Unsung, underpaid, but not over-the-hill: the youthful spirit of Frank Coto

Though never having gone himself, Frank Coto has an intimate knowledge of college life. He has been patching holes in drywall, plugging leaks in ceiling pipes, and repairing broken-down electrical equipment at Roger Williams University for nearly two-thirds of the school’s existence.

Coto, a 63 year-old Pittsburg native, began his career as a maintenance worker at RWU in 1971, when its name was Roger Williams College. After his four-year tour in the Navy ended in Newport, Rhode Island, Coto sought work locally before returning home to Pittsburg. On the day he was preparing to make the drive south back home, Coto secured a job at the Bristol college.

What kept Coto at the college over the years was his ability to interact with the students. “I like the atmosphere of a university, of dealing with younger people,” Coto said. “I like imparting the knowledge that I have to others.”
Teaching was something Coto said he found at a young age to be rewarding. Coto’s talent at the high jump on his high school’s track and field team earned him a coaching position, teaching his teammates.

“I saw success at that. I saw guys improve,” Coto said. “And it didn’t matter what school they were from. I got in trouble with the guys from my own team for helping someone from another school. But I liked doing it.”
Though his career led him away from coaching, Coto enjoys being able to help students with his work.

“I find them always refreshing and it has a tendency of keeping you young,” Coto said. “Students have brightness and a glow about their life I find encouraging and refreshing.”

Over the past 38 years, Coto has seen changes in the student body. Coto said that students are less socially active than their predecessors. In 1974, students picketed in front of the administration building, protesting the impending firing of two beloved professors. The students’ demonstration helped convince the administration to keep the professors employed, Coto said.

Activism like this was a product of the national social climate in the Vietnam War era, Coto said. “What I find today is that students know what is going on, but they have a tendency to not act on it,” Coto said.

Coto said he sees the students’ social culture differ each year.

“Each class of students has their own personality. You can watch changes in how they meld together as a group,” Coto said. “You can get a class that is very destructive, or you can get a class that works very well with [maintenance workers’] duties on campus.”

Positive change is not out of the question for today’s students, Coto said. He cited the students living in Maple dormitory 20 years ago who decided to clean and care for their own living space, rendering the services of the maintenance staff unnecessary.

“If you have somebody that doesn’t particularly want to go along with it, but everyone else is going along with the environment that you have, that person will follow suit,” Coto said. “If you don’t like to pick up your stuff and everyone else is picking their stuff up, then the pressure is that you start picking your stuff up and cleaning up after yourself … they proved that that can work. But you have to have a whole group of them wanting to do this.

“It’s the same with those students who want to excel, who surround themselves with people who are productive,” Coto said. “Consequently, their college life ends up becoming something they can use in our society today. It’s a good start, and to me, after having a good start like that, it lasts.”

Though the most senior member of his department, Coto has no plans for retirement. “I like doing my work. And if my health allows me to keep busy, I’d like to continue to keep busy,” Coto said.

To his colleagues seeking his coveted senior position, Coto takes pride in delivering his prepared response.

“I ask them what year they are going to retire. Then I tell them I’ll retire two days before that.”

A family's mourning, another's new day

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 represent tragedy for an entire nation. For Meghan Coombs, September 11^th marks not only a day of national mourning, but also a day of great personal sorrow.

Coombs’s father, Jeff, was a passenger on one of the fateful Los Angeles-bound flights that departed that morning, never to reach its destination in the Golden State.

Jeff Coombs was traveling both for business and pleasure. He had planned a two-week trip, divided half with business engagements as Vice President of a Compaq software department, and half with family time to be spent white water rafting in the bottom of the Grand Canyon with his wife’s brother-in-law.

Meghan Coombs, an eleven year-old sixth grader at the time, was not told of the attacks during school. It was her mother, Christie, who first learned of the attacks. Though the attacks happened in the morning hours, due to the imaginable chaos at the American Airlines offices, Christie Coombs carried the burden of worry until after one o’clock that afternoon.

“When [my mom] drove my dad to the airport that morning he was really tired,” Meghan Coombs recalls. Coombs said her mother, upon recognizing her husband’s flight number on television, called American Airlines in a panic to confirm that her husband was indeed on the plane.

“They said that he hadn’t boarded the flight. My mom was like, ‘Thank God he was tired. He definitely overslept while he was waiting,’” Coombs said.

Unfortunately for the Coombses, that was not the case. According to Coombs, about an hour after her first call, American Airlines called Christie to confirm that her husband did board his flight.

Coombs’s mother immediately called her children out of school. Yet, overcome by grief, Christie relied on two close friends to pick her children up and bring them back to the house.

Alarm bells rang in Coombs’s head as soon as the school’s office called her down for dismissal.

“I knew something was wrong because my mom would never take me out of school without telling me first, even if it was a sudden thing like, ‘Oh I forgot you had a dance appointment,’’ Coombs said. “I was always a worried little kid. I’ve always had anxiety. So I knew something was wrong right there from the get go.”

