Way too soon ...
The newsroom at the Buffalo News was a somber place today, friends tell me.
It will be a lot quieter for a long time, too, with the sudden passing of reporter Jay Bonfatti.
It will probably be in the paper tomorrow, but Jay -- just 52 -- died last night or early this morning while on vacation in the Cape Cod area with his extended family. Apparently he died of heart attack in his sleep.
But what makes it saddest for the people at 1 News Plaza, and a great many others too, is that we were all family when it came to Jay.
He was an excellent reporter and writer -- trained at the unofficial university known as the Associated Press to be both quick and accurate. He was good, but he knew never to take himself too seriously to have fun.
But he was also the guy in the newsroom who welcomed all the interns and provided a reminder that we were in a newsroom, not an actuarial office. He had few pretensions, but he had a knack for puncturing those of others with his humor. And he could take it himself too.
I remember almost 20 years ago when he was coaching one of the softball teams in the Buffalo media league, when my 3-year-old daughter was coming with my wife and I to games. Her response when seeing Jay -- in a gray sweatsuit and never particularly skinny -- was something to the effect of "Mom and Dad ... is that the saggy, baggy elephant?" She'd just been read the book of the name.
He took it well, but I'm sure he would have loved the chance to give her back some gibes now that she's an adult.
It was the friendships, I think, that brought Jay back to Buffalo after his AP career had taken him to the bigger pond of Philadelphia. Here he got to write some pretty cool stuff -- including a series that had taken him on an ecological tour of the Great Lakes last fall.
But it was the people that kept him here. When I left The News for the last time on Aug. 1, we hosted a happy hour with the Steam Donkeys at the Sportsman's Tavern. Near the end of the night, when my wife and I took to the floor for a slow dance to the Donkeys' "Dance Through the Rubbish" (Buck Quigley's classic about a dance in the wake of the party), Jay turned his camera from the band to us, taking some video. He said later he'd be sending us a copy.
Typical Jay. He loved the party, but he was always willing to give to others.,
So anyway, it's about time I started up a blog. This will be a place to write about journalism and other stuff that I find interesting. I think Jay would appreciate being the one to encourage me to just start doing it.
This one's for him.
It will be a lot quieter for a long time, too, with the sudden passing of reporter Jay Bonfatti.
It will probably be in the paper tomorrow, but Jay -- just 52 -- died last night or early this morning while on vacation in the Cape Cod area with his extended family. Apparently he died of heart attack in his sleep.
But what makes it saddest for the people at 1 News Plaza, and a great many others too, is that we were all family when it came to Jay.
He was an excellent reporter and writer -- trained at the unofficial university known as the Associated Press to be both quick and accurate. He was good, but he knew never to take himself too seriously to have fun.
But he was also the guy in the newsroom who welcomed all the interns and provided a reminder that we were in a newsroom, not an actuarial office. He had few pretensions, but he had a knack for puncturing those of others with his humor. And he could take it himself too.
I remember almost 20 years ago when he was coaching one of the softball teams in the Buffalo media league, when my 3-year-old daughter was coming with my wife and I to games. Her response when seeing Jay -- in a gray sweatsuit and never particularly skinny -- was something to the effect of "Mom and Dad ... is that the saggy, baggy elephant?" She'd just been read the book of the name.
He took it well, but I'm sure he would have loved the chance to give her back some gibes now that she's an adult.
It was the friendships, I think, that brought Jay back to Buffalo after his AP career had taken him to the bigger pond of Philadelphia. Here he got to write some pretty cool stuff -- including a series that had taken him on an ecological tour of the Great Lakes last fall.
But it was the people that kept him here. When I left The News for the last time on Aug. 1, we hosted a happy hour with the Steam Donkeys at the Sportsman's Tavern. Near the end of the night, when my wife and I took to the floor for a slow dance to the Donkeys' "Dance Through the Rubbish" (Buck Quigley's classic about a dance in the wake of the party), Jay turned his camera from the band to us, taking some video. He said later he'd be sending us a copy.
Typical Jay. He loved the party, but he was always willing to give to others.,
So anyway, it's about time I started up a blog. This will be a place to write about journalism and other stuff that I find interesting. I think Jay would appreciate being the one to encourage me to just start doing it.
This one's for him.
Elmer Ploetz
posted by Mister E at
1:51 PM
3 Comments:
Addendum: To get a feel for what people are saying about Jay, go to http://buffalonews.typepad.com/inside_the_news/2008/08/a-gift-gone-too.html
Many of them say it much better than I could.
You did a great job with your post, Elmer.
Nice job, Elmer. I posted similar thoughts at http://buddbailey.blogspot.com/2008/08/john-f-bonfatti.html.
Still got an XL t-shirt left over from the race for me? I never got one. Thanks.
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