Bruce, the boss

Bruce Keenan, my boss when I was a part-time sportswriter at The Herald-News and completing my studies at Seton Hall University, was one of the most fascinating characters I’ve met in my life.

His first words to me, when I reported to work one winter evening in 1976 and introduced myself to him as he sat with a toothpick in his mouth and a yardstick protruding from the back of his shirt, were simple and direct: “Sit down.”

Yet, there was little simple about Bruce, I learned during my two years at the Passaic, NJ daily newspaper.

He was only in his mid-30s at the time, but he looked 15-20 years older despite not seeming to have a hard life. If anything, he was hard on life.

Bruce grew up in East Orange, NJ at a time when it changed from a largely white middle-class Newark suburb to mostly a community of African-Americans, whom he sometimes referred to as “rug heads.” He played basketball at Clifford J. Scott High School and went on to Bethany College, where he was as a sports editor for the Class of 1964 yearbook. After finishing military service (something he never talked about), he joined The Herald-News and established his credentials as a sportswriter chronicling the New York Mets miracle run to a World Series title in 1969.

By the time I joined The Herald-News in 1976, Bruce was editing the work of the newspaper’s sportswriters and collaborating with the backroom typesetters on the sports section’s layout. The yardstick he kept with him at all times, along with the lined papers that sat on his desk and the leather athletic shoes he wore on his feet, helped him accomplish that. The booze he liked to drink too often, unfortunately, did not.

When Bruce had one or two too many drinks, sometimes on dinner break when he was scheduled to work late, sometimes before he even got to the office, his staff would typically cover for him. One of the senior members would ensure the edits and layouts were properly done. The rest of us would turn it up a notch so that we could go home on time and with the sports section in good shape. If necessary, one of us would drive him home. It was my first lesson on the importance of taking good care of your boss.

Fortunately, Bruce usually took his job seriously and came to the office – almost always by foot – sober. He would often keep himself away from his local favorite bar (conveniently located halfway between his office and home) by bringing in a salad – “rabbit food,” he called it. After all the sports articles had been written, accounted for in the page layouts, and turned over to the typesetters, he would dismiss us and, shortly afterwards, unless he was “on the wagon,” finish his night by stopping at the bar on his way home.

To some, Bruce was a lot like Oscar Madison, the divorced sportswriter half of The Odd Couple. Bruce never married, though. And, he was a lot more interesting than the Oscar Madison character portrayed on the stage and screen.

For one thing, Bruce was not very predictable. Sometimes he was chatty and sociable and easily amused. Other times he was quiet and brooding.

He liked Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, and would sometimes blurt out a lyric from one of their songs. He said he disliked punk rock. When I went with him to CBGB in New York City one night, however, he felt completely in his element – and had a better time there a few months later during my farewell outing than most of the other, younger sportswriters.

Bruce could be generous, taking the staff out to dinner occasionally, although he basically was very thrifty and Spartan himself. He disliked cheapskates, referring to them as “five-and-dimers.”

He once moved out of his Clifton apartment when the landlord asked him to paint it. “I said ‘no,’” Bruce explained. “I’m not Picasso.”

Bruce appeared to have few friends outside of his favorite bar, but always seemed pleased by visits to the office from the Fairleigh Dickinson University sports information director, a former Herald-News sportswriter who a few years later would become the publicist of the New York Mets. Not surprisingly, the annual FDU sports banquet was Bruce’s favorite social event.

The only person Bruce seemed to spend any time with outside the office or bar was his mom (he never mentioned his father). Driving to visit her in East Orange appeared the only reason he had a car, a non-descript Renault that, like Bruce, seemed older than its years. To his credit, Bruce understood the perils of drinking and driving better than most contemporaries, and his car usually stayed parked in The Herald-News lot on Main Avenue while he walked to and from work.

I last saw Bruce about a dozen years after leaving The Herald-News, while running errands in downtown Clifton. He looked terrible, and the appearance of this big 50-year-old man going on 75 nearly frightened my young son.

It seemed all the sportswriters from my days at The Herald-News lost touch with Bruce as we moved on with our careers, and that was probably okay with him. Bruce seemed just fine with being left alone. He began his rest in peace on July 26, 1996, four months after turning 54.

I always felt one of my rewards for working at The Herald-News was having a boss like Bruce. I realized early in my career there are lessons about life, good and bad, that can’t necessarily be learned from written or spoken words but, rather, by simple observation and reflection. Perhaps that’s why Bruce told me to sit down when we first met.