A big man in every sense of the word

I was hired at the Los Angeles Times as an apprentice pressman in the 1970s. The work I was doing when I started was dirty.

Sometimes when I got home I needed my wife to scrub my back before I could go to bed because I would be covered in black ink. I would shower at work but I couldn’t reach all the bad spots.

I wasn’t a very good reader when I started working for the paper. I would read the comics and Sports and maybe look at the classifieds and the rest of the paper. I began to substitute the front page for the comics and the editorial page for Sports, and my reading and thought process began to improve. Throw in Calendar and I was becoming an art and film critic. The Times improved my reading and writing dramatically.

My first son was born in 1977, and I was a father with a purpose. I had direction: to take care of my wife and son.

I worked hard to learn the newspaper business, and it was paying off. I made journeyman printer in two years instead of the usual four. I transferred to The Times’ Orange County plant in Costa Mesa because I liked the beach and wanted to surf more.

But one thing stuck with me from working in downtown L.A. Late on Christmas Eve 1977, I was stripping old plates from the presses. My hands and clothes were full of black ink, and I looked up to see this large man in an impeccable suit advancing on me. I stopped what I was doing as he came up to me.

He extended his hand, and I reached out and grasped his with my ink-soiled fingers, and he said, “Merry Christmas.” That man was Los Angeles Times Publisher Otis Chandler. He had the panache to be out on Christmas Eve shaking hands with the printers and grunts and saying, “Thank you.”

I still appreciate what he did for me. Otis Chandler gave me a job. He thanked me for it. And he taught me to read.

TIMOTHY SMITH

Banning