Expand<\/a><\/p>\nHis roller coaster life started when he was born in 1953 and raised in Arvada, a small town near Denver.<\/p>\n
In addition to being poor, he also said his parents were \u201cfunctional alcoholics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy that, I mean they drank every day, but they didn\u2019t miss work,\u201d Saltzgaver wrote. \u201cI inherited it all \u2013 the addictive personality, the ability to continue to function and the tendency to be maudlin rather than belligerent. I was pretty convinced that I could indulge and still be better at my job than those around me.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of shots of cheap bourbon or scotch could take the edge off at the end of the day,\u201d he added, \u201cand a few more would allow for a sort of sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saltzger noted early on in his book that most alcoholics think no one around them knows what\u2019s really going on and they are \u201cgetting away with it. I can\u2019t think of a bigger self-deception.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about God and religion?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all a scam, the opiate of the masses, right?\u201d Saltzgaver writes. \u201cI was too smart for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
His first journalism job was writing theater reviews on a manual typewriter in Creede, Colorado, a small silver mining town in the mountains. This developed into a deeper writing and editing job, and, he said, he learned a vital newspaper lesson:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want a town to call a paper its own,\u201d he said, you \u201cbetter have a staff person living there.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be part of the community to call yourself a community newspaper.\u201d<\/p>\n
That led to jobs at the famous Greeley Tribune and, eventually, a move to California and the now-defunct Oxnard Press Courier. In 1992, he accepted an offer from John and Fran Blowitz to run the Grunion Gazette Newspapers.<\/p>\n
During those early years, he also wrote in his book, there were three marriages that didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want trauma, there was the time when my first wife said she was leaving with our 18-month-old son because I was \u2018too boring,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat does something to the ego, if you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he got the offer from the Blowitzes, Saltzgaver said, he knew nothing about Long Beach. But he looked at a map, saw that it was 20 miles south of Los Angeles and on the coast with a big port.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood enough for us,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Everything was fine in his new job \u2013 \u201clearning to love Long Beach\u201d \u2014 and being in charge of putting out the newspaper, he said. But one problem remained: he continued drinking.<\/p>\n
After 10 years in Long Beach, his drinking led to a devastating DUI. Saltzgaver said this put his job, his fourth marriage, with Maria, and his life in general in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually, I calmed down enough to think about praying,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI say \u2018think about\u2019 praying because I was so bad God didn\u2019t want anything to do with me. But I didn\u2019t pray that He would get me out of the trouble I was in. I prayed, over and over again, that he would take away the compulsion I had to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saltzgaver\u2019s description of how he finally stopped drinking on Sept. 13, 2001, is inspirational.<\/p>\n
So is his story of how he improved the Gazette newspapers.<\/p>\n
Saltzgaver and I were cordial rivals for many years, dating back to when I was managing editor of the Press-Telegram and he arrived in Long Beach in 1992 to take over as editor of the Grunion.<\/p>\n
When the Press-Telegram\u2019s parent company bought the Gazette Newspapers a few years ago, Saltzgaver wrote about how funny that felt because for years, he would wake up every morning and try to figure out how he could beat out the bigger Press-Telegram in news coverage.<\/p>\n
We had many friendly conversations about how often that happened or didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
There is no question that Saltzgaver took the Grunion to a higher level of community journalism until he retired in 2023 to become managing editor of Sunstone Management, a venture capital firm in Irvine. He has continued writing his \u201cPinch of Salt\u201d column, which is published weekly in the Press-Telegram and Grunion.<\/p>\n
While editor of the Grunion, he served on various community boards and supported nonprofits, including starting a Christmas gift card drive for the clients at WomenShelter, a domestic violence rescue organization in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
In his spare time, he also wrote another book, \u201cPassionately Positive: The Beverly O\u2019Neill Story,\u201d about the former 12-year mayor of Long Beach. Another book, \u201c20 Years of Salt in a 10-Pound Bag,\u201d is a compilation of some of his best columns.<\/p>\n
Saltzgaver\u2019s latest book, meanwhile, chronicles his growing faith and recovery, along with his views on the state of journalism and the newspaper industry today. Despite difficult times, he praises dedicated journalists who are \u201ccontinuing to fight the good fight, acting as watchdogs, truth tellers and information sources.\u00a0 It\u2019s a real fight right now, with real consequences. I\u2019m on their side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saltzgaver writes with passion and honesty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m also committed to helping other alcoholics and addicts find the peace of sobriety in God\u2019s house,\u201d he wrote. \u201cCorny? Maybe. But I believe it can be. I know I am a sinner, saved only through the grace of God. Thank you, God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saltzgaver\u2019s book is a page turner.<\/p>\n
If you go<\/p>\n
What: Book signing for \u201cNo Walk in the Park: Newspapers, Booze and God\u201d by Harry Saltzgaver.<\/p>\n
When: 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 11.<\/p>\n
Where: Rancho Los Alamitos, 6400 E. Bixby Hill Road.<\/p>\n
Information: saltymanpress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Saltzgaver has written many stories in his distinguished newspaper career \u2014 but he has just written his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,23,131,133,132,137,741],"class_list":{"0":"post-124144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-long-beach","11":"tag-long-beach-headlines","12":"tag-long-beach-news","13":"tag-los-angeles-county","14":"tag-rich-archbold-columns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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