Goodbye, Verizon: Remember Our Names

My ghost

Here are three thoughts today as I leave Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, formerly NYNEX) after 34 years to begin a new chapter in my life.

1.  No one is truly gone until their name is no longer mentioned.

This is a universal truth, expressed in different ways in different cultures over many centuries by artists and poets and philosophers.

To put it another way, it's our duty to remember those who came before us.

Here are five names of coworkers who have died, and who still have a special place in my heart.

First, from NYNEX, is Tony Pappas. He is and has always been the soul of Verizon's media relations department.

Tony Pappas

Tony was one of my first bosses. He was a legendary New York City PR executive who was a trusted confidante of journalists like Jimmy Breslin, Steve Dunleavy (who coincidentally died just this week), Pete Hamill, Larry Sutton and Verizon's own Steve Marcus. Tony cannot be described in a few words. If you're a movie aficionado, as Tony was, think Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year."

Tony lived a long and happy life. He passed away a few months ago, and I attended services surrounded by his family at a graveside in Rutherford, NJ, where he's buried near the poet William Carlos Williams.

This is just to say how appropriate that is.

On a more tragic and somber note, I want to mention the names of contemporaries who all died much too young.

Robin Flowers

Robin Flowers was my great friend at NYNEX. I lost track of him when he became a vice president at AT&T, then heard the sad news that he had died of multiple sclerosis in 2012.

A big man with a booming laugh, we did our share of drinking together when we were very young. But, fortunately, we also had colleagues who made up for all the brain cells we may have destroyed.

One was Jamie DePeau, an incredible spirit who died of cancer in 2016. She was the smartest of us all.

Jamie DePeau

Jamie's wildly successful post-NYNEX second act – as a senior marketing VP for TIAA-CREF and then as CMO for Lincoln Financial – inspires me today as I embark on my own new journey.

At Jamie's memorial service, I marveled at the outpouring of love and affection among family, friends and coworkers that overflowed a church that morning in Ridgewood, NJ.

The fourth name, from Bell Atlantic, is Jeff Gluck. He died of ALS in 2012, leaving behind a wonderful family, including still-young children.

Jeff was my tech guru. We shared a love of software applications and gadgets. My fondest memory of him is one morning in the early 1990s, after he installed one of the first browsers to view sites on something called the World Wide Web.

Jeff Gluck

A group of us huddled around Jeff at offices at 1095 Ave. of the Americas in New York, as he taught us about the Internet. "Where would you like to go?" Jeff asked excitedly. "I can take you anywhere in the world from this keyboard."

Our colleague Carol Fessler said, "I'd like to go to The Louvre!"

So Jeff typed a few keystrokes – and as the page loaded we realized unexpectedly, embarrassingly, that we were arriving at a site selling pornography. That truly was an appropriate introduction to our brave new world.

The fifth name, from Verizon, is Joellen Brown.

Joellen Brown

We all mourned her sudden, accidental death earlier this year. Joellen was a kind and thoughtful editor, and she wrote speeches for CEOs Ray Smith, Chuck Lee, Ivan Seidenberg and Lowell McAdam, retiring before the Hans Vestberg era began.

This past April, at another memorial service in another town, I again witnessed a room overflowing with love and affection for a life well-lived. Current and former Verizon colleagues traveled from all over the country – from Texas and West Virginia and Florida – to pay their respects and celebrate Joellen's life.

The most meaningful personal tribute I've received in my career was written in a card a dear friend gave me before the going-away party for a group of us last night. She wrote that Joellen told her when they first started working together that "if you can't find me, go find Varettoni..."

I hope I never let you down, Joellen.

2. I will never forget the Verizon PR team, and I will always mention their names with respect and love.

I'm awed by how talented, hard-working and creative the Verizon PR team is.

Here's our secret: we know that as important as the work itself is, how the work gets done is just as important. The team has always been at its best when we've shown up for each other, and when we've known we could depend on each other.

The work itself? Verizon is a company that connects people and helps them communicate. It deploys and enables new and life-changing technologies and applications.

I truly believe that Verizon is building a better future for those who will come after us.

