Ode to a journalist

 (In which the Blob strays from Sportsball World -- again! -- to indulge in a little self-indulgence. Standard disclaimer applies)

Ed Breen and I had this kind of relationship:

One day in the newsroom of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette I walked past him noshing on some vile thing from the vending machine downstairs (which I long ago christened the Carousel of Death), and Ed piped up and said "Well, hello, garbage gut!"

One other day I saw a picture of Ed from 1968, when he was a kid photographer trailing Martin Luther King Jr. during the latter's visit to Manchester University. And I mentioned it to Ed and said "Gee, Ed, you were actually young once. Who knew?"

He laughed, of course. We laughed a lot together, having similar cockeyed views of a world that -- to us, anyway -- seemed to be getting more cockeyed every day.

It was the journalist's naturally sardonic way of looking at things, which sometimes sideswipes jaded but generally avoids direct contact. You spend your life in newsrooms breathing newsprint and loudly wondering who the hell made off with your pica pole, it's how you are. Journalists are always gonna journalist.

And Ed Breen was a journalist, above all else. In a lot of ways he was the journalist, at least if you worked the gig in Indiana.

When word came from Marion the other day that he'd passed at the age of 82, my initial reaction was "Dammit!", and I was hardly alone. Everyone who ever worked with him in Marion or Fort Wayne immediately jumped on the Magic Face Thingy to post tributes, talking about his biting wit but mostly about what a debt they owed him for showing them how to commit journalism. 

It's probably too much to say a generation of Hoosier journos learned their craft from Ed, but not by, you know, much. You work three decades at a paper in your adopted hometown of Marion, then spend the last 14 years of your career at the Journal in Fort Wayne, your influence gets felt. And that's especially true when you worked as many parts of the profession as Ed did.

At various times he was a reporter and a photographer and a photo editor and an assistant managing editor, and at the Chronicle-Tribune in Marion he even served a stint as the editor of the whole shebang. Accumulated a pile of honors for doing all that, too.

He's in the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, for starters. Twice was named a Sagamore of the Wabash. And as an incorrigible history nerd, he was a co-founder of the Mississinewa Battlefield Society, helping launch Mississinewa 1812, one of the largest War of 1812 re-enactments/festivals practically anywhere.. He also was a trustee for the Indiana Historical Society and was on the board of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana.

I suppose all of the latter is how Ed and I bonded, as I'm an incorrigible history nerd myself. But it wasn't just that; like every other journo at the JG, I was drawn to a man who'd seen and done so much in the biz, and who always had something wise (or wisecrack-y) to say about it.

In my memory he was always wandering around the JG newsroom with a cup of coffee in his hand -- I always figured it was surgically attached -- and some razor observation. I suppose you could have called him the newsroom curmudgeon, but that doesn't quite get it. Ed was more like a curmudgeon who'd somehow acquired the ability to laugh -- because if the job could be a grind sometimes, when you did it right it was also so damn much fun.

Which I guess brings me to one last story.

It happened down at Mississinewa 1812 one October, where I've become a semi-regular visitor. As I walked in the first person I saw was Ed, all dressed up as some grungy mountain man. 

"You should wear that to the office sometime," I said, or words to that effect. "Show everyone the real Ed Breen."

Ed grinned.

"Probably be a dress code violation," he replied, or words to that effect.

And then we laughed, the two of us. Because of course we did.