I just passed a notable anniversary. It’s been 40 years since I started writing this column. I had been doing scut work at local radio and television stations, waiting for the big break that looked like it was never going to come, when the Oakland Tribune hired me to be its gossip columnist.

Only one hitch: I hated gossip. It’s so negative, and it’s all about celebrities; and the only thing they’re usually famous for is being famous.

At the same time, I was meeting lots of ordinary people who were much more interesting. So I started writing about them, instead.

After a few months my bosses realized what I was up to and called me on the carpet. “This is not what we hired you for,” they said. “Unfortunately, you’ve been getting fan mail, so we can’t fire you.” And they let me do my thing.

But it didn’t take long for it to go to my head, and I began acting like a total diva. My sister tried to warn me: “Martin, you’re enjoying this for the wrong reason. You should be loving the work, not the celebrity.” But I didn’t listen.

I see now that my career has been straight out of a Hollywood movie — specifically, “The Winning Team,” starring Ronald Reagan as baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander.

All Hollywood sports flicks have the same plot: Guy comes from out of nowhere, becomes a star, turns into a real jerk, loses everything due to a fatal flaw. But his suffering teaches him the error of his ways, then fate rewards him by giving him his life back.

In Alexander’s case, the fatal law was alcoholism. In mine, it was arrogance.

One day I wrote a column that took a casual swipe at the editor of another newspaper. A year later the Tribune was sold, and guess who the new owner installed as executive editor? Yep, the guy I had insulted.

His first act was to fire me, of course. But I told myself I was The Great Martin Snapp and waited for all the job offers to start rolling in.

Silence. Not a peep. So I called the Chronicle and said, “This is Martin Snapp.”

“Who?” they said.

So began 10 years of wandering in the wilderness, paying the bills by doing public relations for the San Francisco SPCA and substitute teaching in the West Contra Costa County School district. Thanks to a kind editor named Chris Treadway I was able to keep keep my hand in the newspaper game, however slightly, by writing a weekly column for the Hills Newspapers — Berkeley Voice, Alameda Journal, Piedmonter, Montclarion and the Albany/El Cerrito Journal.

That left me with a lot of time to think. What had been a disaster for my career turned out to be good for my soul. I finally realized what a louse I had become.

Martin Snapp holding his sixth cat, Betty Ford. 

And after a decade I finally got a second chance. The Contra Costa Times bought the Hills papers, and they sent an editor named Deborah Byrd to Richmond to run the West County Times and the Hills papers. She started reading my columns and decided, “I’m going to resurrect this guy’s career!” So she did, and here I am.

Despite the travails that have hit traditional journalism lately, I’m so grateful to be back. I have met such wonderful people, like Father Jayson Landeza, a wonderful blend of the Aloha spirit and the Sermon on the Mount, who is always the first person to show up when your mother is sick or your kid is in trouble or when there’s a terrible disaster like the Ghost Ship warehouse fire.

And Joseph Charles, the most beloved man in Berkeley, who stood in front of his house on Martin Luther King Way every weekday morning for 30 years, rain or shine, and put a smile on passing drivers’ faces by waving to them and calling, “Keep smiling!” and “Have a nice day!”

And George Vukasin Sr., the Oakland coffee maker who showed farmers in Colombia how they could make more money by switching from growing cocoa plants (the main ingredient in cocaine) to coffee plants. His reward? The Manuel Mejia Award, the Colombian government’s highest honor, plus a price on his head set by the drug cartels.

See what I mean about ordinary people being more interesting?

I’ve had so much fun telling you these stories. Thank you for reading them.

Martin Snapp can be reached at [email protected].