Feb. 6, 1997
Dear Pat,
When I first moved to California in 1978, the San Francisco Chronicle became my first friend, showing me around this new world, introducing me to people the likes of which I'd never known. The Chronicle itself was unlike any newspaper I'd ever seen, full of irreverencies, quirkiness, balderdash and very little of the hard-news newspapering I'd been raised on.
The Chronicle's idea of an investigative story was to allow its star columnist, an avuncular fellow named Herb Caen, to drop a few blind items about "a certain seasoned downtown financier who's been squiring about town girls young enough to be one of his daughters -- but aren't -- while his wife's in Athens."
Herb Caen's column appeared daily on a section front beside a huge Macy's ad. LEFT OF MACY'S:, He'd sometimes begin an item. Items, items, who's got an item?, he'd ask, but he always had maybe 50 per column, most of them mailed, phoned or later on faxed in by readers who'd seen a funny sign in Petaluma, or an obscene vanity plate that had gotten by the DMV, or knew of a lawyer whose name was David Affit. Namephreaks, he termed that last kind of item and professed to be bored with them but never stopped relaying new ones.
I sent him an item once. He didn't use the item but sent me a thank-you note I hoped had been typed on his trusty Royal. I framed the note, have it still.
Herb Caen wrote his weekday column as if we were presiding over a sweet riot of the citizenry. Stacking these examples of San Francisco peccadilloes one upon another, many of them linked only by the ... that came afterward, Herb Caen was an essential part of the morning for many Northern Californians. None of it meant anything, none of it was memorable. It was like meringue. Life requires meringue.
On Sundays, Herb Caen turned serious. No items. Often he'd write a Sunday column after a stroll through the Marina, the Haight or some other district of the city. He'd describe it now; and invariably lament the city that had been lost. Though he grew up in Sacramento, he'd lived in San Francisco when, long before the Summer of Love, before the '49ers were good. He remembered when shopkeepers cleaned their own sidewalks, suggested that people who called the city Frisco be banished to the heathen L.A.
He'd recall a supper club, a stylish chanteusse, how the owner lost his shirt, maybe his life borrowing money from wiseguys. He grieved in print for what had been and could never be again.
Herb Caen was stylish himself, drove a Jaguar and was a sought-after guest at the constant parties thrown by San Francisco's social elite. This though he sometimes chided them or the foolishness of the opera's opening night. Just as long as he spelled their names right.
Herb Caen fancied a good vodka martini, and sometimes a few of the Sunday columns sounded as if they'd been written under the influence. These brooded at length about the damage the city fathers and mothers had allowed to occur to his "Emerald City," revealing a cynicism that made you look forward to the upbeat column you knew would follow on Monday.
Truth is, Herb Caen didn't write beautifully when he tried to. And he could be cornier than Kansas in August.
Herb Caen's gift was that he loved San Francisco long and well, for better or for worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. San Francisco loved him back.
Last year, Herb Caen wrote a column about his inoperable cancer. Last week, he died. The next day, the Chronicle broke every rule in the book, filled the top half of the front page with a photo of the man who loved San Francisco.
Love, Sam
Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.
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