jenkins’ , ‘classicchalkboard’ ); ?>
* <?php endif; ?>
*/
<?

But I do wnat my own footer. I am not strong in PHP and my efforts to put my own footer in have not worked.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks