Tom Fritzinger, a principal of Book Travelers West, died Sunday. In recent years he had battled lung cancer and brain cancer.
Craig McCroskey, a colleague of Fritzinger at the rep group, wrote the following appreciation:
"Tom always seemed to me like a Damon Runyon character who'd somehow gone to the same Ohio high school as Jonathan Winters and then ended up in Huntington Beach. Early on he had worked for the larger-than-life Lew Lengfeld, who owned Books, Inc., after which he'd been a salesman for Macmillan in Northern California; then he became a commission rep with the Ron Smith Group in Southern California over 35 years ago. I saw him as a sort of poker player who knew when to be seen thinking, as opposed the average rep, whose tendency is to speak until he discovers what (if anything) he has to say. Add to that an overlay of Southern California that tended to come out in laconic observations reminiscent of Yogi Berra's only minus the paradoxes, and you have the man. One of my favorite of those observations was his reaction to a title he thought he could sell, but which he knew wouldn't engender much interest among his clientele: with a gentle rocking movement of his outstretched down-facing palm, he told the publisher, 'I give that a pale green light.' The poetry of the Southland.
"We will all miss him so much, his sly quiet wit, his ability (unusual in our group) to keep his silence and bide his time when circumstances called for it, his kindness and fairness, his taste or tolerance for all the different types that we encounter in this business, his love of sports, his philosophical and unexcitable outlook, his love of the Manhattan straight up, his devotion to family, his ability to make John Gould giggle like a school kid and make me behave like an adult, and that special spark that made him fun to be with. All this and more we will sorely miss."
Craig McCroskey, a colleague of Fritzinger at the rep group, wrote the following appreciation:
"Tom always seemed to me like a Damon Runyon character who'd somehow gone to the same Ohio high school as Jonathan Winters and then ended up in Huntington Beach. Early on he had worked for the larger-than-life Lew Lengfeld, who owned Books, Inc., after which he'd been a salesman for Macmillan in Northern California; then he became a commission rep with the Ron Smith Group in Southern California over 35 years ago. I saw him as a sort of poker player who knew when to be seen thinking, as opposed the average rep, whose tendency is to speak until he discovers what (if anything) he has to say. Add to that an overlay of Southern California that tended to come out in laconic observations reminiscent of Yogi Berra's only minus the paradoxes, and you have the man. One of my favorite of those observations was his reaction to a title he thought he could sell, but which he knew wouldn't engender much interest among his clientele: with a gentle rocking movement of his outstretched down-facing palm, he told the publisher, 'I give that a pale green light.' The poetry of the Southland.
"We will all miss him so much, his sly quiet wit, his ability (unusual in our group) to keep his silence and bide his time when circumstances called for it, his kindness and fairness, his taste or tolerance for all the different types that we encounter in this business, his love of sports, his philosophical and unexcitable outlook, his love of the Manhattan straight up, his devotion to family, his ability to make John Gould giggle like a school kid and make me behave like an adult, and that special spark that made him fun to be with. All this and more we will sorely miss."