As a company spokesperson for most of my career, that belief has made my job very easy. All the journalists I've worked with know that everyone they talk to has an agenda.

My agenda has been transparent: to be an effective advocate for all the people who make up the heart and soul of Verizon.

To all the Verizon customer service representatives, field technicians and engineers; all the Verizon Wireless store employees, executive assistants and office managers, and sales and support people; all the IT, technology and finance professionals: I admire your talents and I appreciate how difficult your jobs are.

Mine was a privileged position. I hope I always honored those I represented. Whenever I spoke on behalf of Verizon, I always knew I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

Speaking of which...

3. Here's to Robert J. Varettoni.

Robert J. Varettoni

My Dad, who died in 2005, also worked for Verizon for 34 years.

He started in sales at New York Telephone and eventually became a customer service director at NYNEX, then Verizon. He got his job at "the phone company" in 1956 through the influence of his buddy on the U.S.S. Midway and in the Navy Reserve, John A. Coleman, whose own father had been chairman of the NYSE.

Dad claimed he had no influence in getting me a job here in 1985. I find that hard to believe.

Also hard to believe (and including the few years our careers overlapped): tomorrow morning, for the first time in 63 years, there will be no "Bob Varettoni" working at Verizon.

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Finally, here's something we all can believe in, no matter where we work. It's something Dad discovered through his colleagues Vinnie Merrill, Eileen Vodola and Ed Small:

There are people working beside you today who you will love and revere for your entire life.

So ask yourself: How are you showing up for them?

Our time together is really very short and unpredictable and precious.

How will people remember your name?

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About the top photo: Dad's office used to be at 1095 Ave. of the Americas, where Verizon currently has its NYC headquarters. I have fond memories of visiting Dad there when I was a boy, so I worked from "1095" one day this week. This is a reflection of myself waiting for the elevator home.

Enjoying Every Sandwich in an Instagram World

On the waterfront

"Enjoy every sandwich," advised the late, great Warren Zevon.

No one takes this motto to heart more than I do lately.

I'm about to leave Verizon, where I have worked (if you count predecessor companies NYNEX and Bell Atlantic) for more than 34 years.

This past week, I've been savoring every routine moment of the work day: waving to the guards at the entrance gate, listening to the chatter of my colleagues in our open office, responding to reporters and sparring with a curmudgeonly editor, using the Thrive app to order my daily chicken sandwich and then running into so many well-wishers on my way to and from the Verizon Basking Ridge Cafe. Heck, even my last dry-cleaning pickup was free this week (thank you, Willow French Cleaners!).

I also took many photos: using my dash cam to capture the campus as it appears when emerging from the bridge over North Maple Avenue, recording a last log-on at the Verizon gym, trying for an Instagrammable second-story view of the new basketball court from the new parking garage.

In 2019, this is the way I enjoy -- and remember -- life: Taking cell phone photos.

In this way, I am very different than my wife of less than 33 years.

Nancy's view is that people these days don't really appreciate life's moments because we are viewing them through our cell phones. We then edit our lives and package the images for social media.

At the gym

Guilty. Just look at my Instagram feed.

Last night on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, Nancy went on a sunset cruise around Manhattan with my sisters-in-law.

Take photos, I asked, before she left.

She obliged. She sent me one photo... of the three of them toasting their voyage.

No Instagrammable New York City skyline for me.

Instead, Nancy focused on the sunset last night, while those around her were losing their heads to their cell phones and cameras. She savored the moment with her own eyes, in her own way.

This lesson is not lost on me. This morning, before dawn, I rose to watch the sun rise. I didn't take my cell phone with me.

It was beautiful, and I enjoyed it.

Oh, I'll still be taking my share of photos. To each his own, right? And maybe I could have used just a little more sleep on this beautiful first Saturday of summer.

Still, as Warren Zevon also once sang:

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

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PS - One sister-in-law stayed over last night, and this morning I asked if she took any photos. She said no, they were busy catching up and enjoying the view. Besides, she said, noting that they've done this annual outing for several years now, "How many bad photos of the Statue of Liberty do I need to take in my life?"

Photos of Dad

16 photos in remembrance of Dad on Father's Day 2019.

And here are a few life lessons from these rare photos.

