Science writer is quite the specimen himself: He's 94

SAN FRANCISCO ? David Perlman had two deadlines on his mind as he elbowed his way through the Exploratorium, cane in one hand, notebook in the other.

As the San Francisco Chronicle's veteran science writer, Perlman has been covering the granddaddy of hands-on science museums since it was just a glimmer of an idea in the fertile mind of physicist Frank Oppenheimer, the "uncle of the atom bomb."

Now, after 43 years in the elegant but drafty Palace of Fine Arts, the museum was getting ready to close before moving to new digs on the Embarcadero, and it was Perlman's job to chronicle the last day in its original home.

So the first deadline was his own ? 6 p.m. to make the next day's paper with a front-page story. The second belonged to the woman tagging along behind him.

She's "doing a story about the oldest living reporter ? me," Perlman told the amused museum staff. "She has to be done before I die."

Science and journalism have come a long way since Perlman picked up a fountain pen and began to write.

He was born in 1918, a decade before the discovery of penicillin. Pluto had yet to be discovered, let alone demoted. The ballpoint pen was invented the year he got his first real newspaper gig, a 1938 summer job covering cops in upstate New York.

Perlman can't remember the name of the now-defunct publication, but he sure can recall his first story, a jailhouse interview with a prostitute that began something like this: Pretty Kitty Kelly sobbed in her cell at Schenectady County Jail last night.

"It was atrocious, but it was the kind of thing you did," said Perlman, who learned his craft in the glory days of the New York tabloids. "That kind of journalism no longer exists."

Some might quibble with Perlman's premise (think coverage of Lindsay Lohan, Casey Anthony, Kim Kardashian), but one thing cannot be denied: It is the rare journalist who has cranked out stories as long and as skillfully as the dapper dean of science writers.

Perlman turned 94 in December, closing out a year in which he wrote 111 stories. Although only 0.2% of America's full-time workers are 80 or older, he has no plans to slow down.

He has shrunk a bit in recent years, but the cane is more for his three children's peace of mind than his own safety or mobility. He's about to turn in his outdated flip phone for a newer, smarter model. A Twitter lesson is in the offing. His driver's license is up to date.

After all, he said over a burger at a South of Market dive near Chronicle headquarters, "I'm doing exactly what I wanted to do all my life, be a reporter."

Perlman credits his mother for a journalism career that has spanned nearly eight decades and included stints at the Bismarck Capital and the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune and 63 years at the Chronicle.

Sara Perlman took her son to see "The Front Page" ? probably the Broadway version, which premiered in 1928, but possibly the 1931 movie. Perlman the nonagenarian can't remember which; Perlman the boy was smitten either way.

The motley crew of Chicago reporters portrayed in the comedy were waiting to view a public hanging. Perlman remembers them as "seedy, catatonic Paul Reveres, full of strange oaths and a touch of childhood. I thought, 'What a romantic characterization.' I wanted to be that."

Shortly thereafter, he started his first newspaper. At summer camp.

He now bears the title of "Chronicle science editor." Prizes for science and medical writing named in his honor are awarded each year. But writing about the physical world did not come naturally to the Columbia University graduate.

After six years covering everything from a shoe store opening to the obscenity trial over Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," Perlman broke his leg skiing at Squaw Valley in 1957, an injury that laid him up for months. A good friend gave him a copy of "The Nature of the Universe" by British cosmologist Fred Hoyle.

A detective story would have been more welcome, Perlman recalled thinking, but by the time he had finished the pioneering science tome and was back on his feet, he was itching to find out what astronomers did all night. So he headed up to Mt. Hamilton just east of San Jose, home to the University of California's Lick Observatory and workplace of astronomer George Herbig.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/vYNbLB5rdvI/la-me-perlman-20130222,0,4155099.story

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