Let’s see … “hitting on a soft 20” probably will be the line that sticks in people’s heads. Though “goat on a staircase” … “yes, I sit to pee” … “lucky goiter” … and “Black Death Tour” have a chance to live in infamy, as well.

Ah, yes, The Sun sports department reunion weekend, July 20-21, the Paris Hotel, Las Vegas.

And just in case anybody forgets when and where it all went down (and it must be something of a haze, for at least a couple of guys), they can lift up their commemorative “Sun sports reunion” T-shirts and check the date and place — printed right there on front … beneath the tombstone with “RIP” on it.

A grand time seemed to be had by all, even by the guy who disappeared moments after entering “Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon” late Sunday night (hope you made it back alive, dude; you could have gotten mugged just for that spiffy suit and hat) … and even your humble correspondent, who can pass on this one tip:

Don’t make your room the designated “rendezvous suite” if everyone does, in fact, rendezvous there. Because if you wake up that first morning with a serious hangover it may never quite go away because you can’t possibly nap with a half-dozen already-buzzed ex-colleagues telling lies (ahem, anecdotes) on the other side of the room.

It was former colleague Nick Johnson who floated the idea four months ago:

“Hey, let’s put on a show!” Nick wrote. Well, actually he suggested a reunion of Sun sports department people, scattered to the four corners of the country over the past three decades.

And then Leah Reiter ran with the idea, did all the heavy logistical lifting, and by Sunday night there were 14 former Sun sports staffers (as well as three good-sport wives and one bright-eyed daughter) in room 1002 of the Paris.

We had a choice to make: Pool our gangsta skills and knock over the Wynn Hotel in what would have had to be known as “Ocean’s 14” … or just see how much alcohol we could absorb, how many dollars we could lose at the tables, how much rich food (and salty snacks) we could ingest and how many ancient stories we could embellish.

We went with the latter course of action, since no one was willing to fold himself into a suitcase like the little acrobat on the George Clooney “Ocean’s” movie series.

The roster of Sun alumni who turned out:

Albert Bui, James Curran, Mike Davis, Steve Dilbeck, Chuck Hickey, Gil Hulse, Nick Leyva, Paul Oberjuerge, Doug Padilla, Leah Reiter, Cindy Robinson, Nate Ryan, Jim Schulte and Mike Terry.

Schulte came from Maryland, winning the “longest distance traveled” award. Ryan came in from Chicago, Hickey from Denver and Hulse from Spokane.

That group spans three-plus decades, going back to about 1975, and represents the people who put out the San Bernardino Sun sports section when it was at its zenith.

Only two of us knew everyone else. What was great was how well the OGs, who now are 50 and up, meshed with The Kids, who are mostly in their 30s. It was the newspaper, the section, and the common experiences so many of us brought to the event that made it all work. As well as stories handed down, or gossip sent back up to the oldsters.

We had a champagne reception in the Rendezvous Suite (yes, the one where I later attempted to sleep) at 5 p.m. Sunday, killed seven bottles of bubbles in the next few hours (and at least three guys weren’t drinking champagne) … and then ambled down to the Paris’s well-regarded buffet to crowd into our private room, drink more wine and sample food from five stations representing various regions of France — Provence, Normandy, Brittany, Savoie, Burgundy.

We attempted to ply Albert Bui with cash, given his reputation for turning small amounts of cash into large piles of it, while sitting in casinos … but Albert declined the offer, perhaps because his wife was sitting next to him, at the time. Or he didn’t want to deal with the pressure — even though he left town $350 on the high side.

The gambling highlight of the night was when Mike Davis, not exactly a neophyte but perhaps a bit addled by spirits … was with the youngish crew that went up to “Bill’s,” a few doors north.

Mikee was playing blackjack, and two cards into the game he held a 7 and an ace. That’s a “soft” 18, which is a good hand. But he calls for another card … and gets a deuce.

Now he’s sitting on a “soft 20” which is almost always a winner.

But to the horror of his Sun compatriots, Mike calls for another card … and as his pals are choking on their watery drinks, the dealer flips him another ace!

So he has 21, wins $10 … and was talked about nonstop the next 24 hours. In fact, one of the witnesses scooted back to Room 1002 with details of the “soft 20” story even before the reminiscing oldsters had dispersed. “And then Mikee … calls for another card! With a soft 20!”

Everyone was up and about distressingly early (for my tastes) on Monday morning. I was still sleeping uneasily when the first two rolled in, and soon the room was full, and by noon four people came back with the proceeds of a booze run (we were quite pleased to spend almost zero money on hotel liquor) … and the imbibing began again by noon. I was barely able to hold down some “pain au chocolat” and a hot chocolate.
One heroic colleague killed a fifth of Seagram’s on consecutive days, leaving the rest of us in awe — particularly because he showed so little effect from such prodigious intake. The only tip that he might be in something of an altered state? His stories got a bit more exotic.

There was plenty of sober talk about the future of newspapers. The consensus, sadly, was that newspapers have pasts, not futures. One interesting observation: That the push for “local” will never quite work because no newspaper can be local enough to attract an audience of any size.

Most of the “Sun 14” still have newspaper jobs. Two were fired this year. Three quit the business years ago.

Eventually, having given up trying to save print journalism, the topics got out of hand, during that long Monday in Room 1002. (Though I have to admit the canvassing of the room, by a female colleague, to see who was circumcised and who was not … had occurred the previous night. I never did hear why we went though that “not-quite-show and tell”.)

