A gentleman and a mentor

Thank you to friend and former colleague Julia for sharing this long-ago photo of some of the newspaper staff that Fred Petri worked with.

A gentleman named Fred Petri died this month. He was 93, a husband of 67 years, father of three, grandfather of another three.

Fred was also my first professional editor. I got three college credits for the work I did as an intern at a small but fierce newspaper in what was then largely rural South Jersey. Among Fred’s responsibilities was choosing assignments for me and the other interns and then editing the stories we turned in.

During his first meeting with the handful of students lucky enough to score internships for that quarter, he set the tone: “This is a newsroom and we’re casual here. I’m Fred, not Mr. Petri.” I was 21 and Fred was probably not quite 50. I thought he was a geezer far removed from my ’60s-inspired passion for truth and justice, and my innate love for storytelling and chasing action. He was soft-spoken, forever outfitted in creased slacks and a dress shirt. I tripped over “Fred” the first few times but eventually got used to calling him by his first name. To all of us in that smoky, undisciplined newsroom, he was simply Fred.

On the first day of my internship, Fred walked over to the corner where I sat hoping no one would notice me. “I’ve got a story for you, Claire. We need a feature on this pastor who just came back from leading a trip to Israel. It would be a phone interview,” he said. Given the pace of media today, my work that day seems quaint now. I called the pastor from a rotary-dial telephone. I asked him some questions and wrote a story with the most predictable lede possible: “From a trip that spanned xxxx miles and included this site and that site, Pastor John Doe’s most memorable moment was blah, blah, blah.” I handed Fred my story, typed on fuzzy copy paper. A few minutes later, he came back to my corner. “Your story’s fine,” he said. “It will run on the religion page the day after tomorrow.” My relief at not having botched the job overshadowed the excitement over my first byline beyond the college weekly.

I left the newsroom for a few months then returned as a full-fledged reporter. The news staff was excitable, responding to the police scanner like kids to the sound of an ice cream truck. We chased cops and criminals, elected officials and eccentric businesspeople under the eyes of editors who cajoled and coached, swore and smoked through deadline. We played vicious tricks on a couple of disliked editors just because it amused us.

The unflappable man amid all this twitchy energy was Fred.

When we pushed back the deadline to make frantic phone calls for information about the suspicious death of a local person out of state, Fred sat calmly at his desk, waiting to edit the story and write the front-page headline. When some disaster happened in the back shop, Fred rose and strode out of the newsroom to settle it, managing to remain on good terms with everyone involved. When the reporters threw a toga party, ala Animal House, and danced our way to his house in the dark on a warm summer night, he came out to talk to us as if facing a dozen inebriated young co-workers, wrapped in sheets and stumbling on the sidewalk at 10 p.m., was routine.

I graduated from that paper and moved on to a larger one. Then I went over the wall to public relations, landing in higher education. The various superiors I had at those jobs over the years were fodder for countless tales: the many who led me and the one who lied to me, the special group that inspired me and the precious few who conspired with me, the handful who seemed lost and the one I will always call “The Boss.”

But there was only one island of gentlemanly calm in a storm of Woodward-and-Bernstein-fueled 20-somethings. Only one whose wisdom, basic decency and old-world demeanor was the necessary counter to a cauldron of youthful enthusiasm ready to upend the world order as we knew it. Only one who settled the jitters of a first-timer with, “It’s fine.”

Rest in peace, Mr. Petri.

I mean – Fred.