I came to Culver City 17 years ago this spring at the request of my longtime friend Mitch Chortkoff.

It has been a few seasons, but Mitch came to national attention as the Hall of Fame Lakers beat reporter for the late Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and elsewhere.

Mitch is the kind of loyal friend men used to be. Today loyalty feels like an anachronism.

Mitch was directly responsible for at least three jobs I landed in my dinosaur-length journalism career after we spent nine years together at the Herald-Examiner with the late sports editor Bud Furillo.

None of the three of us thought we ever would leave Mr. Furillo’s Toy Dept., or at least a sports department somewhere.

After leaving the Herald, I went to the Santa Barbara News-Press. By the time I reached Philadelphia a few months later, Mary MacGregor was smashing records with “Torn Between Two Lovers.” (Shh, it is playing now on YouTube as I compose this.) Listening to the haunting Ms. MacGregor 10,480 times without obsessing over the song, I was wearying of covering sports.

After Mitch turned down the sports editor’s desk four years later at the Evening Outlook, he recommended you-know-who.

Finally, five years even later, I escaped into the Jewish community for 15 seasons. Just before my longest running gig abruptly ended with another folded newspaper, Mitch dialed my number one more time.

Could I cover City Council meetings? I fell in love. No exaggeration.

Two months after I arrived, I met Diane through an old rabbi friend. We married one year later. Thirteen years on, I wrote her obituary.

My most poignant memory came in the late summer of 2002. I was hanging around the edges. Mitch was the editor of the Culver City News.

In August, he went on vacation. Due back on the final August Monday, the phone rang an hour before he was to stroll through the door.

With typical calmness, Mitch said he was in the hospital. They amputated a leg yesterday. Could I fill in as editor?

Eventually Mitch returned, and today he remains proudly at the helm of the Culver City Observer, my friend and benefactor.