The Fredster Story

It was cold and wet that first week in September. The year was 1967. America was slowly turning away from the radical 60's, but was a long way from the 80's, the cultural epitome of world history.

That tuesday (wednesday?), the cosmic balance was forever sent into a talespin. In a small hospital in Brooklyn, NY, the Fredster was born. Ironically, I am technically Fredster the Third. My father despised being called "Junior" and was resistant to my being named after him and his father. My mother, all 4'8" of redheaded fireball, waited until he was away from the hospital and filled out the birth certificate herself, continuing the Fredster legacy.

As a child in Staten Island, I learned three very important things. The first was that I was not as cool as I thought I was. (Shocking, isn't it!?!?) The second was that I didn't like being in, and wasn't good at winning, fistfights. The third thing I learned was that I could make people laugh. Easily.

I decided then and there where my niche was. I befriended a tougher crowd of boys who tended to be good-natured trouble makers. A fun crowd.

I could make them laugh and since I earned better grades than them, I could help them. In return, they accepted me into their group and protected me from anyone else trying to pick on me. Co-dependent? Parasitic? Maybe. But I had a cool group of friends and I gained self-conidence.

My little brother was eighteen months younger than I. Taking after my mom, he was....and is....short. As a child, he was very tiny. He could run under tables and not have to duck. It was a great talent. He was always tougher than me. Luckily, I out-massed him, so I was able to win about as many fights with him as I lost. We always had one rule, no matter how mad we were. No hitting in the face. If Mom or Dad saw a mark, we'd both get it far worse than we could give it to each other. I don't know how many black and blues we hid over the years.

My sister was born in 1979, with Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy. My memory is sketchy early on. I remember being told the baby was sick and that she would be in the hospital a while and that I couldn't see her. I first saw her months later when she was released. I remember thinking she would be well when she got home. In time, it became second nature to me to help Mom and Dad take care of her special needs. I don't know how they did it; I have two healthy children; my wife and I are frazzled most of the time. But they did. I can only hope for a fraction of their parenting skills and patience.

In 1980, we moved to New Jersey, where most of my Mom's family had already re-located. In Staten Island, we had shared a house with my mom's twin brother and his family. I always considered their son my "second brother".

At this time, I was socially and physically awkward. Being the new kid didn't help my adjustment. My sense of humor once more saved me. I was "the funny guy."

High school, in retrospect, was a good time. Not as traumatic as it seemed at the time. I made good friends, many of whom I saw a couple of years ago at our tenth reunion as if no time had passed. I also made one friend who I have kept in touch with and we visit whenever she returns to New Jersey. I value her friendship deeply; she was the first friend I had who didn't expect anything of me or judge me in any way. She just liked who I was. She's fantastic.

My sister passed away in 1981. Her 18 month struggle had not been an easy one; there had been complications, surgeries, etc. I always thought everything would be okay in the end. The day she died, my childhood ended; my innocent trust in the world was lost.

Time went on. As graduation from high school approached, I knew I wanted to go to Rutgers University. I honestly couldn't tell you why. My grades were good enough to go almost anywhere. My mother insisted I apply to more than one University. I told her to pick any ones she wanted and I would apply, but that I was going to Rutgers. I was accepted everywhere I applied. But I wanted Rutgers. Maybe I knew my destiny was waiting there for me.

In 1986, Rutgers tried a new experiment. They took the former "party dorm" and made it an all-freshman dorm with just a smattering of hand-picked upperclass "role models" to help us learn the ropes. Needless to say, the parties continued. Ironically, I would return to the same dorm two years later as one of those "Role Models."

I can honestly say I was not very studious that first year. I had gained freedom, independence, and maturity (of a sort.) I cut loose and really went wild. I met fascinating people and forged some of the best friendships of my life those 4 years. Those were the best times. Despite the wonderful events that followed afterward, those were the best times.

In 1987, I met a friend of a friend of a friend. She was wearing a yellow dress at the time. Her two friends, whom I knew in passing, invited me out for ice cream to celebrate my birthday. I said hardly anything to the yellow-dress clad woman, talking to her friends instead. They asked me to walk her back to a campus bus stop as they were going elsewhere and she didn't know the way. I did. I waited for the bus to come so she wouldn't have to wait alone, despite her assurances that it wasn't necessary. We exchanged meaningless pleasantries and I commented that perhaps we'd see each other at a party or something, since we knew some of the same people. Two months later, after forgetting her name, we were fixed up at a Halloween party. Dottie dressed as a matador and I wore a suit with Hawaiian garb draped over it. Don Ho Corleone.

We were married in March of 1991. We couldn't be happier. A month later, I found out a nagging cough turned out to be a tumor on my right lung from Hodgkin's Disease. I was in stage 3B out of 4 stages. All but stage 4 is curable. Stage 4 is inevitably fatal. The vows "in sickness and in health" and "Till death do us part" took on new meaning.

A horrendous year followed. There was much crying, suffering, pain, and hopelessness. My family provided such support that even my doctor and nurses commented on how special it was. My wife and my dad were at every chemotherapy session, sitting with me. Others came as well, supporting all they could or bringing groceries or supplies to our apartment or sitting with me on days I was too weak to get out of bed. I made jokes the whole time. My sense of humor became my defense device. To be serious would have destroyed me. But I survived and my wife bought me a cat to keep me company on those lonely days when she had to work to support the medical bills. Given his resemblence to a certain Star Trek cat, we named him Spot.

We found out I had not been rendered sterile by the radiation and chemotherapy in 1993, as we were told I probably would be. Our son, Justin, was born that November. As Justin grew, our living space shrank. We moved closer to my mom and dad in early 1997 to be nearer to them in a bigger house.

