Regardless what's happened since, I still have a real sense of affection for the ol' "A&P"! I consider it a feather in my cap.
When I first hired on there, within a couple of weeks, the LA Times did a long feature story on the AP, that started on the left-hand column of the front page and went on all the way to the back pages. Everybody at the bureau was really buzzing about it, with great excitement, calling New York, calling Washington, calling their friends, calling their moms! The story opened with an anecdote about Mahatma Gandhi, back in the day, who had traveled across India by train to an obscure little outpost - late at night, in the rain. Waiting at the minimal train station to interview him was an AP correspondent. Gandhi was seriously impressed. Saw this as proof-positive that the AP really was EVERYWHERE. He commented that when he died, and arrived at whatever awaited him Upstairs, he fully expected to find an AP correspondent there, too, waiting to interview him.
That and the Mark Twain motto that's a proud AP legacy, as well: "There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe... the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here."
Does kinda make one proud!
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