It was a "family" reunion. They came from all across the country. They were a generous sampling of creative souls who passed through my life and The Raleigh Times newsroom before that feisty publication quietly folded its tent 17 years ago this fall.

Actually, it was better than a family reunion. It had none of the still simmering sibling hurts and rivalries. It was pure, spontaneous delight. The hugs were harder. The laughter more lingering, as for hours we swapped memories of those sweet bird-of-youth days on the newspaper.

The perfect setting for such an occasion was the just-opened Raleigh Times bar and restaurant at 14 E. Martin St., the restored site of the first, 1920s Raleigh Times. Owner Greg Hatem has accomplished a fascinating decor of Times' scenes, personalities and mementos from past newsrooms, including a 100-year-old beer bottle, unearthed during excavation, a fitting icon of a profession that, according to legend, stocked a bottle of good whiskey in many a newsman's desk drawer.

As the "elder statesman" who spent 32 years at the Times, 16 as editor, I tried hard not to squint noticeably at the press pass name tags strung around people's necks. Father Time has a bad way of making over faces not seen in decades into unrecognizable suggestions of what used to be.

Never have I experienced such esprit de corps as I did on the Times, the "little paper" that delighted in scooping its competition, big brother N&O across the hall. To do so, we worked hard. Very hard. But, in a sense, we "whistled while we worked." We were a small, dedicated crew of happy warriors doing the work we loved.

The reunion was primarily about the personalities who wrote and edited the newspaper that endeared itself to its community until 1989, when the bell that was tolling the deaths of afternoon newspapers across the country finally tolled for the Raleigh Times, one of the last to go. But on our recent Friday night together, 85 or so of us enjoyed the Times reincarnated, a phoenix rising from the ashes of our memories.

Our one-time copy boy, Alton Lee "Jitterbug" Thorpe, remembered the reporter who imbibed too well and fell down the steps at Balentines restaurant during a Times Christmas party. Next day at work he asked, "J.B., was I in a wreck or something last night?"

There were memories of those who, for various reasons, including answering "the roll call up yonder," were not present for the event.

These included Bette Elliot, the eclectic, effervescent "Woman's Editor," whose daring, off-the-wall columns were the talk of the town and the cause of the editor's migraines. Once, just before Christmas, Bette put on a Salvation Army uniform and, shaking a tambourine, worked a local liquor store, blackmailing highly respected Raleighites, especially Baptist church leaders, to drop more than a widow's mite in her kettle -- or else find their names in the next day's column.

On another occasion, Bette bitterly blamed the typesetter for the typo in "Best Ever" apple pie recipe she ran in her recipe column. For days afterward, the switchboard buzzed with calls from angry subscribers complaining that the pie was "way, way too watery." Several said they had never before heard of an apple pie recipe calling for three cups of water.

Also missing was a certain Lawrence Maddrey, the bane of my existence as city editor. A lovable character, he was unfailingly late for work, right up to his last day before moving on to a colorful career as a columnist for the Norfolk newspapers.

"Larry, couldn't you at least be on time on your last day?" I asked peevishly as, buttoning his shirt and combing his unruly hair with his fingers, he scooted to his desk. At that moment, the newsroom doors swung open and a waiter from the then prestigious Sir Walter Hotel rolled in a serving cart, laden with silver-plate, and served Larry a full breakfast at his desk. The newsroom erupted in laughter and applause at my expense.

News people are not unfeeling. I've seen reporters weep as they interviewed relatives of loved ones caught up in tragedy. On a balmy day in May 1972, right at our noon deadline, a berserk sniper killed three people and wounded eight others at Raleigh's North Hills Mall. As we frantically monitored the office police scanner for details, other newsroom personnel tried to comfort and shush reporter Nell Styron, an "Old Raleigh" native whose loud weeping was drowning out the source of our information.

Looking for Marsha

Several former Times men wondered in advance if Marsha would be there. Marsha, a strikingly statuesque young woman, introduced the miniskirt to Raleigh. According to one reminiscing staffer, the skirt was "one foot long and she had legs about nine feet long."

When Marsha strolled around the corner to the Professional Pharmacy for lunch, the posted lookout across the street at Southern Bell Telephone would alert the males throughout the building. As she headed back to the newsroom, a sizable gathering of gawking men would applaud and whistle their approval from a distance. When Marsha failed to show at the reunion, former reporter turned lawyer Chuck Mooney sighed, "It's just as well. I'd rather remember her as she was."

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times, showed at the reunion. The ever youthful looking "boy wonder" and "the kid," as we sometimes dubbed him, cut his writing teeth on the Times. At the reunion, he confessed he still has his Raleigh Times byline clips as souvenirs from his sentimental journey with us.

A newspaper editor's job is not always a rose garden. One night, I received a call at home from a raging subscriber whose mother had been quoted in that day's edition. After listening to his rantings, richly laced with profanity, I finally said, "Tell me, sir, did the reporter misquote her or not?"

"I don't know if he did or didn't," he yelled. "He had no business quoting her at all. The poor woman doesn't know whether to wind her watch or spit! Anyway, I'm coming out there and beat your [butt] before supper." When I told him he'd have to step on it because we were just sitting down to dessert, there was a long silence, then a soft chuckle.

"Well," he said, "I'm still mad. But I do have to say that I've lived all over the country and this is the only place where you could look up the newspaper editor's number in the telephone directory and call him up and give him hell about something."

As with Scheherazade, this tale-telling could go on for a thousand and one columns. As we dispersed into the night, each to go our separate ways, with some few perhaps to meet again on other days, I wondered how many felt as I did: that our time at the Times was, indeed, among the best of times. A special time on a very special newspaper.

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