The King of Three-Dot Journalism

As I’ve been working for months now to finish a photography-heavy non-fiction book about San Francisco, my feelers are out for any news related to the city. Today, I noticed this in Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the [92nd] birthday of the San Francisco columnist Herb Caen ..., born in Sacramento, California (1916). He started publishing his column “It’s News to Me” in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1938, the year after the Golden Gate Bridge opened. He was only 22 years old, and he continued writing 1,000 words a day, six days a week, for almost 60 years--becoming the longest-running columnist in American history.

He said, “Living in San Francisco [is] a gift from the gods.”

I couldn’t agree more, even though I’ve never actually lived in the Bay Area. Caen, by the way, passed away in 1997.