He helped talk a suicidal man down from a high-rise ledge — then interviewed him safely on ground. He dodged blows aimed at a KKK leader — then calmly wrote a news story.
As a Marine in the early 1960s, he used his Spanish skills to communicate with defecting military officers from Cuba.
Retired newsman Frank “Sal” Saldana of the San Diego Tribune, the feisty afternoon sibling of the morning San Diego Union, was mourned this week as a journalist who befriended novices while becoming one of the best.
Saldana was the most interesting man in the world “long before it became a thing,” said former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña, one of his four daughters, who reported his May 8 death on Facebook.
“What was most comforting about him was his sense of what the Japanese call seijaku — calmness amid frenetic activity,” said former colleague Wayne Carlson. “The eye of the storm. Serenity and wisdom amid the flurry of everyday life.”
Another co-worker, James Grimaldi, recalls Saldana as a larger-than-life San Diego personality — “a sunny optimist in a cynical profession, a generous colleague and a kind soul.”
Saldana (who didn’t use the Spanish tilde) died of complications from congestive heart failure, Lori said. He was 87, surrounded by friends and family the last few days in hospice care.
He arranged to donate his remains to UCSD Medical School, Lori said, “supporting education to the end.”
Services were tentatively planned for Sunday, June 28, at the downtown Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Details are pending.
Steve Schafer, president of the San Diego Law Enforcement Emerald Society, says his group of more than a dozen local, state and federal agencies has renamed its scholarship fund in honor of Saldana.
Donations can be sent to:
Attn: SDLEES/Frank Saldana Scholarship Fund
PO Box 601776
San Diego, CA
92160-1776
Fellow general-assignment reporter Preston Turegano said Saldana, a mentor, had the reputation for showing up at a crime scene before the cops arrived.
“Newsmakers who were trying to avoid the media, or were not forthcoming about something as simple as their residence address, were no match for Frank,” Turegano said, who also recalled him as an affable former Leatherneck, but “not the least bit gung-ho macho.”
Even after his retirement in 1992, when the Tribune and Union merged, he was a frequent presence at San Diego Press Club events and Tribune reunions.
“Any party or field trip was much more enjoyable with Frank along,” said former U-T business writer Emmet Pierce. “He was humorous, good natured, and just plain fun to be around. … He clearly enjoyed life, and anywhere he was seemed like the right place to be.”
Lori Saldaña, who returned to teaching after her Sacramento tenure, was the only daughter living in San Diego in recent years, so “I was blessed to have him all to myself, to be able hear his stories of his 20 years in the Marine Corps as we went out to eat, or drove to a granddaughter’s wedding in Sedona, or just sat in his room and reflected on his life.”
She posted to Facebook: “Love you, dad. You were a Peaceful Warrior — the most honorable and rare kind.”
Born Efrain “Frank” Saldana in Los Angeles on Oct. 1, 1927, to Panamanian Angelo Saldana and Mexican immigrant Aurelia Saldana-Garcia, he grew up with large extended families nearby, including at least a dozen cousins, Lori told Times of San Diego.
“He learned body surfing and a love of the ocean early in life — and a love of fast cars that he worked on himself, including various stints at garages to help support his car interests,” she said.
After high school ROTC, he joined the Marines at 17, needing special permission from his parents. He fell in love with San Diego after training at MCRD.
Lori says he went to Greece as part of the post-World War II Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe and was appointed to security details for various officers, including an emergency trans-Atlantic sea transport when an admiral had a stroke.
Saldana did a combat tour in Korea, assigned with “I” Corps (1st Marines, 1st Marine Division). He met Lori’s mother, Virginia Ericsrud, while working part time at an L.A. garage.
They married in 1953, and were separated later in life but never divorced (she died Dec. 31, 2009). He adopted Virginia’s daughter Linda; Lisa arrived in 1957. Lori was born in 1958 in San Diego, and daughter Leslee arrived in Minneapolis in 1961.
