The following remarks were shared by former Maplewood Mayor Fred Profeta at his induction into the Columbia High School Hall of Fame on April 17, 2026:
The last time I was on this stage before an audience of this size was on June 20, 1957, when I delivered our graduation speech – with 422 members of the class behind me sitting on bleacher seats.
Among other things, I said this:
“This is perhaps the last time the entire class will assemble as a whole [it was]. Some of us will never meet again [some of us didn’t]. It’s hard to leave old ties of friendship and begin anew. The thrill of a touchdown, the clamor of the lunchroom, friendly hellos in the halls, Junior Night, senior week – these are but memories now, belonging to different world. Tomorrow a much wider world lies before us.”
That was 69 years ago.
And now the Class of 57 is turning 87. I’ll reach that mark in 11 days.
That “wide world” that was before me and my classmates then is mostly behind us now. So what I’d like to do today is offer you some of the life lessons that I have learned since 1957.
Before I prepared these remarks I resolved that I would not be talking about myself, but rather about these lessons. But I soon realized that you can’t do that without talking about your own experiences. That’s where the lessons come from. So I apologize in advance for that focus.
To begin with – this is the number one thing I would like to tell you. In your life’s journey – wherever you go – make sure you do what you are good at. And do what you love.
Fred Profeta, CHS Class of 1957, with Lily Kyle, CHS Class of 2026, at the 2026 CHS Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Photo by Max Fraidstern, CHS Class of 2027.
These are usually the same thing.
You have only one life – make sure you enjoy it.
Do NOT be obsessed with money – a useful guide is to “Favor meaning over money.” The joy of doing what you love is worth much more than money – and it is often the case that if you do what you are good at you will make enough money in spite of yourself.
This was my experience – I started my legal career at a big Wall Street law firm called Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. These were not my type of people. They wanted their young associates to complete as many projects as possible so that they could charge their clients as much money as possible.
But I loved to research the law and find legal nuggets that could help my cases. I loved to write, and I loved to argue cases in court.
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft said I was spending too much time on this and not completing enough cases. So I quit this firm, and eventually hung out my own shingle in downtown Manhattan, and began a practice specializing in appeals. I spent as much time as I wanted on each case, even though I couldn’t charge for all that time. I loved it! I won a lot of cases, and people came to me with their cases because I won. I even beat Donald Trump twice – that looked good on my website!
So, in spite of myself, I made more than enough money than I needed. I took the extra money that I made, got good advice, and invested it wisely. And now, in my 87th year, this has allowed me to give to the community that I love without worries that I will have enough to live on.
That is what I call a very good deal.
You can do it too. Follow your soul. And always remember that we are not all good at the same things.
Fred Profeta, CHS Class of 1957. Photo by Max Fraidstern, CHS Class of 2027.
Do what YOU are good at. Forget the stuff you are not good at. And you will be rewarded – mostly with happiness.
Here’s another life lesson that I think is important – do not be afraid to challenge authority when authority is about to do something that is dumb, or dangerous, or just plain wrong.
I have done this a number of times, and believe me, it sure feels good when you succeed. The first time this happened to me in a big way was in 1977. The Board of Education was convinced that we were in a student population decline that would last for decades. Their conclusion – we had excess space in our buildings and we were wasting money heating them, maintaining them, and employing too many teachers. The solution – close what was then Maplewood Junior High School, tear it down, sell the land, and put all the Maplewood Junior High School kids in SOJHS.
For those of us who looked at the data, this made no sense – there was no good evidence that the school population would decline forever – and of course it didn’t.
Well, my mother was a well-respected and beloved guidance counselor at Maplewood Junior High at the time. And she said to me “Freddie [she always called me Freddie], stop spending so much time on other stuff and do something to save your old school.” Of course, it was her school too. She didn’t give me much of a choice.
So I became a leader of a group called Concerned Citizens, and we put together a slate of Board of Education candidates who were pledged to stop the demolition of Maplewood Junior High School. We campaigned like crazy. We went door to door. We put banners across downtown streets for the first time. And our candidates won in a landslide, in the biggest BOE election turnout ever. In the first BOE meeting after the election, the vote to demolish Maplewood Junior High was reversed.
Mickey Perrotta, Sabatino Perrotta Jr., Joanna Calo, Fred Profeta and Ben Cohen. Photo by Max Fraidstern.
And that school still stands today.
As a result, you students didn’t have to spend years all crammed into South Orange Middle School or into portables located Lord knows where.
There are more examples of challenging authority that I can give you. But I’ll be brief.
One was starting the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race which put an end to racial steering and blockbusting by unscrupulous realtors. We got the goods on them, proved that they were engaged in illegal activities, and threatened to take them to court, and they stopped. And then we showed them that they could make more money, not by destroying our towns, but by marketing homes to people of all races – because that would be a bigger market. More buyers – more money. Made sense to them. And that helped to preserve our beautiful integration, still evident today.
Another effort I was involved in was organizing Essex County residents in a group called Save Our Reservation. This was to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from building a 100 foot high dam in the South Mountain Reservation, allegedly to stop flooding in Millburn and other towns. That would have destroyed the Reservation. After months of protesting, an Army Colonel organized a meeting in Millburn to make his case. Everyone in the crowd was wearing Save Our Reservation stickers and the opposition was unanimous. After the meeting, the Colonel came up to me and said “Fred, you win. No dam.” The Army surrendered!
So here is my point to you – there is strength in numbers when authority stands in the way of a just result – but only if some people organize those numbers to speak as one.
You can do it too. And after you do it once, it’s much easier the next time.
The final life lesson that I will present to you is this – be generous with whatever you have to give to others. And when you do this, remember this saying from the Bible: “Generosity is measured not by the size of the gift but by the size of what you have left.” (Luke 21) I have seriously engaged in local philanthropy for the last 25 years or so. And for me, nothing feels better than giving. “It is better to give than to receive.” That’s also in the Bible. I’m sure that all of you have experienced that at Holiday time when presents are exchanged.
I spoke to the Ethical Culture Society a couple of weeks ago. I told them why I felt that generosity was important. And afterwards, an elderly Iranian woman came up to me and said: “Your remarks were great. You changed my life.” Wow! That just blew me away! How many times do you get to change somebody’s life?
Why is generosity such a good tonic for the soul? I like to quote a psychology professor at Georgetown by the name of Abigail Marsh, who said: “We are such a social species that doing things that help others around us is just very deep in our core . . . . It’s something that most people are built to want to do.”
I believe that we all have this instinct. But you have to discover it and feel it. And when you do, you should act on it. Just think if everyone discovered it and acted on it – what a better place this world would be.
So here is a question – is it OK to be rich? Sure it is – as long as you don’t make it your most important aim in life. And my advice is this – if you have money, don’t horde it! There is a lot of wisdom in the old adage “You can’t take it with you.” And there is no excuse for anyone to die a billionaire while 2.6 billion in the world don’t have enough good food to eat.
Let me leave you with this reflection: I have spent a good portion of my long life doing the work that I love in the city that I love and having been well paid for it. I think I have spent an equal portion of my life working for and giving back to the community that has nurtured me. And a good part of that nurture happened right here in good old Columbia High School.
How lucky can you get?
Thanks for listening to me.