My dad had been diagnosed with liver and colon cancer that was, ultimately, fatally incurable. We found out after learning Dot was pregnant with our second son, that Dad had only 6 months to live. His one wish, he said, was to live each day to the fullest and see my son born. Six weeks later, in late August, he passed away. The waves of sorrow and loss still rock us and the Dad-shaped hole in our lives.

Our second son, Theodore, was born in late September. In him, I see new life and hope. And I realize my dad and my sister watch over him, and all of us. In the time since Teddy's birth, I have found flickers of my Dad's soul in him. Little looks he gives, little gestures he makes, all reminiscent of Dad. I can't help but smile when I look at him. Because I don't just see him, I see so much more.

As 1998 rolled around, I found myself lucky enough to be out of a job. The corporation that owned the bookstore I was managing ran the company into the ground. I was forced to re-evaluate what I wanted in life. With the help of a career consultant, I found myself lucky enough to find a position with PaineWebber, in New York City. Finally, I was making decent money in a professional environment. I had been there almost 2 years and I felt as if, professionally, I had finally arrived. I suspect my dad would be have been very proud of me.

In the summer of 2000, PaineWebber was bought out by UBS (Swiss Bank). Our department was merged into Perot Systems, their technology company. Suddenly, all was in chaos. This was the first merger I had been through. Eventually, I was given several new roles that stretched me beyond what I could possibly handle. The jobs I was being asked to do used to be handled by 3 different people. Then I was told that my pay scale would not be changed. I cleaned out my desk, thanked my boss for his time, and informed him I would not be insulted in that manner and would seek opportunity elsewhere. The company came back to me and asked what they could do to keep me. Surprisingly, they allowed me to define the roles I wanted and gave me almost all the money I wanted. So I emerged through the takeover much better off than I was!!

And then came September 11th 2001. My day started like everyone else's. I was at my desk in my office in New York City, about a mile and a half from the World Trade Center.

Suddenly as I'm standing in the hall at about 8:50am, someone says that a plane just hit one of the Towers. By the time we got our internet connections through to the news sites, we saw this was no hoax. When someone commented that a second plane hit the second tower, our thoughts of small planes accidentally hitting these buildings disappeared.

My coworkers and I went to a floor with a TV and saw the pictures of the Towers. I didn't see the footage of the planes hitting, just the smoking Towers (which were still standing). Then a news flash interrupts that the Pentagon was hit and that major terrorist attacks were in progress, planes were missing, etc. Since we are a Financial firm, we started hearing about other buildings being evacuated in Chicago, Los Angeles, and more right in our own city, some only blocks away.

I didn't wait any longer. It was almost 10am at this point and I left work to try to get out of the city as quickly as possible. I couldn't get through on any phone lines or cell phone to Dot or my mother in New Jersey, nor even to my brother, only a few blocks away in NYC. I made it to the bus terminal just as they were closing the building. They implied they would open right back up. Two hours passed. I saw New Yorkers as I had never seen them. One girl got a cell phone signal through and after contacting her loved ones, started passing the phone around to anyone who needed it. She took no names down for reimbursement. People shared water, sandwiches, anything they had. The "crazy" folk on the street were harassing no one and gave everyone their space. Nothing was running at that point except the ferries.

The city was silent. At one point, a loud roaring plane engine was heard. No one panicked, but the silence was chilling as we all looked skyward. It was just a military plane on patrol, but never before had an airplane engine been a frightening sound to me. I finally reached my brother and went to get him from his building. The 2 of us and 3 of his co-workers walked across town to the ferries. The streets were absent of all cars and any vehicles we saw were rushing to the site of the Towers that I had been told were now gone. All I could see downtown was a cloud.

We made it to the ferries to find a line 12 blocks long and six rows deep. We were told it was an eight hour wait at that point. I had finally reached Dot, so she knew we were safe and just waiting to get out. My brother's friend noticed that cars were being let out of the city across the George Washington Bridge. Not wanting to wait 8 hours, for who knew what else would happen, we went across the highway, made a makeshift sign, which I scanned in below, and held up $20 bills until someone pulled over to take us into Jersey with them.

I still don't know the names of the 3 Indian gentlemen who let us cram into their truck with them. My brother and I sat in the small hatchback with the spare tire and one man was laying down across 3 others in the back seat, his feet out the window. This is how we got out of New York City that day. The truck took us all the way to Edison NJ and the driver took only paltry gas money from us.

When I walked through my front door, The 3rd building to collapse was just coming down and I saw it happen live on TV. I collapsed into a chair and for 6 hours, watched in horror at the footage of the day. I'm glad I didn't see it until then. I don't think I would have walked the streets so easily had I seen it all beforehand. And the single most heart-wrenching moment was as I tried to explain to Justin, who is almost 8, why my mom cried when she saw us and what was happening. Essentially, I told him that bad guys tried to kill a lot of people near where I work. His eyes opened wide and he said, incredulous, to me, "Bad guys are real?" Up until that moment, he was a kid who thought bad guys were like The Joker, The Riddler, and The Penguin. And I had to end that blissfully ignorant phase of his life by telling him about all this. It broke my heart. Hopefully, time will heal these wounds.

Since my dad's passing, and the events of September 11th, I have come to realize that the most important thing he taught me is that nothing is more important than family and friends. They are everything; there is the measure of a man. So if I am egotistical about my own self-worth, its only because of the people around me. My friends and family. I love you all.

Navigation Map

Click The Jukebox To Get To The Navigation Map!!