ABE ZAIDAN PASSES AWAY

 

Abe Zaidan, former BJ political columnist and writing coach, passed away Monday, April 26.

Son Mark Zaidan posted on Facebook:

“It is with a great deal of sadness that I share the passing of my father,  Abe Zaidan. He died peacefully in his sleep. My mom, my brother and I are making all necessary arrangements. At this time we are not planning to have calling hours. We deeply appreciate the love and support of our friends and family during this difficult time."

University of Illinois and tiny Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania graduate Abe lived in Fairlawn with wife Nancy. I frequently saw Abe at BJ monthly gatherings at Papa Joe’s in the Merriman Valley.

Abe’s desk was 20 feet from the office of John S. Knight, the best newspaper owner in American history.

Abe had two proudly liberal blogs, Grumpy Abe and Plunderbund, which the dictionary describes as a a corrupt alliance of political, commercial and financial interests engaged in exploiting the public, which is a national malady in America.

The late State Desk legend, Harry Liggett, once posted on this blog: “If you type the word ‘Zaidan’ in the Ohio.com search box, you are asked the question, ‘Did you mean Satan?’ “ Who knew that Google was a right-winger?

It was painful to be the target of Abe’s wit, as former University of Akron president Scott Scarborough knows. After Abe skewered Scarborough about spending $1 million to spruce up for his personal castle, including a master suite for SS’s in-laws, Scarborough was booted out of his expensive re-do home permanently.

Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, who vowed to eliminate the state income tax, got a withering  $12 billion zinger from Abe: Where will that money over 10 years come from? Kasich’s lieutentant governor running mate was State Auditor Mary Taylor. Abe’s final arrow: Another John McCain-Sarah Palin debacle.

Even the BJ was not safe. Abe ripped into his former employer for giving Republican Congressional candidate the top half of the front page with Ganley’s Toyota auto dealership getting a flattering and free-ad photo.

Theoretically, the story was about auto sales in the Akron area improving. Abe saw it as a free campaign contribution against  Ganley’s opponent, Betty Sutton, seeking re-election to her 13^th Congressional district seat.

Abe saved his best salvo for last: “Former State Desk Editor Pat Englehart must be spinning in his grave.” Pat, like Abe, didn’t suffer fools gladly. Since both are no longer with us, Heaven help St. Peter! The Pearly Gates will be rolling rocking with those two going at it!

The BJ got another whip-lashing from Abe’s typing fingers when Ted Gup, former BJ reporter and investigative reporter for the hallowed Washington Post and Time Magazine, spoke at the Akron Press Club and the BJ didn’t print a word about it.

Abe’s ready-aim-fire: “It disappoints me, and I'm sure many others, to see people like Ted Gup ignored by the town's only daily newspaper. What's wrong with this picture?”

Abe identified himself as “a minor role player in the BJ’s greatness.” That’s a bit modest, Abe.

Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart got an arrow into his butt, too from Abe. Republican Robart took the usual shot at Democrats for bailing out automakers.

Abe grumpily and wittily wondered why Robart didn’t complain about all the federal money he embraced joyfully that propped up many Falls ventures.

The PD didn’t dodge the Abe bullets either. When the Cleveland product out-shone by the BJ in those days published a 40-minute video of the PD editorial board interview of Governor Kasich, Democratic candidate Ed Fitzgerald and Green Party candidate Anita Rios which PD honchos removed, Abe ran a short clip of the group political huddle.

The PD responded by threatening to sue Abe, a favorite piss-on-the-First-Amendment bullying tactic of companies with highly paid attorneys vs. individuals who can’t afford the lawsuit fees.

I know from personal experience when slap-suit threats were aimed at me. I don’t bow easily, though. Neither did Abe. Kindred spirits, we.

Abe’s penetrating writing also was used to defend. When the PD muzzled Don Rosenberg, its music critic and former BJ music critic, with a demotion for daring to not kiss the feet of the Cleveland Orchestra, Abe used his assessment of the New York Times expose of the classless action with: “Don was an astute, sensitive and dedicated workaholic” and “the mighty PD serves masters outside the newsroom.”

