A Christmas Story
by Al Martinez
It happened one Christmas Eve a long time ago in a place called 
Oakland on a newspaper called the Tribune with a city editor named Alfred P. Beck. I was working swing shift on assignment, writing the story of a boy who was dying of leukemia and whose greatest wish was for fresh peaches.
It was a story which, in the tradition of 1950’s journalism, would be milked for every sob we could squeeze from it, because everyone loved a good cry on Christmas. We knew how to play a tearjerker in those days, and I was full of the kinds of passion that could make a sailor weep.
I remember it was about 11 o”clock at night and poring rain outside when I began putting the peice together for the next day’s editions. Deadline was an hour away, but an hour is a lifetimes when you’re young and fast and never get tired.
Then the telephone rang. It was Al Beck calling, as he always did at night, and he’d had a few under his belt. Beck was a drinking man. With diabetes and apilepsy, hard liquor was about the last thing he ought to be messing with, but you didn’t tell Al what he ought to or ought not to do. He was essentially a gentle man who rarely raised his voice, but you knew he was the city editor, and in those days the city editor was the law and the word in the newsroom.
But there was more than fear and tradition at work for Al. We respected him immensely, not only for his abilities as a newsman, but also for his humanity. Al was sensitive both to our needs and the needs of those whose names and faces appeared in the pages of the Oakland Tribune.
“What’s up?” he asked me that Christmas Eve in a voice as soft and slurred as a summer breeze. He already knew what was up, during 25 years on the city desk, Beck somehow always knew what was up, but he wanted to hear it from the man handling the story.
I told him about the kid dying of leukemia and about the peaches and about there simply were no fresh peaches, but it still made a good piece. We had art and a hole waiting on page one. Al listened for a moment and then said, “How long’s he got?”
“Not long,” I said. “His doctor says maybe a day or two.”
There was a long silence and then Al said, “Get the kid his peaches.”
“I’ve called all over,” I said. “None of the produce places in the Bay Area have fresh peaches. They’re just plain out of season. It’s winter.”
“Not everywhere. Call Australia.”
“Al,” I began, “it’s after 11 and I have no idea…”
“Call Australia,” he said, and then hung up. If Al said call Australia, I would call Australia. I don’t quite remember whom I telephoned, newspapers maybe and agricultural associations, but I ended up finding fresh peaches and an airline that would fly them to the Bay Area before the end of Christmas Day.
There was only one problem. Customs wouldn’t clear them. They were an agricultural produce and would be4 hung up at San Francisco International at least for a day, and possibly forever. Beck called again. He listened to the problem and told me to call the secretary of agriculture and have him clear the peaches when they arrived.
“It’s close to midnight,’ I argued. “His office is closed.”
“Take this number down,” Beck said. “It’s his home. Tell him I told you to call.”
It was axiomatic among the admirers of Al Beck that he knew everyone and everyone knew him, from cops on the street to government leaders in their Georgetown estates. No one knew how Al knew them or why, but he did.
I made the call. The secretary said he’s have the peaches cleared when they arrived and give Al Beck his best.
“all right,” Beck said on his thrid and final call to me, “now arrange for one of the photgraphers to meet the plane and take the peaches over to the boy’s house.” He had been drinking steadily throghout the evening and the slurring had become almost impossible to understand. By then it was a few minutes past midnight, and juast a heartbeat and a half to the final deadline.
“Al,” I said, “if I don’t start writing this now I’ll never get the story in the paper.”
I won’t forget that moment. “I didn’t say get the story,” Beck replied gently, “I said get the kid his peaches.”
If there was a flashpoint in our lives to which we can refer later, moments that shape our attitudes and affect our futures, that was mine. Alfred Pierce Beck had defined for me the importance of what we do, lifting it beyond newsprint and deadlines to a level of humanity that transcends job. He understood not only what we did but also what we were supposed to do.
I didn’t say get the story. I said get the kid his peaches.
The boy got hos peaches and the story made the home edition, and I received a lesson in journalism more important than any I’ve learned since.
I wanted you to know that this Christmas season.
Al Martinez is a former reporter and columnist for the Oakland Tribune, from 1955 to 1971, the Richmond (Calif.) Independent and Los Angela Times to now. This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 25, 1986.