On Friday I had the chance to sit down to lunch with the Aging Newspapermen’s Club, a group of former Baltimore Sun reporters, rewrite men, and photographers.   The group convenes every Friday at Enrico’s sports bar, at the corner of Pratt and Haven in East Baltimore, to trade war stories, catch up on each other’s latest ventures, and talk an impressive amount of shit.

All in good humor, of course.

I was invited by Rafael Alvarez, a 20 year veteran of the Baltimore Sun’s city desk and a true Baltimore original.  During my visit, Alvarez recounted the time that he and David Simon pulled an epic April Fool’s joke on their faithful rewrite man David Ettlin, who was also at the table in the back room of Enrico’s.

Alvarez and Simon had conspired with the spokesman for the Baltimore County Police Department to call Ettlin with a hot story about a former steelworker who stabbed his estranged wife through the heart with his Oral-B 60 toothbrush.  Ettlin breathlessly typed up the story with the phone pressed to his ear as Alvarez and Simon howled in laughter across the newsroom.  Ettlin recalled the details of the gag as if it had been phoned in to him yesterday.

The gang traded gifts for the holidays.  Among them: a framed and remarkably unflattering portrait of Bill Marimow – a former Sun editor whose name didn’t exactly stir feelings of holiday cheer,  a photocopy of an old Baltimore News American cover story featuring the unfortunate (and, many agreed, deliberate) headline typo of “pubic affairs”, and a shrinkwrapped copy of the last edition of The Evening Sun (pictured above).

This story is a bit short, since I opted to spend most of my time listening instead of scribbling notes. Truth is, it was a helluva way for a journalism grad student to spend an afternoon.

Thanks guys.