Still on the job

 Who said work can't be fun?

At times during my four-decade career at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I had an outright ball – especially when I got to write on top of my various other duties.

That's me, Panther Prowl co-editor, Riverside High School, 1970. My real start? Maybe.

For sure, there were plenty of times for me that fun and happiness seemed distant, unreachable. A couple of sports editors, for example, come to mind – they seemed to live to derive fun from unloading unreasonable expectations.

But the days to a much-anticipated big event are drawing closer.

I'm looking forward to a gathering this month of fellow souls at the next Post-Gazette Sports Alumni every-other-month dinner. I've seen a list of those who plan to attend, and to be honest, I'm anxious to see every one of them. Good people.

During my time in the sports department, say from about 1976 to 1993, I was not a columnist, per se, nor was I one of the paper's all-star reporters. I put in my time, did what I had to do, then returned to repeat the same the next day.

Actually, I recently admitted to a former colleague that back in that day, I was more focused on the pursuit of young ladies and finding my next beer.

Oh, in the office, I enjoyed or suffered through many duties, from compiling statistics, to recording Dial-a-Score, to writing an occasional headline. And there were the four Talk of the Town columns a week and unending filler items for the PG suburban editions.

Oddly, they're all fond or humorous memories nowadays.

And those memories elicited others, most notably ones from my days as a news editor that came after working in the sports department. Why just the other day, I inexplicably broke into grins when I thought about some of my favorite “ledes” that I've written. Ledes are those top paragraphs of a story that grab a reader's attention, inspiring them to read deeper into the article.

I've assembled a few of my ledes in hopes they make you chuckle; perhaps a young writer or two will gain inspiration.

I'll start with my favorite. Here we go!

I broke the story about an asteroid being named for broadcaster Myron Cope (June 13, 2008):

Next -- The pursuit of the Moon by amateur astronomer Eric Fischer (July 20, 2009):

Then --  A close shave for Mother Earth (Feb. 10, 2013):

Finally -- The sky is falling (Aug. 6, 2008):

It's difficult to believe this sort of fun ended with my retirement in 2014. Yet it was a big part of my life, and to be honest, I still dream about it even now – in fact, as many as three or four nights a week.

And they're good dreams.

The newly hired Pete in 1976 with reporter John Golightly.