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This and That
Tom Maher
By THOMAS MICHALSKI
Article published on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 |
I learned recently that a good friend and fellow journalist died. Tom Maher was 77 years old when pancreatic cancer took his life. He lived in the same New Rochelle, N.Y., apartment since the early 1960s when we first met. That in itself is unusual in our mobile society.
Tom was from the old school. We worked together in the business before electronic pagination, digital cameras and cell phones. We frequented dingy bars where reporters, cops and political hacks hung out, and police precinct press rooms, government offices and smoke-filled newsrooms that were alive with the sound of manual typewriters, ringing telephones and the smell of ink.
Tom’s sense of humor made me look withdrawn and reserved. He, like I, despised phonies and corporate types who often became the target of his quick humor and freestyle cartoon renderings. He taught me to never take life or myself or anyone or anything serious. He also showed me how to drink beer and booze and smoke like a chimney in those bad old unhealthy days of journalism. It’s been many years since I committed either of those sins.
Tom could never understand the changes that took place in his beloved world of newspapering. He hated computers and ironically became the subject of a Web site in death. It was just a few years before his death when he finally got an e-mail address for his hand-me-down computer. He still wrote his stories on a manual typewriter well into the 2000s. He never owned a cell phone. He was among the last of the newsroom rebels.
Somewhere along the line we went our separate ways, remaining in touch through occasional letters. I stayed in the mainstream media and he went into reporting on the insurance industry for trade publications. Our offices at one time were in Hoboken, N.J., when that city was still a seedy river town. Today it’s a yuppie conclave with million-dollar condos that were carved out of crumbling tenements.
Back then it was a horrible place. The odor from the old Maxwell House Coffee factory at the end of Washington Street made the place stink like day-old brew. While I covered Hoboken and Jersey City police, Tom toiled away writing about the insurance business. He loved taking pot shots at what he called “corporate pukes” and thrilled at exposing their shenanigans. He gave his own bosses heartburn and lived life by his own rules.
All the good guys of my professional life are slowly passing on to the great beyond, or below. One day it will be my turn. I hope some reporter or editor who knew me will write a complimentary column about my contributions to life. Tim Caddell, Pinellas Park’s government affairs administrator, already promised to name a dumpster after me.
As for my friend Tom Maher, I’m sure he’s in that big newsroom in the sky doing rewrites on the Bible and making people laugh with that wicked sense of humor of his.
Until next time . . .
Thomas Michalski is the editor of the Pinellas Park Beacon.
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Article published on Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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