Going with what we had

My journalism class (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Class of ’69) is approaching its 40th reunion at the end of this month. The e-mail traffic has been frenzied in preparation.

It’s good reading with this group, which, as you might expect, knows how to turn a phrase.

Several have recalled that eons ago in the school’s writing classes, we were reminded, as deadlines loomed, “to go with what you’ve got” — for better or worse.

Back then it usually was worse, but never mind.

Forty years on, my classmates are ordering sweatshirts that read: “We went with what we had.”

I won’t bore you with specifics, but what we “had” since graduation was pretty darn good.

That said, 40 years ago none of us imagined that our own retirements would be accompanied by the retirements of newspapers themselves.

All of which led one wag to suggest that the words on the sweatshirts should read:

"What we had — went."