Stanley Fried’s passing
Martha’s dad, Stanley Fried, died on May 3rd of this year. He had been doing fairly well at Cadbury retirement center, although he had been weak and was in the nursing home part. But why dwell on his last months?
Stanley had accomplished so much in his life… having served as a navy officer during WW II, raised three lovely girls and launched them with his bright beautiful wife Elsie, into successful adulthood. He was intelligent, very witty, extremely compassionate, and a terrible but lusty singer. He volunteered to help the mentally ill at Pilgrim State Hospital. Later he made a nuisance of himself as a member of the Board of Visitors at Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island. So much of a bête noire was he to the doctors, that they leaned on state legislators to have him removed. He was pressing too much to change habits that left resident dying unnecessarily… and that was a drag.
In another capacity as a fierce defender of the public interest, he was the navy’s chief negotiator with Grumman Aircraft in the 1970’s and 1980’s. This was at a time when they were building fighter jets and demanding huge sums for cost overruns. Stanley was even physically threatened during that period. But he had a fierce sense of what was right, and, might have said, a la Tom Petty: “And I won’t back down!”
Simply… we miss Stanley a lot.
