Mr. Haberman's last piece is his last piece. At least with the NYT. The New York Observer carries the story that Clyde has had his last bite with the NYT, being ushered out the door with a non-renewed contract at the age of 68.
Turns out Mr. Haberman has been coming and going with the NYT for years. The New York Observer metaphorically turns the table on Clyde and interviews him at some SoHo eatery described as 'rustic-chic' with some odd food on the menu.
Before ever reading the thumb-nail bio it is easy to realize Mr. Haberman has been a newspaperman his entire life, and is a native New Yorker. He and I first started trading an e-mail here and there when he did a piece on the 50th anniversary of the spectacular fire on the aircraft carrier Constellation that burned out of control at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on December 19, 1960, killing 50 workers and injuring 330 others. The aircraft carrier was under construction when diesel fuel accidentally came in contact with welding sparks.
My father worked at the Brooklyn Navy then, but in a building housing the Design division. I remember him calling on the phone and describing the fire to me. Because of that connection I never forgot the Constellation fire. The ship's construction was eventually finished and the carrier remained active for over 40 years, seeing duty during the Gulf War. The Brooklyn Yard itself was closed in 1964.
I shared with Mr. Haberman my father's take on how the fire got so out of control. At the time, welders were no longer being accompanied by a backup fireman who would douse any fire started by sparks. Mr. Haberman replied that in his article research on the blaze and his reading of official reports, there was no mention of an eliminated job.
Mr. Haberman's December 20, 2010 piece of the 50th anniversary mentioned how the mid-air collision of two passenger airplanes three days earlier seemed far better remembered on its 50th anniversary than the Constellation fire. No doubt this has as much to do with the fact the people still take airplanes, 9/11, and that no one remembers when Brooklyn built warships.
Matthew Kessel's piece in The New York Observer gives some of the typical facts we read about someone. Their age, where they worked during a certain time period, and in a reporter's case, the assignments they had. We learn of their marriages and how many children they have. In Mr. Haberman's case I wrote him to tell him that at 68 he's quite well-situated for retirement: his wife works.
I'm going to miss the chance of there being a bi-weekly muse to blog postings. Mr. Haberman and I are contemporaries, of similar NYC educational backgrounds (specialized public high schools and City College) and similar memories. We remember the same mayors, and some of their same quotes.
The interview concludes with some memories of newspaper movies and how a movie has never been made about a blog. And about that I will agree. There doesn't seem to anything more anonymous than writing a blog.
But think of the by-product of so-called social media. Arrests. The recent arrests of the stunods who claimed and got mental health disability awards from Social Security while enjoying active lives of jet-skiing and marlin fishing, were partially done in by their own postings and pictures on Facebook and other media sites. The Feds logged on.
The newspaper accounts of this are a great read, and examples of the glory of the press that Mr. Haberman feels so dear to. The coached methods that were used to present the disability applicant to Social Security psychiatrists to gain benefits are so ridiculous that the tangent to this whole story is who gets rejected for benefits? It would seem all you have to do is show up and act just short of the antics of mobster Vincent Gigante, who faked poor mental health by taking a shower with an umbrella and walking the streets in his bathrobe.
Throughout the exchange of e-mails one of my best takeaways from Mr. Haberman was a mention that there is a Senior Citizen discount MetroCard that can be applied for. Half-fare on the subway and buses.
I'm getting mine next week. Unlike those guys who got disability, I am entitled to mine.
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