RIP Craig Schmidt - aka Frank Ridgeway

And here's something else to add to that list. Too many of you guys walk around with chips on your shoulders about people, posters, what have you. Stop. Be a little kinder and tolerant. Don't be so quick to nit pick and dismiss someone because their opinion is different or because of some other silly notion such as skin tone or weight. Life is too short to be so miserable.

 

I loved reading his posts, especially about clothing. I remember having a civil disagreement with him about some fashion choice -- he let me know that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about in the nicest way possible. I remember reading his gentle rebuke with a huge grin.

You could tell he was a true gentleman. RIP

 

Amen, brother Drip.

 

Feel like I just got kicked in the stomach. What a horrible shock. Craig's career and mine criss-crossed the country many times. We never actually worked together but it often felt as if we had. He was such a reasonable presence here and on Facebook. He took the nom de plume Frank Ridgeway because he liked that character from "Eddie and the Cruisers," one of his favorite films with a Jersey touch. Condolences not only to Craig's family but to everyone he connected with or touched in a great many newsrooms and on the FB & SJ sites. I can just imagine the SJ reunion going on right now among Craig (Frank), Ron Drogo (Spnited), Craig Stanke (SF Express) and Paul Needell (Shockey). Wonderful friends and colleagues, all.

 

Well, just ... damn. I met Craig in the early '80s when were were both getting started in Tucson. RIP. Too young.

 

This. I realized ~15 years ago when I was a relative newbie in this business that Frank/Craig was someone on this board I should reach out to. I PM'd him and developed an online friendship with him. I sent him clips of my work and he graciously took time to read them and give me advice on how I could get better. I remember talking education with him one time -- I didn't have a degree in journalism when I got in. Craig told me wisely that if I went back to school there was no point in majoring in journalism because I had learned everything I'd ever need to know from working at a newspaper. That stuck with me when I eventually finished my bachelor's in economics. When I think of mentors who made me better, Craig Schmidt was it. I knew he was pretty young and my heart sank reading this news. I am a better writer and journalist thanks to Craig.

 

I'll be wearing a somber, dark gray suit and thrift shop tie.

 

Damn. Never had any interaction with him, but always respected what he had to say, and he clearly knew the business and was good at it. This from the obituary was sad to see, as well, because he would have been damn good at it, I'm sure:

He last worked at the New York Daily News and was thrilled about an interview at the New York Times on the day he passed.

 

I found this quote yesterday and loved it all over again. I couldn't begin to comprehend it then or now without looking up photos of those types of shoes. I mean, I had an idea of what brogues were, but bluchers? What the hell are bluchers?

And then I saw that those Allen Edmonds shoes go for $300 to $700 a pair.
Dunno what kind of bargains Craig/Frank got, but his shoe payments were more like car payments to me.

 

Longtime lurker, infrequent poster …

Frank_Ridgeway is the only SJ member whose true identity I really wanted to learn. His posts were of such value – they advanced a conversation, put forth a point of view worth considering, demonstrated impeccable writing and editing – that I wondered who this person was. I’m pretty sure I’d never worked with him, but had a colleague, or a former colleague? What else could I learn from him? From some of his comments, I figured we might have Advance shops as a commonality. (We did.)

Reading his travel piece about Greenville, South Carolina, I was struck by a couple of things:

1) Thank God the NYDN resisted AP’s style change to spell out state names.

2) Frank_Ridgeway could write. From the first paragraph to the last, he knew what he was doing when he chose the words he did. “GREENVILLE, S.C., is a daring, darling Dixie city …” and “quality shopping that outclasses trinket mongers clogging quaint but essentially useless downtowns.” “Trinket mongers” – I’ll go to my cremation wishing I’d thought of that phrase. Anybody who brandishes the opinion that “editors do what they do because they can’t write” will get a fight from me, and I will brandish Frank_Ridgeway as Exhibit 1.

F_R clearly cared about the craft of producing a product meant for widespread public consumption. The words matter. The sequence they’re used matter. Some of his thoughts as expressed on S_J made me pretty sure he was at least a little older than I was, and I was correct. He (and, by extension, I) was an endangered species when it came to ensuring THE exact word was used to convey the proper image in a reader’s mind, as opposed to ensuring a web headline would entice the maximum page views. To be honest (and don’t take offense, anyone), it’s alarming that F_R and SF_Express are worshiped on this board as paragons of style and usage and such; shouldn’t EVERYONE in the business be as concerned with such matters (the serial comma, “workmanlike” incorrectly used to mean “methodical” or “rough-hewn,” “compared to”/”compared with,” “allude”/”refer” – and don’t get me started on someone “referencing a play from two years ago” as a stand-in for “referring to …”) as these two were?

When still in the newspaper biz, I took heart from his reassurances that print would survive and could even thrive as times changed. His tone – please understand, I viewed this anonymous Oracle as worthy of faith -- carried such assurance, my worries waned. (I take less heart now, and am, gratefully, out of the print biz.) His death doesn’t mean anything for the fate of printed newspapers as a profitable industry. But his death does mark the passing of a man who exemplified the best of the profession (the best of any profession, really) – earnest striving to do the best job possible, in honor of the craft.

 

So very sad to hear this news. As many, many others have stated before me, Frank_Ridgeway was someone who made this board/website interesting and worthwhile in so many ways. I never met Craig in person, however, he was always responsive to messages and offering advice.

Sending thoughts and prayers to his family and friends. SJ.com has lost yet another gem.