Her mother’s two friends who “were there looking pale white and distraught,” greeted Coombs in the office, Coombs recalled.

“I was like, ‘What’s wrong? Where’s my dad? Is he okay?’” Coombs said.

“Your mom’s just sick. She wants you to come home,” the women told the now “hysterical” Coombs.

The ride back to her house gave Coombs clarity on the situation. “On the way home, we were like two and a half miles away from my house on the main road off of my street and there were cars all backed up all through all the neighborhoods to my house,” Coombs said. “That’s when I knew that something huge and bad happened.”

“I live in Abington [Massachusetts]. My town’s really small so everyone knows everyone. Literally half the town was at my house,” Coombs said. “Our fire department, police department, priests, teachers, principles, town hall politicians, friends, family – everyone.”

In the weeks following Jeff’s passing, Christie’s friend, Donna, created a road race, all profits of which would go to the Jeffrey Coombs Foundation. The race earned over $50,000 its first year, Coombs said. The race has been run every year since.

In addition to sponsoring the road race, the Jeffrey Coombs Foundation sponsors a Christmastime “families of deployed troops dinner and silent auction,” held in the clubhouse at Gillette Stadium, according to Coombs. The foundation has drawn professional athletes from Boston teams to attend the auction.

Coombs created a series of “Summer’s End Concerts”, featuring over a dozen different musical acts playing on Abington’s Nisby Bandstand. Coombs plans the concert and books the musical acts herself each year.

Proceeds from the Jeffery Coombs Foundation help local families in need. The Foundation has supported families make their houses wheelchair accessible, make medical and mortgage payments and aid families stricken by trauma.

“We always get letters from people who we’ve done even small things for and they say, ‘Thank you so much, you have changed my life so much by doing this,’” Coombs said.

“I always say everything happens for a reason. It’s what I say all the time, no matter what,” Coombs said. “If something bad happens, something good has to come out of it, whether it’s something tiny or something big.”

Coombs still feels sadness over her father’s death, but has found some sense in the seemingly senseless tragedy.

It never gets easy, but it definitely gets easier to deal with your sadness and your grief,” Coombs said. “It sucks, and I would love to have grown up having a father, but I think there was a reason he passed away so that we could help all these other people that needed help.”

Nothing but the truthiness

I value what Stephen Colbert has to say about current events more than I do what any of the major broadcast or cable news networks report. This is alarming. John Stewart keeps his fact reporting honest and his humor tongue-in-cheek; Colbert is a flat-out satirist and he now clearly trumps the passé Stewart in Comedy Central’s evening news hour. I don’t respond to the traditional talking heads of television news broadcasts. They are Rupert Murdoch’s and his cohorts’ puppets, earnestly spreading propaganda and sinister slander. Colbert owes nothing to these cretins of conglomerated media. His popularity undoubtedly makes him a recognizable risk in the eyes of big media, but his delivery allows him to evade the blacklist’s burden. And for that, I respect him. He earns my eyes and ears, if only for thirty minutes. I understand that to hold an opinion on anything discussed during his show, I need to investigate with legitimate sources. But as far as learning the five Ws of the day’s headlines, Colbert is my man.

And by the way, Colbert and Stewart are not the ones deserving of the credit for the satirical, half-hour, down-with-the-kids news program. If Colbert and Stewart are Christopher Columbus, Frank Zappa is Leif Erikson. Zappa pitched MTV in the late-eighties for a thirty-minute news program, to be hosted by the musician/composer himself, which would discuss the day’s news with a comedic, edgy, stick-it-to-the-man flair. Celebrity guest stars would do on-air editorials about special topics. Sadly, the show never went to production, and Zappa passed away long before The Daily Show’s first episode. Thus is the tragic life of Frank Zappa, misunderstood genius.

Hey baby, what's your sign ....

Language is the means by which all information is transmitted from one human to another; it is the currency of the media. Yet, for having such importance, it seems strange that language on its own does not have superlative symbols. For example, the four letters that make up the word “love” do not have any more meaning by themselves than do the four letters that make “dirt.” How, then, did “l,” “o,” “v,” and “e” come to represent one of the most heavily weighted words in the English language? What makes those letters so special?

And why are the media constantly refining their language choices down to the most concise possible? It seems paradoxical that the media, whose jobs it is to provide people with information, pare down the number of words they use to tell a story. Efficient fact-reporting is courteous to the audience, but allowing these same people to expect that complex stories be recounted with brevity is a disservice to all. Conditioning Americans to have short attention spans robs them of the patience and motivation to read through the long articles, listen to multiple voices, and synthesize their own opinion from the largest number informed sources. The pen is mightier than the sword and knowledge is power; the media should wield their mighty loudspeaker with more reverence for the strength it language emits.