In spring 1961, he was “rapidly deployed” (with family) from Minnesota to Virginia Beach in a matter of days to help brass communicate with Cuban defectors before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.
“Native Spanish-speaking Marines were in short supply,” Lori said.
He declined a tour in Vietnam in 1964 as an “adviser,” having seen enough combat in Korea 10 years earlier, including the death of a close friend now buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.
He retired that year as a staff sergeant after 20 years’ service.
Having studied journalism in school and wanting to return to his family’s roots, he applied to newspapers all over Southern California, traveling solo to interview and “sending back clippings to family to prepare and acquaint us with our future lives,” Lori said.
“I still remember opening the packages he sent, and trying to decipher these newspapers with their exotic locales and place names.”
The Evening Tribune hired him in 1965, which Lori thinks made him the paper’s first Spanish-speaking, Mexican-American reporter.
There he made sure all four daughters graduated from college or university, including advanced degrees — “something he and mom had not been able to do.”
On the Thursday after Lori’s March 2004 primary election, she and her father flew to Sacramento to attend the luncheon arranged by the Speaker’s Office of Member Services for the Democratic Assembly nominees.
Since her victory had been an upset — considered unlikely to prevail in November — she says she was ignored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez.
“But when it became clear I would win (the 76th District race) by 10 percentage points … the Speaker’s staff called to arrange for me to attend the Thursday luncheon,” she said.
“My father had watched me losing weight from the long hours of precinct walking and stress of borrowing money from personal savings, and working harder than at any time in my life during that time,” while also caring for her mother and grandmother.
“Dad had been my greatest supporter during that time. So when I was told I could invite anyone to attend the Sacramento luncheon with me I chose him, even though he was struggling with a chronic back condition that made travel painful. The condition had worsened in recent years, and he relied on walking with a cane for support.”
“Moreover, I didn’t realize how disappointed he was with the Speaker for snubbing my candidacy. It soon became obvious, once we got to the Capitol.”
After taking some phone calls, the speaker joined them in plush leather chairs and attempted to ingratiate himself with Saldana.
“Dad remained seated, holding the top of his cane in both hands, looking impassively at the speaker as he walked toward him,” she recalls.
“Mr. Saldaña, sir — it’s a pleasure to meet you, the Speaker said, extending his hand.
“Then he made a mistake: he said: ‘You must be very proud of your daughter!’
“My father paused a moment, still grasping his cane in both hands. I could tell he was choosing his words carefully.
“He looked Fabian Nuñez in the eye and said: ‘I have four daughters, Mr. Speaker, and I’m proud of all of them.’
“The speaker smiled awkwardly, his hand still reaching towards my father.
“Only then — after making it clear that winning a contested primary for an Assembly seat had nothing to do with a father’s pride in his daughters — did my father extend his hand, and allow it to be shaken by the speaker of the California Assembly.
“I was relieved. I was worried he was going to hit Fabian with his cane.”
After not being given a committee chair assignment, Lori says she told the speaker at a caucus meeting: “I’m the daughter of a career Marine. Give me something to do, or I’ll find something to do myself and you may not like it.”
A few hours later, Nuñez announced she was assistant majority whip, serving alongside Majority Whip Karen Bass of Los Angeles.
“A few years later she would go on to make history, by replacing Speaker Nuñez, and becoming the first African-American woman speaker in a state legislature in the United States.
Lori would became her speaker pro tempore.
When reporter colleagues speak of “Sal,” they keep returning to his professionalism and friendship.
Reporter (and later entertainment editor) Carlson recalls his early days at the paper’s old downtown offices, when “everything about Frank was welcoming — his smile, his voice, his demeanor and his attitude.”
Grimaldi, now a senior writer for The Wall Street Journal, was a fresh graduate of the University of Missouri when he came to the Tribune — and under Saldana’s wing.
“Frank was a walking, talking, real-life tutorial on how to cover breaking news,” Grimaldi said. “He took me to Barrio Logan and introduced me to Las Cuatro Milpas, which remains my favorite taqueria. He even set me up on a couple of blind dates.”
