Herb Caen

Herbert Eugene "Herb" Caen (April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, painful puns and offbeat anecdotes—"a continuous love letter to San Francisco"—appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle for almost sixty years (excepting a relatively brief defection to the San Francisco Examiner) and made him a household name throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

"The secret of Caen's success", wrote the editor of rival publication, was

A special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco."

Career

Caen was born April 3, 1916, in Sacramento, California, although he liked to point out that his parents—​​pool hall operator Lucien Caen and Augusta (Gross) Caen—​​had spent the summer nine months previous at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. After high school (where he wrote a column, "Corridor Gossip") he covered sports for The Sacramento Union.

Caen

Caen (/kɑːn/; French pronunciation: ​[kɑ̃]; Norman: Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department. The city proper has 108,365 inhabitants (as of 2012), while its urban area has 420,000, making Caen the largest city in former Lower Normandy. It is also the second largest municipality in all of Normandy after Le Havre and the third largest city proper in Normandy, after Rouen and Le Havre. The metropolitan area of Caen, in turn, is the second largest in Normandy after that of Rouen, the 21st largest in France.

It is located 15 km (9.3 mi) inland from the English Channel, two hours north-west of Paris, and connected to the south of England by the Caen-(Ouistreham)-Portsmouth ferry route. Caen is located in the centre of its northern region, and it is a centre of political, economic and cultural power. Located a few miles from the coast, the landing beaches, the bustling resort of Deauville and Cabourg, Norman Switzerland or Pays d'Auge, Caen is often considered the archetype of Normandy.