Stirring the Embers
Life as it is, for me, now, requires me to go deep inside. I must live on what I call the high ground. I must accent the spiritual and go to God. Relentlessly, I must do this and prayer is consequently, how I breathe. I am reminded of those days in the coma when God seemed to breathe for me and life was miraculously sustained. Again and again, improbably sustained. And there, in that spirit, I must live. On the high ground with that which ultimately matters most.
But an old friend, Gloria Bonelli, in her facebook posts, in her relentless advocacy for causes of all shapes and stripes, be it fracking, or educational policy or presidential politics or the merits of Occupy Wall Street and the 99 Percent, recently reminded me of where I spent my life before my fall and that any life well lived must also be about service. Here and now and always about service and that we are all, in goodness, honor bound to fight, however powerless we may feel, for justice. Here and now and always for each of us has a stone to throw into the brook that can create the ripple that can……
Back in the old life, Senator Bill Bradley listened to my voice … and I helped get Governor Tom Kean to get five public agencies to support the birth of Jersey’s first Transportation Management Agency, because our eye was on getting the poor in Newark, Paterson, and Jersey City to the jobs and we did … and I helped get Governor Florio to move on gender equity issues and to foster customized training initiatives and regionally based job development consortiums …and I was a Governor Whitman appointed member of a State Planning Commission that changed the paradigm to limit suburban sprawl and preserve open space … and my orgnization had its hands in creating the train station in Secaucus that binds the entire New Jersey rail transit system together and our efforts on Adult Literacy led me to be appointed to chair the State’s last Task Force on the same … and we fought to foster affordable housing and our Adopt a School program became a model and we fostered more job training initiatives than any organization on earth and we helped local High Schools form Youth Services Councils that sought to intervene with troubled teens about to be lost to drugs or to the insidious darkness of poverty. ALL of this and more, all of yesterday’s advocacy, was remarkably fostered under the auspices of a business service organization with eyes wide open. It was all blessed by a board of red Republicans who endorsed a wide array of blue initiatives.
That life’s experience allows me to believe in the impossible and in the ability of reds and blues to eventually work together for good.
Now I no longer have a position or an organization or pocketsful of bi-partisan contacts, but I still have a voice and a heart and I ought to use the former and rely on the latter. So going forward here, I intend to regularly write about justice – just JUSTICE.
For now, it is enough to know that I am angry. Angry at the belligerence and insensitivity of my Governor – and at the hypocrisy and intransigence of our Congress - and at the timidity of my president. Angry at the surreal ‘reality show’ that is Republican presidential politics – and at the long and winding road that Afghanistan has become – and at the fact that raising taxes for the wealthiest of Americans is even an issue. I am so tired of the hypocrisy and manipulation and gamesmanship and sad that there is only one United States Senator from Vermont truly worthy of the title and I am amazed that the bulk of the 99 percent have yet to wake up to the fact that they are the 99 percent.
And I believe that academic institutions and Hospital presidents and community and charitable organizations and citizens coalitions and more are going to have to light some fires in Washington. Big time fires! Some. like our old friends, Senator Bradley and Senator Bayh, both left saying that our precious institutions are broken. I rather think that they have decayed. Relentlessly prodded by great coalitions of good people, there is no reason to believe that they can’t, in time, get the rust out.
And by the way, justice and the high ground just happen to have a great deal in common.
Another Extraordinary Giants Banquet Sustains Trust
Sister Theresa Mary Martin, President of Felician College, Ken Vehrkens, Dean of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Petrocelli College, George Martin, Executive Director of the NFL Alumni, and Perry Frenzel, former Giant and educator together moved and inspired the 450 good people in attendance and Rich himself passionately spoke about his life’s purpose and goodness.
Led by Hakeem Nicks and Brandon Jacobs, some 20 Giants veterans attended, including Harry Carson, Carl Banks, Stephen Baker, Joe Morris, OJ Anderson, Bart Oates, Karl Nelson, Curtiss McGriff, and others.
Fully eight tables were filled with the many tributaries of Rich’s family and others were occupied by friends of both Rich’s and FDU’s. Tables were kindly taken by Goya Foods, United Water Company, Palisades Medical Center, CBHCare, the Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce, Father Kevin Carter and Saint Nicholas Parish of Jersey City, Felician College, FDU, Atrium Builders, Eastern Propane, Ellen Kozlowsky, David Cassidy, Jacobs Engineering, Joe & Bette O’Connor, Pat & Bambi Clauss, Joe & Paula Cassidy, Craig Miller, D.F.A. New York LLC, Joan Murray, Bill & LuAnn Fritzky, Munoz & Munoz Insurasnce Company, Amsters, the New York Football Giants, Peter Bruce Martin, KAB Computer Services, and Ernst & Young.
In addition, Joe Sireno of Sireno Communications donated $3000, while Art Drogue and Jim McQueeny donated $1000 each. Together with John, the ‘Angel from Boston’, it is this event that sustains the Friends of Rich Fritzky Trust.
| The Friends Of Rich Fritzky Trust c/o Maggie Sireno, 9 Roseville Road, Stanhope, NJ 07874 We want to especially thank our Angel from Boston, Joe Sireno of Sireno Communications, Ken Vehrkens of Fairleigh Dickinson University, George Martin and Perry Williams, Giants legends, Rich Branca of Bergen Engineering, Jim McQueeny of Winning Strategies, Tony Scardino of Scardino & Associates, Anthony Coscia of Windels & Marx, Ben Lazare of Terminal Construction, Diana Fainberg, Krishna Murthy of Meadowlink, J. Fletcher Creamer of Creamer & Son, Joe Sanzari of Sanzari Construction, Frank & Evelyn Pezzolla of Frank’s GMC Trucks, Pat Cassidy, Kevin McMahon, Patrick McGowan of McGowan Construction, Tom Bruinooge – attorney, Manny Stern of Hartz Mountain Industries, Mary Ann Burlington, Agnes & Jack Duffy, the Bedrins, and ArtDrogue.They are the sustaining lifeblood of The Friends of Rich Fritzky Trust. Their profound goodness transforms into grace. Thank you is too small a word. |
As to family, I am blessed as always. My children work hard, struggle, and advance. And Maggie, Theresa, and Frank have already given us 10 stunningly, beautiful grandchildren, who teach me daily that the human spirit’s capacity to grow in love is insatiable.
Some see the world and the future as frightening, but I am glad that my children, for the most part, seem willing to meet life on its own terms and to bring whatever light and goodness into it that they can.
While I may have moments that suggest otherwise, I look to do the same every day. Beyond the writing projects that pay, FDU keeps me in the classroom online and I painstakingly advance my works on Crater Lake and my Aunt Mary’s mission. Grateful for the gifts and blessings of others and for what is most assuredly God’s good grace, we look to each day with renewed hope and faith, determined to be of value in this life.
