ROOTS & BRANCHES

I was barely 18 and filled all the knowledge of someone who didn’t know what he didn’t know.

I’d graduated high school a couple of months before and was still reveling in having been able to clerk at my hometown newspaper, the Reading Times, in the sports department.

For a kid who was planning a career as a journalist, drinking in the atmosphere of a real newspaper—and even getting a byline!—was beyond a dream.

But now that dream was butting heads with the reality of going to college at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, and I thought maybe I could use some advice.

Well, truthfully, I was looking more for ratification of my plans to major in journalism (technically, Hofstra called the major “Communication Arts with a concentration in Journalism”) than real advice.

But nonetheless a few weeks before leaving for school, I called up the crusty managing editor of the Times, Richard C. “Old Pete” Peters, and asked him if I could stop by to hear a few words from him.

“Pete” was gracious enough to do that and took me to a conference room to talk, but the conversation immediately took a turn I didn’t expert.

“The best advice I can give you,” he said, “is to take as few journalism courses as possible. You ether know how to write or not … they can’t teach you.”

He went on to note that everyone in the newsroom had to cover government and business at one time or another. “Take courses in what you’re going to write about,” he said.

I came out of that meeting a bit gobsmacked and it took a little time, but eventually I became a political science major and economics minor. Government and business, in Old Pete’s words—and that liberal arts background has always served me well.

Four years later, when I had just graduated from Hofstra and would soon leave for my first full-time job on the copy desk of the Birmingham (Alabama) Post-Herald, it happened that the staffs of the Times and its sister paper the Eagle were going to be merged and Old Pete was retiring.

I took the opportunity to call Pete and let him know where I was headed. I never talked to him again, but when I wrote The Family Tree Historical Newspapers Guide in 2018, I dedicated it to him.

Was Old Pete family? Not biologically, for sure. But when you’re talking about one of the people who changed your life, if they’re not part of your “chosen family,” who exactly are you choosing?

Next week in “Roots & Branches” we’ll meet another one of my “life changers.” His name was Herbert Rosenbaum—one of those Hofstra poli sci professors I stumbled into, courtesy of Old Pete.