‘Been a trip like no other’ — David Perlman retires
Colleagues, friends, San Francisco’s mayor and a U.S. senator raised their glasses in San Francisco on Friday to mark the retirement of America’s senior journalist, David Perlman, whose Chronicle career spanned eight decades and who enjoyed every day of them.
“It’s been a trip like no other,” Perlman said. “Lucky is the reporter or editor who gets a chance to work right here at The Chronicle.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, one of 200 celebrators at Perlman’s retirement party, told Perlman that she recalled reading “all your pieces,” and said his retirement “leaves big shoes to fill.”
“You really have made a deep
“You really have made a deep contribution to journalism and to scientific expertise.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
contribution to journalism and to scientific expertise,” the senator said.
Mayor Ed Lee thanked Perlman “for just being part of the city during many of its more transformative years,” and handed over a proclamation declaring it to be Dave Perlman Day in San Francisco.
Then he smiled and said Perlman, after his long career, is “one that can recognize fake news.”
“I can write it, too,” Perlman shot back with a smile.
Perlman, who stepped down last week from The Chronicle’s reporting staff at the age of 98, was thought to be the oldest full-time reporter in the U.S. His official title at the newspaper was science editor, but Perlman said that was way too fancy for his taste and that he was just a “regular reporter.”
He covered moonwalks and earthquakes. He interviewed evolutionists in the Galapagos Islands and dinosaur hunters in Utah. His final Chronicle story appeared Sunday — a preview of the coming solar eclipse, one of countless eclipses Perlman has covered. Colleagues have pointed out that solar eclipses come along far more often than reporters like David Perlman.
“Into the zone of total eclipse, (scientists) seek to extract as much information as possible in the few brief moments of totality that nature affords,” Perlman wrote in 1965.
“Daylight will turn to midnight ... the summer air will turn chilly, birds will chirp uneasily in the unexpected darkness, and the stars will emerge,” Perlman wrote last week.
On hand were co-workers past and present, along with politicians and publishers, scientists and scholars.
Born seven weeks after the end of World War I, Perlman — known fondly to his colleagues as “Dr. Dave” — began his Chronicle career in 1940 as a copy boy and, except for service during World War II, has been a fixture in the newsroom ever since. During the 1970s, he served briefly as city editor, directing the paper’s news coverage, until requesting to be allowed to return to science reporting.
Among the speeches, accolades and tributes, most of them delivered with dry eyes, was a lighthearted song written and performed by fellow Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan.
“When the space shot’s headed for the moon, when a deadly earthquake hits at noon, who’s the man who gets the scoop, it’s Dr. Dave,” Fagan sang, while three newsroom colleagues danced the Charleston and other steps popular when Perlman was writing his first stories for a newspaper in Schenectady, N.Y., in the 1930s.
Colleagues were relieved to learn that Perlman, in addition to retiring, has also been designated the newspaper’s first science editor emeritus. In that role, Perlman will keep his desk at the newspaper and contribute occasional stories and book reviews — one of which he said is already in the works.