11:30 am, Aug 4/09: The last grandchild and family has just pulled out of the driveway and after 4 full days and nights our little house is ready to return to status quo. And, I can get back to the Computer ,and again start posting to my blog by tomorrow.
During this interval a dominating figure in Plainfield's history passed away after years of illness.
Rick Taylor was everything to Plainfield that Rev. Al Sharpton would like to be in New York. Although the city sizes are not comparable, and Rick was not as flamboyant of the two he was perhaps more successful in obtaining federal and state funds for his city. His national contacts and associations were not flaunted but were used to great advantage.
Rick was an outspoken vocal leader in the resolution of the city's civil rights problems in the post riot period, and had the greatest impact in forming the Plainfield of today of all the community's activists.
Besides his political career, he will be remember for his impact as director of the South Second Street Youth Center, and the Grant Ave Community Center especially in its conversion of the old JCC into a state of the art civic center.
Rick was a decorated combat veteran of the unpopular Vietnam war. Veterans of that war, unlike those of all other armed conflicts, were shunned by the population. T hat experience helped mold his character.
Sadly because his adopted town's Muhlenberg Regional Center demise he was forced to spend his final days away from friends. Fortunately, because of his military service it was not at JFK, but at the VA Hospital.
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Doc, with all due respect saying that this great man fortunately met his end at a VA and not JFK is a terrible and myopic point of view. Say what you will, but JFK is a thriving hospital that takes very good care of residents of Plainfield and surrounding communities. I am a resident of Plainfield and while I miss Muhlenberg, JFK has taken very good care of my family.
ReplyDelete1:19 pm: I made the comment because I am p----ed off in the manner we lost our hospital and the callous way Trenton and its politicians treated the people of Plainfield.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that JFK while not a bad hospital is no wheres near the standard that Muhlenberg was. I say this not only as a past president of the Muhlenberg staff but one who has had members of his family in JFK in the past.