I may pass up the Old Farts' next meeting

One of my great enjoyments in retirement is attending the frequent meetings of the Old Farts Society at Genio's Restaurant in Burbank. It is where all of us graduates from the Los Angeles metro newspaper scene can re-tell old stories of what capers we committed, what magnificent reporters we were, how we exposed wrong-doing, how we disclosed society's secrets that society didn't want told.

But I am hesitant about accepting an invitation to the meeting next month to observe the 40th anniversary of the first Watts riot in 1965. The Times, which spawned most of the OFS membership, takes pride in winning a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the riots and its subsequent review and analysis of what happened and why.

If we could take credit for having helped remove the scars of racial intolerance in Los Angeles, I'd be whooping it up with the rest of the boys and girls. But, whoa, The Times won another Pulitzer for covering the SECOND Watts riot in 1993! So much for the sort of investigative reporting that might have helped avert both rebellions against society, in which the blacks' own community suffered the most casualties and property destruction.
How many members does the Old Farts Society have today with African-American ancestry? How many do we have to tell THEIR stories of the coverage of the riots? Hasn't there been a sufficient lapse of time for some of them to have reached OFS membership and the doors opened to them?

The old-timers can speak readily to that. Only one black man did any coverage of the first riot for The Times. He had to be recruited out of the advertising or circulation department, I've forgotten which, and he didn't turn out to be such an outstanding newsman. Some extra-curricular tangles with the law mixed up his legacy.

About the Pulitzer Prize: The staff won it, with reporter Jack Jones doing an outstanding job of shepherding the aftermath story. He could have won it single-handed, and the staff has to be admired for reporting the killing, the looting, the horror without more than one black face on the scene for them.

The Pulitzer Prize awards committee probably had no more black faces on it than the L.A. Times' staff.

I left the Times to go to work with Sargent Shriver in the War on Poverty because of my disillusionment from being removed from the civil rights beat months before the first Watts riot.

When I was first approached about it, Frank McCulloch was serving at The Times' daytime managing editor, knew how to reach me: "Paul, we've been doing a good job covering Mississippi and Alabama -- but what are we doing about looking into our own backyard?"

I jumped at it. The assignment to get blacks' names and their problems into the new Los Angeles Times headed by then young publisher Otis Chandler, was a challenge, but who could ask for a better one in the turmoil of the '60s? Then I began getting signals of what lay ahead.

The paper's county beat reporter tapped me on the shoulder after I'd written a three-part series on the black community's problems with housing, employment and education, and said, with a big grin, "Paul, the way you're writing this stuff, one would think you might be part 'nigger'." Yes, he used thee "N" word, and I spell it out for its impact.

Although I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War (or "War Between the States" -- take your choice), I couldn't resist taking credit for something I couldn't assume at all, and told him that "I don't go around bragging about it."

Other stories I have about my efforts to cover the civil rights picture for The Times have more bearing on what I regard is what journalism itself is supposed to be about. They followed McCulloch's departure from The Times. I hope my work didn't contribute to his disputes with the management. I won't belabor them here.

McCulloch's replacement didn't share his enthusiasm for the civil rights coverage. "Paul, you've been working too hard," were his words that took me out of the picture. Hadn't he been reading the stories I had been writing? I wasn't looking through a crystal ball when a young man in Watts had told me that I was "the only white man who could get into Watts after rioting breaks out. " I said The Times could expect trouble ahead and they "wouldn't know what hit them." When the 1965 riot broke out, I was in Mazatlan, Mexico, listening to a newscast from L.A. After midnight I drove a mile to a downtown hotel telephone and called the city desk. Did they want me to hurry home?

'Aw, Weeks, go back and enjoy your vacation. this'll be over in a couple of hours.'

Four days later, a delivery boy caught up with me with the telegram to hurry home. The riot was over but 'Charcoal Alley' was still smoldering when we flew in over it a few hours later.

So, what stories can I tell the Old Farts?

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Later: Against all my intentions, I went anyway. It was too "smiley" for me. They had their token black man -- a fine former editor of The Sentinel -- at the speaker' table -- who reminded us not so subtly that "being black is (still) a bitch." But mainly it was like war correspondents relating their close calls and their humorous experiences covering a riot.

Yes, I got mad and blew my top, as our unofficial club note-taker accurately noted in passing. But I had my say as the room grew silent. The situation in South Central apparently has not changed significantly. After winning two Pulitzers for covering two Watts riots, maybe the boys and girls will have another opportunity one of these days to vaingloriously win another Pulitzer when the racial heat rises to a boil again.