Goodbye, Vinny

     Today, I think a little piece of heave looks just like a small kitchen in a little old house in Washington Borough. The cabinets are painted green and there is a yellow farmhouse sink. There are paint  swatches taped to walls adorned with quips and snarky comments written in black magic marker, because, since the walls are going to be painted soon anyway, might as well write comments.

     The table, under a window, adjacent to the back door, has one less empty chair tonight.

     Through the cigar smoke, Dick Harpster, Jim Staples and Alan Painter welcome Vinny Zarate. Dick pours another tumbler of Scotch.

      This is old newspaperman heaven.

      Vincent R. Zarate joined his old buddies on Sunday, Feb. 7.

      These guys were truly of the old school. The "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" newspapermen.

     Vinny's stated goal as a newspaper reporter was : "I want to ruin someone's breakfast every Sunday." A noble goal that most of us real reporters aspire to.

     Vinny started his career at The Easton Express and moved to The Newark Evening News in 1961. He stayed there until it closed in 1972. At the 25th anniversary celebration of the life of that noted newspaper, his anecdote about the days in the Morristown Bureau was the one that got the most laughs.

     It seems he was on the night desk when one of the nuns from the Episcopal Convent of St. John the Baptist in Mendham died.  He ran into a problem in the second graph and called the desk in Newark where he had the chance of reaching Jack McCarthy, Walter O'Malley or Mickey McMenimen.

     He got Walter.

    "How do you refer to an Episcopalian nun on second reference?" Vinny asked.

     Walter didn't miss a beat.

      "An imposter."

     After the death of that great newspaper, Vinny moved, briefly, to "the dark side." He worked at the state Department of Community Affairs and then on the gubernatorial campaign of Congressman Charles Sandman. Then he joined the statehouse bureau of The Star-Ledger.

     He covered the budget and often knew the figures before the governor. He taught the younger reporters in the bureau to cultivate the best sources, including the printer in the statehouse basement.

     Vinny was 84. He outlived by five years one of the reporters he trained. Mike Celizic was just 62, so I guess we shouldn't be too sad. But we are.

     His obit featured quotes from former Gov. James Florio and his former bureau chief Leonard Fisher and former insurance commissioner Kenneth Merin. It could have featured quotes from many others, especially colleagues and former colleagues who know the loss of any old newspaperman (or newspaperlady) is a tragedy because people who really believe in this profession as a calling are scarce these days.

    It could also have featured some of the crazy songs Vinny would write for special occasions, like Harpster's 70th birthday or Christine Todd Whitman's exit from the statehouse.

    The one thing more important to Vinny than his job was his family: his daughter, Joan, her husband, William, and their kids, Adan and Vincent. They miss him too.

    So, enjoy the company in newspaper heaven, Vinny.