An old saying suggests you can get to know people, at least a little bit, by the company they keep.

Which brings to mind a sunny February Wednesday in 1995, dedication day for the Cardinal Manning House of Prayer for Priests. There were a good number of guests present for the occasion as well as, of course, plenty of priests. And, of course, Al Antczak.

By this time, Al was more than five years retired as editor of The Tidings, but there was no way this celebration could take place without this man whose career at The Tidings had closely paralleled the man for whom this new House of Prayer for Priests had been named. Al had joined The Tidings in 1947, a year after Timothy Manning had been named an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Al had been named editor in 1973, the same year Archbishop Timothy Manning had been created a cardinal of the church. Al had retired in 1989, a few months after Cardinal Manning's death that June.

So yes, here was Al, with his ever-present camera, his ever-gracious smile and his ever-friendly, soft-spoken hello. Having met him on all too few occasions before and after my hiring at The Tidings, we chatted a moment or two while waiting for the ceremony to begin; it was good to see him, I thought, and good to see him in his element, as it were, recording this important event in local church history.

But my pleasure at seeing Al was nothing compared to the delight of the priests who spotted him and eagerly scurried over to hail the good fellow who, for four decades-plus, had written and photographed and chronicled so much about them (from their seminary days, in some cases), and the people and parishes they had served. The older priests seemed especially pleased to have their old friend among them once more --- "Good to see you, Al!" "How've you been, Al?" "You're taking pictures, Al? Fantastic!" "We miss you, Al."

And clearly, Al enjoyed being among the priests as well. He hadn't been the first lay editor of the paper, nor the longest-serving (his predecessor, Msgr. Patrick Roche, served six weeks longer), but it's hard to imagine anyone who so obviously was held in such esteem by those who --- if it may be said frankly --- comprise The Tidings' most challenging readership. It is impossible for any newspaper to please all of its readers all of the time (it is much more possible, in fact, to do the opposite), but it is always possible to treat its readers with respect.

In that regard, Al Antczak set the highest of standards. His style, in person and print, was simple and direct, humble and graceful, done with love and enthusiasm for the church and craft he served so well for so long.

That was evident even in his retirement years, when I would see Al at an event, and he would smile and say, "Hey, Mike, sit down; let's talk shop." He would then share, with much warmth, stories about the stories he had worked on, the parishes he'd visited (and, often, when he had visited them), the people he had met (and, if they were priests, their progression from one parish assignment to the next).

Such moments were all too rare for me, but they nonetheless gave me a deeper appreciation for the tall, lanky fellow who guided this newspaper during the most tumultuous growth in the history of the local Church --- from the end of World War II (in which he had served) to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

He appreciated and loved Church history, but refused to be held prisoner by it. This was a man, after all, who used a manual typewriter well after computers had found their way into most newsrooms, who would proudly hold up a stub of an editing pencil and declare, "This is my computer." And yet this was also a man who considered the documents of Vatican II among his most necessary deskside references.

His last contribution to The Tidings was, fittingly, an appreciation of Chuck Johnson, his longtime Loyola U. chum and Tidings colleague who passed on last year. In the best Antczakian tradition, Al kept it short, tight and warm.

"Over the years," Al wrote, "Chuck was a man of steady piety and integrity. He epitomized the Catholic journalist."

As did the man who wrote those words --- who now, we can rest assured, keeps the best of company.