Chris Pettridge retires!

Here's a note from Chris:

Yes, I bailed out at the end of the year from the Post-Gazette, and it feels very strange now, living a deadline-free life. I've been looking at the clock since 1963 when I started as an apprentice reporter on a weekly paper in England, mostly interviewing the local vicar on what he said in his Sunday sermons and sitting in a hospital emergency room hoping for some disastrous collision that would make a story.
I emigrated in 1966 to be with my beloved (She Who Must Be Obeyed) and happened to get off a Greyhound in Cleveland. I walked into the PD with my clips looking for a job and was pretty much hired on the spot because on my accent (the executive editor was a Scotsman, Tom Guthrie). Try doing that today.
After three years as a suburban reporter I was invited to join the U.S. Army -- a charming interlude in Fort Campbell, Kentucky -- before rejoining the paper, where they decided I was prime material for the copy desk. That gave me the chance to have all my headlines rewritten by Art Milner before I saw an opportunity to escape into laying out pages, working with Van Richmond.
Since then, putting out the paper each night has been my amusement. Even the move to Pittsburgh in 1985 as AME/Graphics at the Post-Gazette changed little. The same rhythms of news still apply, although I have missed all the joys of the composing room and surly printers in recent years.
I guess we retirees should be grateful for having caught a wave in print journalism. We experienced some of the glory days of newspapers, although we may not have realized it at the time.
Now I am trying to justify my existence with a bunch of things: Resuming my rowing career, running a lot (I did a 60K last month in New Zealand's Southern Alps), volunteering for the local nature conservancy, traveling with Jean (mostly to Kiwiland) and, of course, enjoying our kids and the little grandnippers on the West Coast.
Hope I have a chance to see you guys under happier circumstances than Snyderman's funeral last year. You can reach me at pettridge@verizon.net
Bottoms up!

Chris PR
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