There was the very blue story about a former roommate who “claimed to know a guy who” had an, uh, encounter with the aforementioned goat. And the one about a baseball executive and a banana tree that we also shall leave to the imagination. Followed by an unsuccessful attempt to find a now-infamous video on the web, a video known as being the most vile bit of tape ever viewed by so many folks. (And now, it seems, taken down.)

Someone started talking about the difficulties of directional urination, for males, if a certain body part is pierced (for art?!?). “Have to sit to pee.” And then one of those in the group said that white Levis, from back in the day, were prone to backsplash discoloring, and also required special seating in the men’s room. Said the white Levis man: “That’s right! I’m not ashamed to admit I sit to pee!” Or did.

And so it went. It’s curious, the turns conversations take when old friends, buzzed ones, are involved.

If the sartorial statement on Day 1 was the elegant suit with fedora … on Day 2 it was Mike Davis’s T-shirt (one of the thousands in his collection). It was black, with red lettering and art. On the chest was a picture of a rat, with the words, “Black Death Tour, 1347-1351.”

The “Black Death” being, of course, the plague that devastated Europe in the years mentioned above, killing an estimated one of every three people on the continent.

On the back of the T-shirt was a list of major medieval cities struck by the plague (Toulon, Lyon, Geneva …), more or less in the order they were ravaged. I’d love to have a copy of that shirt.

Monday was a day for anecdotes, the longer and more ridiculous the better. And if they were true, well, that was worth bonus points.

We dragged out photos of each other in previous lives. “Look at all the hair he had!” Two photos were produced of one of our august colleagues passed out, while sitting on a toilet, pants around his ankles. (I think he pocketed those photos, actually.) Another brought a picture of his rabbit, the very rabbit believed killed by a jealous husband. We shook our heads at the thought. Of the rabbit being killed.

There were revelations or three. “You hooked up with her?’ … “That was you who did that?” … “You worked with him?”

Some brought their going-away pages, which always were tributes to bad taste and, occasionally, decent satire.

Oh, and there was a dramatic reading of what is widely considered to be the worst game story filed in the history of the department. Not that it ever appeared in the newspaper in anything approximating its original form. Nate Ryan had a printout of the original, a true historical artifact now in my possession that goes like this:

“INGLEWOOD — Bodies were flying in the Lakers-Clippers skirmish last night as if both teams marched into a mine field. After being repulsed for years like Cossacks charging a machine gun nest, the Clippers were good and ready to change dog tags with the Lakers. But though they’ve lost some comrades to boot hill in this battle of a basketball season, the Lakers still run this neighborhood. Call it 109-108 Lakers in OT. Call it a friggin miracle of a season.”

Ohh-kay. And a toast was proposed to the author of that deathless prose, of whom we have lost track. Sigh.

The party began losing a bit of steam as Monday afternoon turned into evening. In terms of rowdiness and drunkenness, anyway. Perhaps the last highlight was a departing wife showing the room the tattoo on her lower back. I mean her lower back. She was cheered for her good-sport-ish-ness. (Which reminds me; Steve Dilbeck was congratulated for having invented the word “serenic” more than two decades ago. Meaning a place, a setting, that is both serene and scenic. Serenic! OK, some neologisms don’t catch on. Still a great word.)

After hours of debate over where to have dinner, most everyone emerged into the sauna of non-climate-controlled Las Vegas and braved the walk across the street to Caesars Palace and the Forum shopping area for dinner at the Spago restaurant — which was curiously uncrowded, even though the chicken-sausage pizza there remains world-class.

Afterward, about half the group went back to gambling, the other half headed for the half-size Eiffel Tower (560 feet, sted 1,000-plus), which is the primary Paris Hotel landmark, and then began passing out from sleep deprivation and old age.

The hotel didn’t have much to do with the reunion, but my own take?

Reasonably priced, by current Vegas standards ($110, including tax, for most of us), with a row of shops that actually really does look more than a little like they could have been plucked up from Paris. Some decent but fairly pricey restaurants. A huge, semi-downmarket clientele. And a great location — just north of the MGM, just south of Ballys, Bill’s, Imperial Palace and across the street from the Bellagio (caught the water show at 10, last night) and Caesars. Not seedy, not plush, but workable. And if you’ve never been to the real thing, it does give you at least a Disneyesque taste of Gay Paree.

As rumor has it, Albert Bui left with $350 in winnings. Cathy (his wife) was going shopping, Albert said, before leaving town. Doug Padilla came out $400 ahead; it paid for his whole trip.

Chuck Hickey, Steve Dilbeck and Gil Hulse may have come out slightly ahead, as well. Nate Ryan and Mike Davis, however, left behind a contribution to the Strip economy that was around triple digits.

Eventually, not long after midnight, Monday night, the last half-dozen revelers left the Rendezvous Suite, and pretty much everyone collapsed for eight hours — or however much time they had before they had to catch their planes or get on the road back to SoCal.

There was much talk of “doing this again sometime,” and promises to keep in touch, and maybe we will, now that we’ve reached a certain age.

(And it occurs to me that other happy staffs, from other sports sections that had good runs — and there have to be lots of them — may want to consider their own reunions. You will have plenty to talk about, guaranteed, and way more laughs than … frowns, let alone tears.)

Everyone got along well. No one seemed to allow their feelings to be hurt. But that figures, because these were good people with senses of humor and common bonds of ink in our veins. A couple of us were very lucky to have worked with all of them, and maybe by now the rest feel as if they did.

Generally, I loathe Las Vegas. I covered a couple of dozen championship fights there without spending the night. I would drive up and back, same day, just so I could leave. But I was happy to spend two nights there to see these people, none of whom I ever will forget.