Followed by: “We hope that this dark event will not be another Cleveland joke around the country.”

Zing went the tart-strings!

The late BJ Features editor/pet columnist Connie Bloom, a self-described “activist and artist” (a legend in fabric art in Ohio; I have a Connie art fabric in my kitchen/dining room hallway), scored a bulls-eye when she wrote:

“Wit and wisdom from Abe is always a romp.”

When the irascible and self-described “socialist” reporter Terry Oblander passed away, Abe’s tribute obit called “The Dutchman” “a very good - and honorable - reporter who was happily dedicated in his work.”

In 2007 Abe and John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, wrote “Portraits of Power: Ohio and National Politics, 1964-2004.”

Abe was a long-friend and co-worker with the late Dave Hess, who spent time in the Knight conglomerate’s Washington bureau and was elected president of the National Press Club.

Now Abe and Dave can play poker in Heaven. Abe wrote a loving and humorous obit tribute to Dave’s ineptness in poker on this blog years ago.

Abe’s passing reminds me again why we called it The Good Ol’ Days at the BJ.  Because they where, with talent like Abe, Dave, Terry and Pat around and JSK protecting us from would-be powerful detractors. 

No wonder I ran to work every day of my 26 years at the BJ. If I could afford it I would have paid John Knight and Ben Maidenburg to work there. It was the most exciting time in my 43-year journalism career. 

FORMER D.C. DOORMAN WHO WROTE "COUNTRY ROADS"

John Denver did NOT write the original draft of “Country Roads,” the official song of West Virginia and one I sing with a song in my heart in Mountaineer Field after WVU wins the football game.

That was a night club doorman, Bill Danoff, who wrote “Country Roads” first draft. And the original title was “Rhododendron,” for the official state flower of West Virginia, but it provided to be too cumbersome to rhyme.

Danoff was a doorman at the tiny Cellar Door nightclub in Washington, D.C., later the lighting and sound technician for years before he ever performed at the club at the corner of 34th and M streets NW with Danoff’s then-wife Mary Catherine “Taffy” Nivert Danoff as performers in Fat City, a Georgetown-based folk music band. 

Taffy got her nickname because her older brother as a young child mispronounced her name as Mary Tafferine.

Later the couple joined with Jon Carroll and Margot Chapman to form the Grammy-winning Starland Vocal Band that signed with Denver’s Windsong Records and record their most famous song, “Afternoon Delight.”

Danoff and Taffy had hoped to show their “Country Roads” to Johnny Cash, who they didn’t know personally, because they liked the Man in Black’s opening chords. They reversed the chords for “Country Roads.”

Danoff showed his “Country Roads” draft to John Denver. Then Danoff and Denver, with Taffy holding the sheet music, altered it to its present form. They stayed up all night polishing the song.

These are the lyrics that Danoff thought would be too colorful for 1970s radio so he dropped them:

In the foothills,
Hidin’ from the clouds,
Pink and purple,
West Virginia farm house,
Naked ladies,
Men who look like Christ,
And a dog named Poncho nibbling on the rice,
Country roads

The next night at the Cellar Door on December 30, 1970, Denver called Bill and Taffy to the stage for an encore, where they performed the finished version of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in public for the first time.

A few days later they were in the studio recording the song. Danoff had to play the lead guitar because of Denver’s broken thumb from an auto accident.

And “Country Roads” took off into music history!

Danoff was picking at his guitar while Taffy drove on a country road in Maryland to her family reunion when the germ of a song idea came into his head. Let him explain how “West Virgina” entered the music:

“I’m a songwriter. I was looking for words. The words that I loved in that song were Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. They’re songwriter words, so that got me to West Virginia.”

