STEVE STEINER
There are few things I enjoy than ballroom dancing. It’s where I met and courted my wife, who (pun intended) waltzed into my life and danced away with my heart.
At the same time, I think this is an apt description explaining who I am as the new managing editor at the Press and Standard: waltzing to the dance our publisher Charlotte Norwood invited me to do.
So, who is Steve Steiner? Fair enough question. In a nutshell, I am you. Simple as that. But what does that tell you, really?
To begin with, I’m a dirt beneath my fingernails guy. Just an ordinary “Joe.” I come from humble beginnings. My parents were deaf. Being the oldest of two sons, at an early age in the late 1950s-early 1960s, I was “drafted” into becoming the ears and voice of my parents. Even though my parents could speak, having already learned language before childhood illnesses robbed them of the ability to hear, when others my parents dealt with discovered they were deaf, their demeanor shifted. They mistook the term “deaf and dumb” to mean just that: stupid, when in actuality the word dumb means mute.
Because of attitudes at the time, my parents were relegated to low-paying jobs. In one instance, my dad was making eyeglass frames. He was let go during an influx of immigrants who worked for less wages. At one point, things grew so bad my dad was forced to sell his blood in order to pay rent and put food on the table.
Eventually, through the effort of my mother, who prevailed upon her sister, my parents became the custodians at a religious facility. It took some persuading on my aunt’s part, because we all were the same faith (Jewish) of the facility and there was concern re: working on the Sabbath, but she managed to convince the board to hire my parents.
To this day I think it may have been in great measure due to my aunt’s husband, a lawyer who never practiced a day in his life. Instead, he was Robert Moses’s right-hand man, and if you don’t know who Robert Moses was, in a nutshell he was the man responsible for the construction of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island to Manhattan and the rest of New York City’s boroughs, as well as the building of the World Trade Center. My uncle prospered financially due to this association, and to this day I joke this was one Moses who “led my uncle to the Promised Land.”
But I digress. Eventually, through dint of determination, my father landed a job as a linotype operator with the New York Times, where he toiled nearly half a century before he and my mom retired to Greenacres, Florida.
As for me, though, I was at loose ends for much of my adult life. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and as a result bounced around from job to job. In short, life dictated the terms. It wasn’t until nearly three decades ago I took command of my life. In the interim, though, I had to get the stuffing knocked out of me; for despite my not knowing what I wanted to do in life, I had an attitude that (literally) begged for a beating, such is the folly of youth.
It wasn’t pleasant. At times it was humbling. I remember one instance in particular. I was out of work. I wasn’t eligible for unemployment. I couldn’t pay my bills. I couldn’t get hired. In one instance, I had to beg a potential employer to let me work a single day sweeping the factory floor (it was a furniture manufacturer) to prove my worth. I still didn’t get hired.
Being flat out broke, it led to a threat by the utility company to shut off power. It was a straw that broke the camel’s back. I was able to get an extension, but at a cost. I broke down sobbing in the presence of my then-wife, two daughters and a granddaughter. Talk about humiliation. But it was the day I determined to turn my life around.
So, what did I do until I took charge of my life? I worked on assembly lines. For one day, I was a ditch digger. I worked in a factory near a blast furnace. I worked in warehouses. In short, “dirty shirt work.”
But one thing persisted throughout all the trials, tribulations and roadblocks I had set before me. I knew in my heart I was meant for something greater, and that came when I realized what I was meant to do, which was a return to what I had first believed I wanted to do as early as fifth grade. Be a journalist.
It wasn’t easy. More times than I care to admit, rejection followed rejection. At times I would look to the sky and beg, “Please, God, please.”
Finally, He answered, and since then I have given thanks for every day; not because I am doing what I love (which is true), but because what I love doing is for the benefit of others. I am grateful, because my calling is being a servant to others through writing and editing.
This is who I am.
