The Knife Man

By Emily Maffei

Not many people know the “Knife Man.” I was able to go behind the scenes at my father’s company and get the inside scoop of the niche business, sharpening knives. I guess you can say my father is in fact the “Knife Man.”

Rudolph Maffei 1903

This business has been passed down from generation to generation. It started in Italy. My great grandfather, Rudolph Maffei, was skilled in knife sharpening. He would use a wooden stand up stone wheel, spun by a leather band. He would step on the arm on the bottom to spin the wheel, once it was at a constant speed he would apply the edge of the knife to the stone and grind down the edge of the knife.

When he came to America, he brought this trade with him. He became a knife grinder in 1903 in Brooklyn, NY. In 1913, he traveled by horse and wagon sharpening knives all around the city. He and his brother Paul were known as the Fort Green Grinders, R.P MAFFEI & BROS.

Rudoph & Paul Maffei, Brooklyn, NY 1913

He passed this trade down to my grandfather, Rudolph Maffei, who started his company in Fort Greene, Brooklyn in the early 1950s, called “Fort Greene Grinding Service.” My grandfather traveled by truck all around the 5 boroughs sharpening knives for restaurants, homes, and most importantly the meat markets in the Bronx and down in the village.

Rudolph Maffei, Brooklyn, NY 1952

He made a good living being the “Knife Man,” but Brooklyn was a rough and tough city to raise a family, so in the early 1960s my grandfather relocated to Ridgefield, a suburb in New Jersey.

My grandfather bought a building and did all his sharpening in his shop and drove a truck to deliver the knives to the customers. He started up a knife sharpening business as a rental service. My father grew up in this shop, driving the trucks, and sharpening knives. Sure enough, in the 1970s my grandfather passed his company down to my father. My father, Michael Rudolph Maffei, started “Maffei Cutlery,” trained people to sharpen the knives, hired drivers to deliver the knives, and he built up the company.

In the early 1980s, my father started expanded his company from hand knives to machine knives and industry blades. About ten years later (1990s) he founded E-Z Edge Incorporated and relocated to a larger building in West New York, NJ. He took the company on the road and began to build up customers all over the country and networked. By the mid 1990s he had more than just a route in the tri-state area, he was international. Vendors from Europe and customers from New Jersey to California.

Michael Rudolph Maffei, West New York, NJ

The company is still growing till this day; everyone always needs a sharp knife. I grew up working side by side with my brothers during summers at E-Z Edge. Both my brothers, Michael and Sean, worked at E-Z Edge throughout their college career. And I currently work there part time while I finish up my undergraduate degree. I may be next in line, but my father will always be the “Knife Man” to me.


Emily Maffei is a senior at St. Thomas Aquinas College.

Move Over Hollywood: Film Crews Love Rockland

By Meagan Jaskot

If you've noticed bright yellow arrow signs around your neighborhood, it is highly likely that you are nearing the set of a major television production. Over the past year, Rockland County has attracted production teams from some of the biggest hits on networks including Fox, NBC, CW, and Netflix.

Rockland County is a prime filming location due to its close proximity to New York City. Many major networks are based in the city. Rockland’s suburban setting with various state parks has proved good for filming outdoor scenes.

Over the past several decades, Rockland has been home to award winning movies and series. Recently, the area has become an increasingly popular filming location.

Netflix, a web based television source, has made history with its outrageously popular series “Orange is the New Black”, starring Taylor Schilling and Laura Prepon. The show is a Netflix original series which has allowed Netflix to compete alongside traditional cable stations. The shows premise is loosely based on Piper Kerman's New York Times best-selling memoir, also titled Orange is the New Black. It is a recollection of her 15 month stint in an all women's prison.

The large majority of filming takes place in an abandoned Children's Hospital in the hamlet of Blauvelt. The building, on Convent Road, has been left unoccupied since 2010, when a new hospital was built just a few miles away. Set designers have redesigned the structure to look like a minimum security prison closely resembling the Federal Correctional Institute, in Danbury Connecticut, on which the show is based. The television rendition of the real life prison is called Litchfield Penitentiary; a fictional town supposedly set in upstate New York.  When passing through the filming site, you will recognize various props such as signs reading “Litchfield Staff & Visitor Entrance.” There are also barbed wire fences that now surround the building.

All of the outdoor scenes are filmed in Rockland, in addition to some interior scenes including the library and laundry room shots. Production trucks were been parked on the sight for most of 2013.
Although most of the show is set within the prison grounds, most all of the additional scenes are filmed in the surrounding towns of Pearl River and Nyack. The show has an additional set at Kaufman- Astoria Studios in Queens, New York.

The highly anticipated second season will air on Netflix on June 6th. Production for the second season began in August 2013 and wrapped up in early February.

