For nearly as long as I’ve known him…some twenty years now…Ed Klein’s usual comeback to a question regarding a story or event that was to happen in the future would be "Are you kidding? I don’t even buy green bananas!" Then he’d laugh, and I would chuckle at one more "Ed-ism," and we’d finally discuss the matter at hand.

That was Ed. Boss, editor, mentor, columnist, sounding board, writer, friend…not necessarily in any particular order…he was one of the two people who taught me nearly everything I know about being a journalist and editor. Forget J-School. When it came to knowing how to get a good story, how to write it so it mattered and, later, how to create a publication, week in and week out, that folks would actually look forward to reading, there were few better teachers than Ed Klein.

As most of our readers already know, Ed passed away last week. Instead of seeing his weekly "Business Beat" column in my Monday email, there was a message on my desk to call his daughter, Pip. Instead of our usual Monday morning chat about the sad state of the world’s affairs, there was that call to return. The media man who had created 18 newspapers, written one book and was working on another, launched both a radio station and a cable TV venture…all eventually sold…was silent.

Our last conversation was pretty much the same as all the ones before….how the public has lost all respect for the media….how the Internet is ruining truly thoughtful, investigative, professional journalism… how the political campaigns are faring this year…where he believed the market would go next…and, of course, his weekly critique of last week’s issue of the Hudson Valley Business Journal.

"Put a verb in that d--- headline the next time!"

"Good story you wrote on page 12…."

Always, it was the good, the bad and the ugly with Ed. He was incapable of being anything but totally honest with you, and coddling journalists…or editors…was simply not part of his nature.

Edward N. Klein was born in Brooklyn on June 11, 1922. And he loved to talk about "The Old Days." According to Ed, he started his first newspaper early, in elementary school when he was nine years old. Early on, it generated a lot of heat from the school’s principal over a story about a teacher that was factually correct – but really damaging to the teacher personally. He once told me how that lesson he learned about journalistic boundaries stuck with him for the rest of his life.

World War II began and Ed, already working at a newspaper and engaged to be married, enlisted and was shipped overseas with the Third Infantry Division. He was forever proud of those years and stayed in touch with many of his comrades. But, he returned home to the fact that his job was gone, his fiancée had married someone else – and his parents had moved.

"So, I started my own paper," he laughed.

Eventually, he also married its editor, Phyllis Bentzen. The two were married for sixty-one years, sharing the running of many media ventures as well as raising a family. Last year, the Town of Warwick honored that long union and their many contributions to the Warwick community with a special evening.

Ed began the Hudson Valley Business Journal at a time in life when most successful men are thinking more about retiring to write their memoirs than they are about starting a new newspaper. He was 59 years old and was told by just about every media "pundit" he knew that a business newspaper in Orange County had absolutely no chance of succeeding.

As usual, he ignored the skeptics, followed his own instincts and proved them all wrong. Over the next few years, he also began the Westchester County Business Journal and the Southern Connecticut Business Journal (now the Fairfield Business Journal). He sold Westchester and Fairfield in the early nineties, but expanded the reach of the Hudson Valley Business Journal to include Ulster, Dutchess, Sullivan, Greene and Columbia counties. I began working for him in 1987, as a reporter covering that expanded area. But as his health began to fail, it became obvious to him that putting in the kind of hours that a editor/publisher need to put in was just not a real possibility anymore, so he sold the Business Journal to our current publisher, Al Osten.

I had, by then, left the Business Journal to pursue fresh career goals, but came back about three years ago as managing editor. First, Ed told me how pleased he was I was back – then he spent the next three months or so telling me everything I was doing wrong. I learned a lot.

Ed’s style of old-fashioned newspapering isn’t really up-to-date in many ways…but the basic tenets of solid, fact-checked, honest reporting will never go out of style. Nor will Ed’s work ethic.

"I can barely see, I’m a diabetic, with bad knees and a heart condition – but I get up every day and work on something," he said in an interview we did for our annual Senior Guide.

In a sentence, that was Ed.