In this time of ever-shorter news stories telling us everything that’s wrong with the world, it’s a nice change of pace to read about someone like Felix Addeo, who takes time out of his busy schedule to teach middle school kids what it’s like to be an accountant. Or biomedical engineer Lois Ross, who twice a year leads a group of volunteers to clean up a local pond. These are just two of the ordinary, yet extraordinary, people profiled in this collection of feature articles by New Jersey reporter Al Sullivan. Through richly detailed stories—a kind of writing that has all but disappeared from our local newspapers—about small-town people in extraordinary situations, Sullivan depicts the characters that enliven life in the Garden State. While his stories always have a strongly local feel, each contains an element of the universal that draws in readers whose interest lies not in a specific location, but in the diverse experiences and stories of people who live in and shape a community.
Sullivan has written about people from nearly every walk of life, from minister to prostitute, from jail warden to undercover cop. Everyday People takes readers to the funeral of AIDS activist Ronald West, Jr., and to the office of James Delson, owner and operator of Jersey City’s Toy Soldier Company. You’ll follow Sullivan from the Hoboken workshop of violin maker Jon Van Kouwenhoven to the rooftops that are the “office” of chimney sweep Ron Simpson. You’ll go on a ride with the Glen Ridge Volunteer Ambulance Squad and along the Hackensack River with Captain Bill Sheehan, founder of the Hackensack Estuary and River Tender’s Corporation, which monitors the river’s ecology.
You don’t have to live in New Jersey to recognize the people in Sullivan’s stories. They are the librarians and tax assessors, attorneys and hotdog vendors, firefighters and bee keepers, poets and politicians, that make every American town special. In Everyday People, Sullivan records their stories for us all to read and remember.
Sullivan characterizes his book as a brand of ænew journalismÆ blending newspaper and novel writing, which he affirms is the dream projector any weekly newspaper reporter. SullivanÆs profiles are categorically grouped, and the first third of the book contains numerous profiles of elderly people, nostalgically recollecting their departed way of life, like the story of an aging honeybee keeper slowly forced to surrender his pastime.
Everyday People features 70 profiles of individuals Sullivan has encountered during his years as a beat reporter for the Hudson Reporter Associates and the Worrall Community Newspapers in Bloomfield. . . . æA lot of the stories in the book are with older people who represent a way of life that is no longer around,Æ [Sullivan says].
Like the personalities portrayed in his book, SullivanÆs life is the stuff that provocative profiles are made of.
Praise for Everyday PeopleSkunk hunters, tax assessors, riverkeepers and social workers: Al Sullivan tells the stories of his æordinaryÆ people extraordinarily well.
Sullivan has lived every journalistÆs dream: find real people and tell their stories. As a reporter and writer, he explores the human side, which is, after all, the only side that matters.
Sullivan characterizes his book as a brand of ænew journalismÆ blending newspaper and novel writing, which he affirms is the dream projector any weekly newspaper reporter. SullivanÆs profiles are categorically grouped, and the first third of the book contains numerous profiles of elderly people, nostalgically recollecting their departed way of life, like the story of an aging honeybee keeper slowly forced to surrender his pastime.
Everyday People features 70 profiles of individuals Sullivan has encountered during his years as a beat reporter for the Hudson Reporter Associates and the Worrall Community Newspapers in Bloomfield. . . . æA lot of the stories in the book are with older people who represent a way of life that is no longer around,Æ [Sullivan says].
Like the personalities portrayed in his book, SullivanÆs life is the stuff that provocative profiles are made of.
Praise for Everyday PeopleSkunk hunters, tax assessors, riverkeepers and social workers: Al Sullivan tells the stories of his æordinaryÆ people extraordinarily well.
Sullivan has lived every journalistÆs dream: find real people and tell their stories. As a reporter and writer, he explores the human side, which is, after all, the only side that matters.
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE Memories of War and Peace -
Helping Our Own
Walking in the Name of Jesus
They Call Him Mr. Sam
A Man of Spirit
One Hundred and Four Years Young
Not Just a Caregiver
Ten Velde's World
An Amazing Moment in Time
A Letter from the Past
A Big Part of Secaucus
What a Lucky Man
A Model World
Toy Soldiers March On
High-Seas Romance
A Taste of Ireland
A Brief Stopover
Call It Kismet
Sweeping Hudson's Chimneys
Haunted No More
A Sense of Style
Listen to the Music
PART TWO The Nature of Things
On Call
Protecting the Protectors
Saying Good-Bye
Three Faces of a Cop
A Sense of Integrity
Facing the Outside
Down and Out in Hoboken
Hero in the Emergency Room
Mistress of Modern Gothic
Images of Lisa
The Seduction of Howard Stern
A Summit of Hope
Buzzing about Bees
In Search of Skunk
A Little Tender, Loving Care
See Ya Later, Alligator
Beeping
One for the Record Books
A Natural Haven in the Heart of Bloomfield
The Hackensack Gets a Keeper
An Organized Man
From Out of Obscurity
A Matter Bigger Than Books
Not a Taxing Job
The Human Side of Legislation
PART THREE The Arts and Sciences Blast from the Past
Stretching Out the Walls of Education
Rocket Man
More Than Numbers
A Twist of Fate
Moving On
A Global Perspective
The End of a Double Life
Metaphors of Life
Building Community
A Walk through Hell
A Breakfast to Remember
Shooting for the Moon
Granting a Wish
A Drive through Secaucus's Past
Not Just Luck
Behind the Veil
A Dual Identity
All the World Loves Ollie
A Familiar Setting
Chapter and Verse
Poetry in the Woods
Final Chapter
By the Time I Got to Woodstock...
Index