You can also view these at this Google Photos album.

'Everyone Knows That Place Is Haunted'

Annie's Road in Totowa

According to local legend, there are at least two haunted roads in Passaic County, NJ.

One is Annie's Road in Totowa, where I grew up.

"Annie" is supposedly the ghost, dressed in white, of a teenager killed by a pickup truck as she tried to find her way to safety along unlit Riverview Drive. The story goes that she fled her boyfriend's car after an argument on Prom Night.

All the locals call this stretch of Riverview Drive "Annie's Road," and roadside memorials keep her legend alive. A Halloween tradition is to spill red paint on the blacktop and guard rails so that drivers will think they see Annie's blood.

Annie's Road snakes behind a cemetery and bypasses an alcove of small homes called, with no pretense of political correctness, "Midget Village." All this is not too far from what every teenage boy calls "Doo-fus Road" -- Duffus Avenue -- behind The Bethwood, a popular hall for wedding receptions and school reunions.

It's easy to find one online post after another after another filled with stories about Annie sightings.

It's harder to find if there's any truth behind these stories. In Totowa, everyone knows someone who knew Annie... but there's no obituary or news story or even a last name to verify her identity.

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The second haunted highway -- Clinton Road -- is the setting of a movie by the same name that premieres this Friday, June 14, on premium video and in nine cities (none in New Jersey).

It stars Ice-T and Vincent Pastore, and tells yet a few more tales about the nearly 10-mile stretch of road that cuts through a thick forest in former iron-mining country in West Milford, in the less-populated part of the county.

Ghost stories abound about Clinton Road, and you've no doubt heard a few yourself if you grew up in the Garden State. As a character states in the movie trailer embed below, "Everyone knows that place is haunted!"

But is it?

A story a few weeks ago in the North Jersey Record is a little more skeptical. Reporter David Zimmer does a great job in detailing the backstory.

Is the truth really out there about either of these haunted roads?

Does anyone know what corroborating evidence exists?

I'm curious. I don't want to spoil the fun of a good ghost story, but I truly want to know, the next time I drive down Riverview Drive, if I'm guilty of whistling past the graveyard.

Fatima in The Ironbound, A Love Story

Every time I tried to take a photo of Our Lady of Fatima Church a few weeks ago, someone would be standing in prayer in front of the statue above the main entrance.

Our Lady of Fatima on Jefferson Street

The church is on a side street in The Ironbound, a largely Portuguese neighborhood in Newark.

The statue is of the Virgin Mary, who appeared to three children in Fatima, Portugal, on the 13th of each month from May through October 1917. They saw what they believed to be the Mother of God hovering above an oak tree where they had been herding sheep.

Still today, it's a devoutly held belief among many people -- as I saw for myself in Newark -- that if you pray to Our Lady of Fatima, she will intercede with God on your behalf.

What do I believe?

I believe every picture tells a story.

For more than a year, I've been taking photos of churches in New Jersey to post on Instagram every Sunday:

• Churches in Paterson and Jersey City that keep their doors unlocked to provide shelter for the homeless.
• Awe-inspiring beauty inside the church where my parents were married.
• A distant rural church with a gravel parking lot, where the pastor shooed me away and the sign on the front door read, "All Are Welcome."

In general, I think churches tell love stories.

Churches are monuments to the better angels in all of us. They challenge us, frustrate us, inspire us.

Even if you don't believe any of that, it's self-evident that they surround us. The iconography of faith is everywhere... even in suburban New Jersey.

On this gorgeous late-spring Sunday afternoon, I took a long walk around my home town. From front lawns and gardens on almost every street, I saw little statues of the Virgin Mary patiently waiting for our mighty prayers.

The Marys of New Milford, NJ

The Mystery of Bertha Reetz

Bertha Kruger Reetz's tombstone rests in the historic French Burying Ground in New Milford, NJ.

But where is her body buried?

Mrs. Reetz was at least 80 when she died in 1949. According to suburban legend, about three decades later her tombstone was found lying casually by the side of a road in New Milford, perhaps hundreds of miles from her home.

