After 52 Years, Herb Caen Is Folding His Sunday Column

After most of 52 years, Herb Caen announced that this weekend’s effort was his last Sunday column, the weekly nostalgic fixture about his favorite city.

“I never did get a handle on the Sunday column,” he wrote with a touch of cynicism, noting that he is taking advantage of his contract with the San Francisco Chronicle to cut back to five columns a week.

“Talking about how great old San Francisco was exposed me as the crank and grump I was becoming . . . the Baghdad-by-the-Bay stuff . . . wore thin as the city changed,” he said, concluding: “So, farewell, faithful Sunday readers . . . there’s a plan afoot to run old Caen columns in this space, and I’ll read them with great interest, wondering how I got away with it.”