Happy 90th : Former Sports Editor Zimmerman Celebrates

Paul Zimmerman was dozing in an easy chair, all decked out in a pale orange sweater, as a visitor popped in on him in his room Tuesday at Freedom Village in Lake Forest.

He had a TV remote clicker next to him and a screen a few feet away. His feet were propped up on a stool, and he looked to be comfortable. But the screen was blank, the room was silent and there wasn’t much action anywhere.

No books, magazines or newspapers in sight for a man who spent his life in type.

He smiled a hello. Then he frowned. “It’s my legs. My damn legs. They don’t work anymore,” he said.

The old sports editor is very old now. His memory has lapses. He needs a walker. It’s difficult for him to speak. He doesn’t even watch many of the old games on television. He seems to have other things on his mind.

But Paul Zimmerman, on his 90th birthday Tuesday, was still Paul Zimmerman in so many ways.

His memory is better than he admits. And his old Nebraska distance runner’s legs probably are, too. He knew it was a special day.

“Damn, this is ridiculous,” he said in recognition of turning 90. “This is impossible.”

Zimmerman, sports editor of The Times from 1939-68, was beginning to enjoy himself. It was an hour before Charlotte, his wife of 63 years, was to arrive with daughter Shar and granddaughter Anne to take him to a birthday lunch.

That’s as bright as the lights get these days, and that’s bright enough.

It wasn’t always that way. He saw Roy Riegels run the wrong way in the first Rose Bowl he covered in 1929. He did eight Olympiads. He helped bring the Rams and Dodgers West. He spearheaded the building of the Sports Arena in 1959.

“Long, long time ago, “ he said. “Nobody cares.”

Maybe so, but Los Angeles sports never had a better friend nor many of us better memories.