Local police tried in vain in the pre-Internet era to identify its owner. Eventually, the borough's Department of Public Works unlocked a fence protecting the historic grounds -- last used for a burial in 1928 -- and placed Bertha's marker there for safe-keeping.

This Mystery of Bertha Reetz came up in conversation this past weekend as the borough, which recently took ownership of the cemetery, held its annual Memorial Day Weekend ceremony to honor the memory of the veterans buried there.

This year was a special occasion. Attending the ceremony were relatives of Cornelius Bogert, a private in the New Jersey Militia during the Revolutionary War who was buried in 1825.

Terry McQuillin honoring her ancestor's grave

On Friday evening, Bogert's grave received a flag and a flower from a long-lost relative, Terry McQuillin, who traveled with her husband, Lee, from Branchville in Sussex County.

According to this northjersey.com story, McQuillin is related to Bogert and 12 others buried in the cemetery, since her family descends from David Demarest, the French Huguenot settler of northern New Jersey who founded New Milford.

One person attending the ceremony noted that Bertha's tombstone was more modern than the others. It also haphazardly faces north, on top of a tree root, while all the older gravestones face east.

What we know:

• The cemetery fence didn't exist until the early 1980s, lending some credence to the date and manner of the stone's placement. Several long-time residents who commented when the northjersey.com story was shared on Facebook's "You Know You're From New Milford If..." page noted that they freely roamed and played on the cemetery grounds through the 1970s.
• The last person verifiably buried there is Martha Gustafson Demarest, who died right before her 25th birthday in 1928.

Bertha's gravestone, facing north

According to historical records, the French Burying Ground is the oldest cemetery in Bergen County. It's the final resting place for many members of prominent French-Huguenot and Dutch families who settled in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It was first used in the Spring of 1677, after the family of David Demarest -- who fled his homeland to escape religious persecution -- sailed up the Hackensack River to settle into a new home. David's wife, Marie, fill ill with smallpox during that voyage and died. She was the first person buried here, on a bluff overlooking the river.

There are two inventories of the graves at the site. A 1902 inventory by John Neafie does not, of course, include Bertha, who would have been 34 at the time. One hundred years later, a 2002 inventory by the New Milford Girl Scouts identified approximately 175 tombstone inscriptions. Bertha is listed there, 53 years after her death.

What we don't know:

• Who is Bertha Kruger Reetz, and why is her tombstone in New Milford?

A few people interested in local history have tried researching her name, to no avail. Internet searches lead to sites such as "Find a Grave," which only notes that she is buried in the French cemetery.

Not true.

As one borough resident noted, "We're happy to have given Bertha a home, and she's always welcome here. But we'd appreciate any help in returning her gravestone to its proper place."

Can anyone help solve the mystery of where Mrs. Reetz is really buried?

Panoramic French Cemetery view; Bertha's stone is in the lower right corner

If You Believed They Put a Man on the Moon...

Blue moon over Paterson, NJ, last night.

Two news items this week attracted the interest of the little-boy-who-wanted-to-be-an-astronomer in me.

First, this nj.com article explained that last night's full moon -- which glowed huge and distant overhead -- was a rare type of blue moon, since it was the third of four full moons appearing during the spring season of 2019.

Many also refer to May's full moon as the "flower moon," because it's the time of year when many flowers bloom.

Second, this engadget article explained that if you were fortunate enough to watch the Apollo 11 Moon landing as it happened in 1969, NASA wants to hear from you.

Here's the info: "NASA recently launched a story program that asks the public to submit audio recordings of their Apollo 11 memories in a bid to create an oral history of the event in sync with its 50th anniversary. All you have to do is record a story or interview... shorter ones are preferred, email it and details to a special address (apollostories@mail.nasa.gov), and check your inbox in case NASA wants a follow-up."

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Inspired by the sight of last night's big blue flower moon, that's exactly what I did. Here's the SoundCloud version:



And here's the text (and maybe you could listen to this great R.E.M. song while reading):

The morning after Neil Armstrong took his first step on the Moon, our family visited my nearly 100-year-old great grandmother in a nursing home. We called her Bisnonna. She had lived most of her life in Ferno, Italy — "ferno" being the Italian word for "Hell." She was spending her final years in New Jersey. 

