AIRED: January 21, 2013– 11 am PST
TITLE: “Poor Richard’s Lament, Benjamin Franklin’s Most timely Tale”
SPECIAL GUEST: Tom Fitzgerald
Read More “Poor Richard’s Lament”
“At a time when a host of economic and social ills is causing many of us to contemplate a world beyond materialism and narcissism, Poor Richard’s Lament juices up the process with an ever-building sense of moral urgency.” Michael Zuckerman
Tom Fitzgerald, author of Poor Richard’s Lament, takes Allen, Dr. Melody and our listeners on a whirlwind tour of time and space. Benjamin Franklin has been confined to a private apartment in the Plantation of the Unconfessed for the past two-plus centuries, when he receives notice that his petition for final processing has finally been approved. In the company of two Intermediaries, Ben appears before a panel of Examiners in the Celestial Court of Petitions to make his case. His Examiners, disconcertingly, are three former arch adversaries: John Adams, Alexander Wedderburn, and the Reverend William Smith.
By the end of Ben’s turbulent examination, in which his sins (or, as he calls them, ‘errata’) are brought devastatingly into focus, Ben fully expects to be cast into the abyss. Instead, he’s invited to bear witness to what has become of America in the two-plus centuries of his absence.
TOM FITZGERALD led a Huckleberry Finn childhood on the St. Lawrence River before undertaking formal studies in physics, mathematics, law, industrial management, and English. He has served as a door-to-door salesman of home-study courses, a vocational counselor for adults and children with developmental disabilities, a stockbroker, the assistant to the president of a large health-care corporation, a lobbyist, a technical writer, and a corporate manager. In the latter two capacities, his employers have included AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, NEC, IBM/Lotus Development, and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.
Tom served as a Navy UDT/SEAL during the Vietnam era, and has swum several long distances, including across the eastern end of Lake Ontario, a distance greater than the English Channel. Once also an avid runner, Tom ran the Boston Marathon three times before a fall on black ice abruptly ended a life-long addiction to endorphins. He and his wife of 44 years, a marriage and family therapist, have three grown sons and three grandsons. They live in New England.
He is the author of three works of fiction: Chocolate Charlie (Warner Books, 1974), A Matter of Scents (Pyramid Books, 1974) and Chocolate Charlie Comes Home(Warner Books, 1978), as well as several works of nonfiction