It was Taffy who worked on “Rhododendron,” the song’s original title because that is the state flower of West Virginia. When coming up with words that rhymed with “rhododendron” became too tough, Taffy checked the encyclopedia for West Virginia further and came up with “Blue Ridge Mountains” and “Shenandoah River” even though they are mostly in Virginia, but also in Jefferson County, West Virginia.  

Danoff had never been to West Virginia. The state’s words just spoke to him.

Since, Danoff has visited West Virginia several times and even waded into the Shenandoah River that he made re-famous. He was named an honorary West Virginian.

And John Denver is his favorite singer of “Country Roads”? Nope. “Ray Charles,” Danoff said, as his voice cracks as if to hold back a tear. “That broke my heart. Ray Charles is incredible, he’s an idol – he sings one of your songs, it's pretty good.”

“Country Roads” did good, too, to speak a West Virginia term.

The song soared to #1 on the Record World pop singles chart and the Cash Box Top 100 and number 2 on Billboard, behind "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" by The Bee Gees. “Country Road” went gold in sales in 1971 and got a second shot to go platinum in 2017. More than 1.6 million copies have been sold in America.

Denver sang “Country Roads” at the opening of new Mountaineer Field before the first WVU game there in 1980. WVU fans sing it after every Mountaineer victory, in Morgantown or on the road. The West Virginia Legislature made it one of four official state songs in 2014. And “Almost Heaven” from the song has become a state slogan slapped on everything handed to tourists.

“Country Roads” was played at the funeral for legendary and influential West Virginia Senator Robert Byard at the State Capitol in Charleston on July 2, 2010.

I have instructed my family to play it as my farewell song at my funeral before I am laid to rest at Northlawn Memorial Gardens alongside my personal Mona Lisa (as I called my wife, a play on her name of Monia Elizabeth, for decades) under a double grave marker with “WV” under Monnie’s name and my name.

For me it will be a permanent “Take Me Home, Country Roads”! Joining my Mountain Mama for all time.

 

A YEAR OF CARNAGE IN MEDIA LAYOFFS

An epidemic for newspapers

In Ohio alone 11 newspapers or groups sent thousands of journalists out on the streets, jobless, in the past year, according to Poyntner Institute.

Including Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland Scene.

The horrific list:

• Adams Publishing Group cut pay and hours for employees company-wide, Poynter has learned. It owns eight newsrooms in Ohio.
• Among those taking the most recent Gannett buyouts were 11 people from The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Poynter has learned.
• CityBeat in Cincinnati had furloughs and pay cuts.
• Cleveland Scene laid off five staffers.
• Gannett had furloughs and cost reductions. It later had buyouts, with about 500 people losing their jobs. It owns 56 newspapers in Ohio. 
• Ogden Newspapers furloughed employees companywide, Poynter has learned. It owns 13 newspapers in Ohio.
• Advance Local newsrooms announced pay cuts and furloughs. Advance Local owns two newsrooms in Ohio.
• CNHI had layoffs, pay cuts and furloughs, Poynter has learned. It owns one newsroom in Ohio.
• Mount Vernon News, which was locally owned, was sold to Metric Media LLC, cut down to two print days a week and took down its paywall online. The new owner has been criticized for “political messaging’ and that they are ‘partisan outlets masquerading as local news organizations.’”
• Three copy editors took buyouts at the Columbus Dispatch, Poynter has learned. It is owned by Gannett.
• The Chillicothe Gazette will move out of its building in September. It is owned by Gannett.

This decimating of local staffers has been replicated in EVERY state plus the District of Columbia.

The #1 victim, after the multitude of staffers laid off: Democracy. No one left to keep the political and shady business fox from raiding the henhouse.

To see the names throughout America, go to 

 Here are the newsroom layoffs, furloughs and closures that happened during the coronavirus pandemic - Poynter

Mary Ethridge Williamson, reporter at the BJ from 1988-2006, has been floating on the C of Celebrities her entire life.

Most important, to me anyway, Mary’s mother, Peg Ethridge, was from my native state of West Virginia and, like me, graduated from West Virginia University.