We were all excited about the moon landing, and her daughter, my grandmother, tried to explain to her -- in the soft, melodic, mostly-Italian, part-English language they had developed between themselves -- what a spaceship was. But the words didn't yet exist in either the English they commonly understood or in Italian. 

So, much to our frustration, we couldn't make Bisnonna comprehend how it was possible for a man to ride on a rocket that was launched into space, and eventually set foot on the moon. To Bisnonna, such a thing was beyond her experience and beyond her capacity for faith. She died just a few weeks later, believing in eternal life.

Do you have a memory of the moon landing? I'd love to hear it. So would NASA!

Mom vs. Deer in Totowa: What Would You Do?

This is the redevelopment project adjacent to Echo Glen in May 2019:
 paved roads, a power station, expanses of dirt -- no trees.

My elderly, widowed mother is fighting her own Battle of Winterfell -- and she needs our help.

Call it The Battle of Echo Glen, which is a residential subdivision of Totowa, NJ, that abuts a formerly abandoned asylum.

Unlike the fictional "Game of Thrones" blood fest, this combat is real and began quite innocently. It has evolved into a story of pinwheels and soap flakes.

Our noble quest? Protect the flowers in Mom's beloved garden.

Here's the story of how we arrived at this desperate place.

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"Bobby," said Mom on the phone several months ago, "there are reindeer visiting me in the backyard!"

Her voice was breathless, full of awe and wonder. One deer, a buck with regal antlers, seemed to her a particularly magical sight.

The Developmental Center main entrance in 2016.

I can't be precise about the date of this call, but it was likely around June 2018, after construction began to level the North Jersey Developmental Center, a 188-acre compound of buildings permanently closed in 2014.

I've written about this abandoned asylum before.

This center had opened in 1928, preceding Echo Glen's construction by 30 years. Originally called the North Jersey Training School, by 1953 the center served 625 women with neuro-developmental disorders and included a 275-bed nursery, making it the only one in the state that housed children. The total of residents dwindled over the years, numbering 190 before the center was shuttered.

Last May, 35 buildings on the site were demolished to make way for a 257,000-square-foot data center for J.P. Morgan, a 590,000-square-foot assisted living facility, a medical office, a research and development facility, and associated parking lots.

This demolition was the opening salvo of The Battle of Echo Glen, since it was followed by the leveling and removal of countless trees. The woods there had not been cut or disturbed since the property was acquired in 1916, more than 90 years ago.

The Developmental Center main entrance in 2019.

On a recent Sunday, after a visit to Mom, I saw newly paved, open roads at the site, so I took a brief detour and was astounded by what I saw. There's now hardly a tree to be found. It's as if every square inch of the property is being developed, as the Boro of Totowa seeks as much ratable property tax income from the site as municipally possible.

When the trees disappeared here, displaced deer began foraging in neighboring Echo Glen.

As the months have passed, these deer have ruined my mother's prized garden and other plantings. This has left her heart-broken.

She is not a lone casualty, either. Deer infestation is now a constant source of chatter at the weekly Monday meetings of Totowa's senior group.

Neighbors have devised their own strategies to fight back. One popular tactic has been to shave cakes of mint-scented Irish Spring soap and scatter the flakes on leaves and branches.

Bottom branches chewed away; plastic ivy on the shed.
(And, yes, ironically, that's a decorative ceramic deer.)

Mom's weapons have ranged from inexpensively hopeful (installing twirling pinwheels from the Dollar Store in her garden to try to frighten the deer when the wind blows) to disappointingly costly (a monthly fee to have her lawn and garden sprayed with deer repellent, and to have deer droppings removed). Not to mention two strategically placed $69.95 solar-powered devices that are supposed to emit a deer-offending sound undetectable to humans.

All to no avail.

Families of deer routinely find gaps around the low fences in her neighborhood to feast on her garden. Along Mom's back fence, arborvitae branches have been neatly chewed clean from the ground to the jawline level of a deer. The natural green ivy that once graced Mom's back shed has been replaced with plastic green ivy she purchased at Hobby Lobby.

