Why Do I Write for The Stockton Record?

That is often asked by old newspaper colleagues, friends and relatives. It's an easy one to answer: I was ASKED, thank you, and I have enjoyed the association for the better part of four years.

Stockton Record? I live in Oceanside, 500 miles to the south, never stepped into The Record's city room, never met the features editor who gently steers my monthly piece of six- or seven-hundred words into print -- never been in Stockton that I can recall, but I probably drove through it a couple of times on my way to Sacramento or other cities along the route.

So it was sort of a round-about way that my copy landed in Stockton, even if I didn't. I'm slowly getting into the who, what, why, where, when and how, but this is the way it started:

Because of my addiction to newspapers, I subscribe to three:Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, and the North (San Diego) County Times. Because of my age and my attachment to newspapers, I've asked each circulation department to have their carriers toss my daily issue against the garage door in front.

The young woman who delivered the North County paper began not to observe the request. Now I like to have all my morning papers with my coffee each day, so I slip through the garage to pick them up without creating a scene from the street.

I don't ordinarily dress, either, until I have my newspapers; so it became something of an embarrassment to go beyond the door down the driveway in my bedroom attire -- the description of which I shall not go into. Suffice it to say, some of the women passing by with their bull terriers or mastiffs on a leasch would wince and then smile patronizingly while their pooches would just lear.

Damn! The lady carrier, when confronted, said if I would just contribute a better tip, she would consider improving her throwing arm.

DON'T ALL YOU GUYS (and dolls) who ever got printer's smudges on your fingers, recognize the solicitation of a bribe, which is against newspaper people's ethics?

Oh, my, I suppose I over-reacted. I wrote to everyone I knew who worked for the paper, then adding those I didn't know -- editors, circulation managers, and so on.
I regret that the young lady lost her job, not necessarily because of this one slip.
But The North County Times has never faltered since -- which is something I can't say for the other two.

No, I'm not straying off the subject: One editor I wrote to was Rob Wagner, who had been a regional editor for the paper. Rob happens to be the grandson of an old colleague of mine on two Los Angeles papers. My protest was forwarded to him in the position he now held: features editor of The Stockton Record.

A few years earlier, Rob had written a book called, "Red Ink and White Lies," a serious but well-anecdoted history of early newspapering days in L.A.He had interviewed me for it and faithfully relayed my contribution to print (except he said I had once been in the Coast Guard, which, I guess is not libelous).

"My granddad used to bring the Daily News home, and he showed me some of the stuff you had written," Rob said with grace. "Would you like the idea of writing a monthly column for The Record, say, mostly memoirs of your days on newspapers?"

I rushed to sign any papers necessary before he could change his mind and -- yes -- before he told me what my paycheck would be.

(I got $5 a week when The Albuquerque Journal gave me my first job in the depression days of 1937. I sometimes carried the checks around in my wallet two or three weeks before cashing them. I have gotten over that habit.)

Rob was my entreè. He was a great editor. But a year or so ago, he got a job on the Saudi Gazette in Rijahd and left me to fend for myself. Fortunately, the features editor who took his place, is a fine editor, too. I'm looking forward to meeting her sometime.

Again: Why would anyone in Stockton's environs want to read anything I ever write about my life and times everywhere else but in Stockton? May I tell one more story?

Some 30 years ago, I planned to attend the umpty-umph anniversary of the founding of Mott, North Dakota -- a nice little town tucked in the southwest corner of the (sometimes frozen) state, where I came into this world on a blizzardy December morn in 1920.

I loved, and still love, Mott, where I spent 12 years opening my eyes to this planet and its wonders. How could I write something that would be accepted for publication in a metro sheet like the Los Angele Times? "Try me," I told myself.

Before attending the reunion in 1982, my story heralding the coming event was not only published in the L.A. Times, but was syndicated throughout the nation -- even Fargp, North Dakota. Maybe in Australia for all I know, because the Times' news service carried news of such important events around the world.

I guess I could be excused for sending a copy of the story to the Mott Pioneer Press, a weekly where my name first appeared in print.

Bobby Trousdale, the banker's son, was the first to smile and wink wickedly about how I got Mott nation-wide attention. "I know," he said, "that you used to work for the Times and that gave you an 'in'."

Man, I was tempted to give him a swift kick in the pants. His snide remarked smelled of the same effort of the newspaper girl carrier to get a bribe.

"No, Bobby," I said with all the aplomb that I could muster."Most of the older newspaper readers everywhere probably came from some little town like Mott, and they will know what I was writing about."

And now I guess that old newspaper hacks like me enjoy telling their stories over and over, and sometimes people like to read them from Tucumcari to Timbuktu.

If you've gotten this far, you must be one of them.