Asbury Park Press reunion

I found myself surrounded my about 200 familiar faces on Saturday when I went to a reunion of past and present employees of the Asbury Park Press, my former newspaper on the Jersey Shore.

It was tremendous fun to see so many of my colleagues, many of whom had been laid off or bought off and many of whom have become very successful. There were several editors at the New York Times. There was Wally Stroby, who has written three mystery novels, and so wasn't too devastated by being bought out at the Star-Ledger. Steve Breen, an alum, who has won two Pulitzer Prices for his cartoons, was supposed to be a guest there but I never did catch up to him so I'm not sure. (Some reporter I am). Then there were my friends Matty Karas, a writer for VH1's "Behind the Music," and Michael Taylor, a writer for numerous television shows including "Star Trek Voyager," and "Battlestar Gallactica."

Mike is celebrated for having lost his job for having roundly and obscenely told off a copy editor who had ruined his copy. There may or may not have been a chair thrown in the incident. But boo hoo for him, he went on to live out this fantasy existence in Hollywood.

Plenty of people at the reunion had changed careers too. There were at least a couple of journalists turned lawyers among the group and one woman who told me she was currently brewing beer!

We heard about the tragedies among the employees as well: an editor who had died in his 40s, a former copy editor who committed suicide, a former coworker who lost his wife. But there were also plenty of joy: kids running around and babies and a few spouses. I contented myself with a photo of my family because I knew they would be bored and cranky if I forced them to come.

Behind most of the conversations was the slow death of newspapers. We all shook our heads and lamented about these kids today who don't read papers. We talked about how the Internet took away the classifieds. We discussed the fact that few people seem to understand that subscribers don't pay for the newspaper, they just bring in the advertisers. We talked about whether people would pay for content on the Web and whether it could possibly save newspapers.

It was a great party but it was also kind of a wake. Fortunately, we're all journalists so it was an Irish wake. It felt like a reunion of long lost, distant relatives, some of whom couldn't quite place each other. ("Is that Uncle Fred over there? Now who's that?") There was lots of beer, lots of toasts and despite the mourning, there was a whole lot of laughter.