Mom's resolve is not broken, however. On a recent Monday she heard a rumor at the Totowa senior club that deer do not like the taste of vinca. She now intends to purchase an arsenal of these flowering plants at Home Depot to restore some color to her garden.

As Mother's Day 2019 approaches, I vow to better serve at the side of The Queen of Echo Glen and Protector of Her Realm as she fights this never-ending battle.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against deer. Can we all get along?

Laurel Grove Cemetery elk.

The Boro of Totowa has nothing against deer and other wildlife either:

• On the other side of town, local firefighters rescued a deer whose head had become stuck in the gates of Holy Sepulchre Cemetery on the eve of Halloween 2016.
• One of the most notable memorial sites at another nearby cemetery, Laurel Grove, features a large, majestic elk that overlooks Route 80.
• During a "Mother's Day Clean-Up" last week, well-wooded Laurel Grove (where Dad is buried) even issued this gentle reminder: "Please remember, resident deer live on the property and feed on flowers that are not deer-resistant."

The thing is, I love Mom more than I love deer, and more than Totowa loves deer. Also, I now fear that Mom might get bitten by a tic when she ventures out to try to repair her garden.

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So I'm enlisting your support.

What do you advise that we do in this situation?

Like Jon Snow, I'm struggling to do the right and honorable thing. I already know I can't save the trees. I just want to help Mom -- in fact, help all the residents of Echo Glen.

They deserve a better fate. All their property tax dollars saved by the massive redevelopment of a former asylum should not be spent instead on mint-scented soap, pinwheels, ultrasonic sound machines, vinca plants and deer repellent.

Mom's garden last year, before the war began.

Any suggestions?

In Memory of Anne Buckley

Anne M. Buckley, the retired editor-in-chief of Catholic New York, died April 23, 2019.

I've mentioned Anne here before, reprinting a column she wrote about the courtship and wedding of Bob and Nancy Varettoni.

Anne's reporting of it was typically wonderful, and I've previously bemoaned that since much of her career was in the pre-web days, much of her work can't be found online.

So I'm happy to report that, in Anne's memory, CNY editor John Woods is now reprinting a number of her Editor's Report columns on its website. (The photo here, by the-one-and-only Chris Sheridan, is the familiar one printed for years alongside her CNY columns.)

Here's "Two Fathers, Two Sons" about Steven McDonald, the hero NYC detective who was shot in Central Park and paralyzed from the neck down. And here's "The Double Standard" about the hot-button issue of religion and politics. 

I won't... I can't... recount the many accomplishments of this trail-blazing Catholic journalist, writer and editor. But there are many details in the obituary in The Star-Ledger, which also includes a full reprint of her CNY obituary.

Here's a personal insight, though:

With Nancy due to be out of town with our daughter last night, I had been debating how I would spend my evening alone. A few days ago, before Anne's death, I told Nancy that I might attend a concert by Dan Schutte, a popular composer of liturgical music who was scheduled to appear at a parish in Roseland, NJ.

Reading up on Dan, I discovered that he's an ex-Jesuit -- and that my favorite song of his, "Here I Am, Lord," has been characterized by some as a rebellious anthem. Which only makes me like the song even more.

So it did not surprise me that at the funeral Mass for Anne Buckley yesterday in Caldwell, NJ, we all stood to sing "Here I Am, Lord" as her casket was carried into St. Aloysius Church.

After Mass, Nancy and I spoke to former colleagues -- most who continued at CNY for years after us -- about Anne's lasting impact. In a Facebook Messenger group chat, some of us even recalled colorful phrases she had used in her columns when we all worked together more than 30 years ago: "As clean as a convent parlor..." "Like eggs on a Teflon pan..." "Delft-saucer eyes..."

Here's a 30-second snippet from the 10-minute memorial video posted by Prout Funeral Home. It features photos of Anne, later in her career, surrounded by awards and CNY colleagues:

Finally, here's another personal story:

When I originally posted Anne's column to mark Bob and Nancy Varettoni's 30th wedding anniversary, Nancy was uneasy about it. She told me something that I never knew: that when she told Anne she was going to marry me, Anne expressed reservations.

She thought Nancy could have done better.

As always, Anne was right about that too.