Caen: It's a place
for enjoying life, and I've done it to the full. Thousands and thousands of
columns and millions of words, all about one city, which is a tribute to the
city more than anything else.
Narrator: Fifty-eight
years, some 16,000 columns.
Voice: A couple
of families have written where they've said, "We've gone through three generations
of Herb Caen, because my grandfather, my mother myself ...," and so forth.
Narrator: Herbert
Eugene Caen was born in 1916 in Sacramento, Calif. "A nice place to grow up,"
he said, "if you were a tree."
Just a few days out of
high school in 1932, Caen walked into the editor's office at the local newspaper.
Caen: I asked
for a job, and he said, "Can you type?" and I said, yeah, and he said, "Sit
down. You're hired." I couldn't type even.
Narrator: Over
the next four years Caen learned the craft of newspapering, from sports to
police beat. For fun he wrote about radio shows and sent his stories to the
San Francisco Chronicle. One day, the Chronicle's editor, Paul C. Smith, called
to offer Caen a job.
And so in 1936, Herb
Caen came to San Francisco as radio columnist for the Chronicle. He was 20
years old. Two years later he had an idea for a new column. "About what?"
asked his editor.
Caen: About the
city. He said, "Every day?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, give it a try,
but remember one thing. I'm easily bored. I've a short attention span, so
for heaven's sake be entertaining."
Narrator: He loved
to hang out with newspapermen. In the 1930s, Herb Caen was one of them, racing
the daily deadlines, working 'til 3 a.m., then heading for Powell Street to
drink and read the early edition, the ink still wet on the page. Sunrise would
find them standing on the curb, legging pennies at the cable car slot.
Voice: I no longer
know how the game started or what the point was. The winner was the one who
lost his penny down the slot. It simply appealed to the child in us. The child
that lives in every newspaperman of whatever age. We were all like that, living,
breathing the newspaper business. We worked too hard, drank too much, married
and divorced too often. Blew our health and our home lives, and in most cases,
died too young. It never occurred to us to put in for overtime. We were having
too good a time, all the time.
Voice: Your column
is more important than your wife or children or mother or anything like that.
Voice: The column
was his life, his whole being, his way of communicating with people.
Voice: I remember
him writing about why he went through three divorces. He said simply because
the column came first.
Narrator: Readers
trusted Caen's column. One mention could bust or boost a restaurant, a play,
a politician.
Voice: For politicians,
one mention in Herb Caen's column was better than an editorial praising your
performance. Herb Caen's power, clout and influence exceeds everybody else's
in the city and county of San Francisco.
Voice: If you
had to do a thumbnail sketch of what Herb Caen is really like, how would you
describe yourself?
Caen: Well, he's
a phony for one thing. Overdressed, overpaid, malaprop artist. I've been getting
away with murder for years. And some day they're going to catch up with me.
Narrator: They
did catch up to him on April 9, 1996. He won the Pulitzer Prize. So, how did
the writer of a three dot breakfast column get a Pulitzer?
Voice: Caen's
the best reporter we've ever had on the Chronicle. Caen is the best writer,
pure writer.
Voice: And he
wrote about serious things affecting the beauty of this city.
Voice: Herb has
led more fights for the environment in San Francisco than any other single
human being.
Narrator: Any
development that threatened Caen's view of how San Francisco should look,
got bashed by Caen's royal wrecking ball. He wrote about saving the cable
cars, preserving the waterfront. Caen was pro-labor, joining in two newspaper
strikes. He was for gay rights, against the death penalty, and one of the
first columnists in America to oppose the Vietnam War.
The Pulitzer Prize people
summed up Caen's influence by calling him a voice and a conscience of San
Francisco. At the awards ceremony he told a Pulitzer judge that perhaps he
wasn't worthy of the honor.
Caen: He was very
stern, and he looked at me and said, "Mr. Caen, we know what you do. Remember,
there are no cheap Pulitzers." Shhh, that made me feel better.
Narrator: But
then came cancer.
Voice: He didn't
have a week to sort of celebrate the Pulitzer before he found out he had the
cancer. It almost seemed like it was a case of where he was almost riding
too high and some hand came along and said got to knock you down.
Narrator: Caen
kept writing from home, hoping to produce three columns a week, but for the
first time in his life, he was missing deadlines.
Caen: Sometimes
the energy level's up. Sometimes it's down. But I don't want to be out of
the paper. My whole life has been dedicated to being there. So, I'm going
to continue to be there as long as I can.
Narrator: Over
the years, Herb Caen has watched his newspaper buddies lose the deadline race
one by one, and sometimes Caen would find himself alone, standing on the curb
with thoughts of old newspapermen and a handful of pennies.
Voice: Sometimes
I feel like a survivor of a last man club. Throw another penny at the slot
and remember the good times.
Narrator: June
14, 1996, Herb Caen day, a chance for thousands to say, thank you. Herb was
there with his spring bride.
Voice: In the
end, he really does what he does for the readers. That's his judge and jury
in his mind. I think for his readers to actually stand up and applaud meant
more to him than anything.
Caen: One day
if I do go to heaven, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does that
goes to heaven, he looks around and says it ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.
Narrator: Along
the waterfront he helped preserve, Herb Caen was honored with a sidewalk bearing
his name. There is no marble statue or towering monument, just this three-mile
stretch of flat pavement. Anything else might block the view.
Caen: It's more
of an honor than I can handle. I mean Herb Caen Way sounds a little stiff
to me, but we're going to put up a few signs, and I guess I'll be remembered
along there by somebody, maybe an old sea gull, maybe a one-legged sea gull.
