Datelines

When I started my first job out of graduate school, as a writer at a group of medical trade newspapers, I posted this list of cities on the cubicle wall above my typewriter.*

Atlanta Baltimore Beijing Berlin Boston Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Dallas Denver Detroit Djibouti Geneva Gibralter Guatemala City Havana Hong Kong Honolulu Houston Indianapolis Jerusalem Kuwait City Las Vegas London Los Angeles Luxembourg Macau Mexico City Miami Milwaukee

Minneapolis Monaco Montreal Moscow New Delhi New Orleans New York Oklahoma City Ottawa Paris Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh Quebec City Rome St. Louis San Marino Salt Lake City San Antonio San Diego San Francisco Seattle Singapore Tokyo Toronto Vatican City Washington

* Yes, a typewriter! We used electric typewriters and actual carbon paper for the first few years I worked there. Cut-and-paste was meant, and done, literally. No, I am not that old. It was an antiquated office.

The list comes from the style book of the Associated Press, an industry standard. These cities stand alone in the dateline of a news story, without being followed by the state name or country. Presumably these cities are known well enough that the average reader doesn't need any more information

Every time I visited a new city on the list, I'd check it off. I wondered how many of these cities I would ever visit.

Nearly 20 years later, my updated list shows that I have been to 30 of the 57 cities. If you just consider American cities, it's 23 of 30.

I would like to check off at least 5 or 6 more.