He called covering breaking news with Saldana “a blast.”
“Buckle your seat belts and enjoy the lesson,” he said via email. “Frank Saldana was the best breaking-news police reporter I’ve ever known. He was skilled at monitoring the police radio, a dying journalistic art. He knew San Diego’s streets better than anyone and usually beat the competition, and oftentimes the police, to breaking crime stories, a crucial skill for an afternoon newspaper with early deadlines.”
He said no one was better than Saldana working a crime scene.
“He scoured the tableau of a murder scene to find the news quickly,” said Grimaldi, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2006 for his work on the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
“The street cops recognized him by his unofficial uniform — a floral Hawaiian or Mexican Wedding Shirt. Cops trusted him implicitly. He extracted key details before detectives arrived. He scanned the crowd and picked out and interviewed eyewitnesses.”
He said Saldana dictated most stories, “a largely lost talent, especially in an era where every mobile phone is now a mini-computer.”
Pauline Repard, longtime U-T police reporter, called him “a journalistic legend” and a valued emeritus member of the San Diego Press Club Board of Directors.
“It was often a struggle for him to attend board meetings and events,” she said, “but he made it to most of them and was always interested in what was going on at the Union-Tribune. He will be terribly missed.”
Another Pulitzer Prize winner recalling Saldana was David Hasemyer, now with InsideClimate News.
“Frank was the first real person I met at the Trib,” Hasemyer said. “The Monday morning I started, the power was out.”
It was 5:30 a.m. when another editor blew him off.
“Great. I’m just 23, three months out of SDSU and pretty much scared out of my wits,” he said. “So I grabbed a desk. The silence was awful. Then the phone rang and [Jim] Nichols shouted: ‘Sal on one.’”
It was Saldana, who greeted the rookie with “HeyOldBuddyHowAreYa?”
Hasemyer figured he needed to take dictation, but at one point Saldana asked him what he’d done that weekend.
“Tennis, I told him,” which led to an immediate Saldana reply: “Great. We’re off at 1:30. See you at the Mesa College courts at 2.”
“That was it — a friend and mentor within a minute of hearing ‘Sal on one.’
Another tennis partner was reporter Greg Joseph:
“I could never, ever beat him at tennis during those infamous Friday night or Saturday morning Mesa College sessions, no matter how often I practiced or how gimpy Frank’s knees were.
“Once after he hit an especially wicked and quite frankly annoying passing shot, he remarked with that smile we all came to know: ‘I hit that same shot past Rod Laver at a press tournament, and he was surprised too!’”
Saldana had other skills, Joseph said.
“A few years into my time at the paper, we decided to sell our little home in Mission Village. …. We spiffed up the place and scheduled an open house for a Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, … our water heater had broken and partially flooded the garage. People were due to start touring in a few hours. What to do?”
He called Saldana, who was there instantly.
“To this day, I have no idea how he did what he did, but a new water heater was installed, the old one disposed of and the garage cleaned up by the time the tour started. To paraphrase Stan Laurel, no one was any the wiser. I remain convinced we couldn’t have sold the house so quickly, if in fact at all, had it not been for Frank.”
Jerry Schultz, another reporter, recalled how a cigar-puffing Saldana used wire hangers to jury-rig a contraption enabling him to attach his typewriter rolls of paper, “eliminating the need to mess with three sheets of copy paper and two sheets of carbon every time he needed more paper.”
Besides Lori, Saldana is survived by his longtime companion, Nancy Davidson of San Diego; daughters Linda Scott of Flagstaff, Arizona, Lisa Saldana of Miami, Florida, and Leslee Clark, a teacher in South Africa; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandson.
Recalled colleague Carlson: “Frank wore his semi-feminine moniker a helluva lot better than Johnny Cash handled being called a boy named Sue.
“In a phrase, Frank was as good as a man gets.”
Updated at 11 a.m. May 13, 2015