Thus, less impressive, to me, were such luminaries as:

Mary’s father, Mark Ethridge, BJ editor from 1973 to 1976.

Mary’s grandfather, Mark Ethridge, Sr., was Louisville Courier Journal editor for many years.

Mary’s brother, Mark Ethridge III, was Charlotte Observer managing editor in the 1970s and 1980s.

Certainly NOT least of all, Mary is married to Mark Williamson, who as WAKR-Channel 23 anchor and news director covered the 1979 plane crash that killed New York Yankees legend and Akronite Thurman Munson, who was practicing landings with his Cessna at Akron/Canton Airport; is Director Marketing Communications for Akron Public Schools; and for 15 years was spokesman for 15 years for the volative Mayor Don Plusquellic, not a task without its turbellent waters.

 

Mary and Mark have a daughter, Grace, who gifted them with a granddaughter, Rylee.

 

This is the mail that Mary sent to me, at my request:

 

Hi John,

 

My father, Mark Ethridge, Jr., was editor of the BJ from 1973 until 1976. He came from the Detroit Free Press where he was editor.  After he left the BJ, he taught journalism at the University of South Carolina.

 

I grew up in Grosse Pointe. It is a pretty ritzy place with all those auto executive mansions, but we had a modest house in a family-oriented neighborhood. My mom, Peg Ethridge, was from West Virginia! Her parents were graduates of that wonderful university.

 

My grandfather, Mark Ethridge, Sr., was publisher of the Louisville Courier Journal for many years. His wife, Willie Snow Ethridge, wrote 15 non-fiction books.

 

My brother, Mark Ethridge III, was managing editor of the Charlotte Observer in the 1970s and early 80s. He went on to write three novels. 

 

I worked at the Beacon from the summer of 1988 until the fall of 2006. Before that, I was director of editorial projects at The University of Akron. I went back to work at the university in 2013 but was laid off in 2014 when its financial situation worsened. I returned to doing some freelance projects for Live Publishing mainly. 

 

When I started at the BJ, Ohio was going through an epic drought so we put together a team to write a series about climate change. We were 30 years ahead of our time. That was just one highlight of a career I loved. I miss my newsroom colleagues every day.

 

My husband, Mark Williamson, works for the Akron Public Schools after a career in broadcasting and city government.

 

I have one daughter, Grace, who is the mother of my two-year-old granddaughter, Rylee. She's an absolute joy and mischief-maker. I love being her "Mimi". She calls Mark, Jiddo, arabic for grandfather -- a nod to his Lebanese heritage.

 

Grace is a clinical mental health counselor in the Akron area. She received her master's degree from UA in 2019.

 

I'll send you some photos in a separate email.

 

Thanks for thinking of me. Stay well.

 

Best,

Mary

 

--

Mary Ethridge

Editor and Writer

330-687-2445

maryethridge@gmail.com

 

I know that, during my 26 years at the BJ, I ran to work because I loved the atmosphere so much! And in the 25 years of my retirement I see time after time how I’m not alone in my feelings. BJ retiree after retiree just gushes with the glory of working for John S. Knight, in my opinion the best newspaper owner in history (and I worked for St. Petersburg Times publisher Nelson Poynter, son of Paul Poynter who bought the paper in 1912; Nelson ushed new hires into his throne room every month or so; JSK just walked around the newsroom and chatted with the staff, including Fran Murphey in her bib overalls). 44 E. Exchange Street will be my favorite topic when I meet St. Peter at the Golden Gate.

 

Ben Maidenburg, as most know, salvaged by career by hiring me after the Dayton Daily News and famed editor/columnist Jim Fain had me fired for union activities at the Dayton Daily News, owned by the union-hating Cox Newspapers out of Atlanta.

 

And State Desk editor Pat Englehart, with his deNobil cigar and frenzied behavior that irritated management but inspired his underlings, taught me more about being an editor than I had learned for coming to the BJ at the age of 38 with 15 years of journalism experience.

 

Mary isn’t the only one who spent a life surrounded by celebrities.