Also partially filmed in Rockland Psychiatric Center is FOX’s new series, “The Following.” The series revolves around a serial killer’s cult, starring Golden Globe winner Kevin Bacon. A few exterior scenes in the second season have been recognized as within the mental health center. Just a few miles away is Tallman State Park where much of the shows second season was filmed in the woodsy area. Filming trucks were visible in the park from October to January. Other scenes have been shot in the surrounding areas of Nyack, at Nyack Hospital, and in Clarkstown. Production vehicles and cast cars filled the Provident Bank parking lot. The show was just recently renewed for a third season. Season two wrapped up on April 28 on FOX.

Also filmed partially in Tallman State park is “Vampire Diaries.” Wildly popular amongst teens and young adults, the drama has maintained a large fan base. The show filmed a portion of it latest season in the park this past winter, according to a member of the production crew. The CW show has already been renewed for a sixth season. The show has the same producer as “The Following,” which is a likely explanation for the similar filming locations.

Most recently, NBC’s newest series, “Believe,” filmed in several areas of Rockland County, confirmed by another crew member. The science fiction series premiered its pilot episode on March 10 and has continued airing every Sunday evening since then. The show revolves around a young girl born with supernatural powers. Production teams have again been spotted at Tallman Mountain State Park, as well as at Rockland Lake in late March and early April. The first season has already enjoyed good ratings.

There is no official word explaining the sudden interest in Rockland, but the county has undoubtedly become a popular filming site over the past year. With the extreme success of the mentioned shows, the return of film crews should be anticipated in the near future. If you are interested in a behind the scenes look at TV’s biggest hits, be sure to keep an eye out for big yellow signs that say "follow."

For further updates on filming sites: www.onlocationvacations.com/


Meagan Jaskot is a sophomore at St. Thomas Aquinas College. Meagan is 20 years old and a member of both the Spartan Cross-Country and Track and Field teams. She is a Communication- Arts major with a minor in Business. Meagan lives is Blauvelt, New York. In her spare time, she enjoys cycling, reading, and traveling.

Oscar Snub: Movies That Did Not Get Honored But Should Have

By Catherine Galda

This year at the Oscars, the motion picture industry took time out of its presenting schedule to have a special tribute to The Wizard of Oz.  This year marks the 75th anniversary of Judy Garland singing her way into our hearts.  The tribute included a nice montage mostly focused on Garland with some clips of with Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow), Jack Haley (the Tin-Man) and Bert Lahr (the Cowardly Lion) while P!nk sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (which was very good).  However, one thing that struck me as I was watching the Oscars, Wizard of Oz was not the only movie turning 75 this year.

Another famous movie that came out in 1939 was a little picture called Gone With The Wind.  That the first full length color film was slighted at the Oscars makes me feel a bit uneasy.  The talent in Gone With The Wind is like that The Wizard of Oz, one cannot think of anyone who could play the roles better.  There are only two actors who can play the main leads of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler and their names are Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.  It was sad that they have almost been gone fifty years (similar to Garland-this year marks the 45th anniversary of her passing) and they are not honored in the way they should have been.

What made me sadder about this tribute is one of the main talents from Gone With The Wind is still alive today.  The great Olivia de Havilland turns ninety-eight this year and honoring her work in Gone With The Wind would be nice to see while she is still alive.  The Oscars brought back acting legends Sidney Poitier and Kim Novak who did not have any movies celebrating a special anniversary, but it would have been nice to see another acting icon there that night, which may be one of the last possible times we can show how much her work has meant to us. One argument could be made that they did not honor Gone With The Wind because of 12 Years A Slave, which is understandable, but how often can you celebrate Gone With The Wind turning 75 with one of the remaining cast members still alive?

Despite Gone With The Wind getting snubbed, many other movies were snubbed as well.  1939 was one of the best years Hollywood ever had and focusing on just The Wizard of Oz makes it seem that it was the only important movie that came out that year.  Some other great classics that came out in 1939 were Babe in Arms (starring Garland and the talented Mickey Rooney), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur), Ninotchka (starring Greta Garbo in her first comedy role-and she laughs!), The Women (starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Joan Fontaine), Dark Victory (starring Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Ronald Regan), Young Mister Lincoln (starring Henry Fonda) and Wuthering Heights (starring Lawrence Olivier).  Many of these great movies did not even get recognition for turning 75 and that is very tragic.

Besides some of the big numbers turning 75, other movies had special birthday’s as well.  Mary Poppins turned fifty, Ghostbusters turned thirty, Gremlins turned thirty, The Lion King turned twenty and Forrest Gump turned twenty.  Instead of just paying attention to one movie, the academy should have made a montage of the big movies and showed them in the ages they were turning.  Starting with The Wizard of Oz and went on from there.

Yes, P!nk did a nice job singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and it was nice Garland’s three children (Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft) all were invited to watch this tribute to The Wizard of Oz and their mother, but how nice would it have been to have Olivia de Havilland, the last surviving cast member of Gone With The Wind? The academy could have invited the children of the main cast such as John Clark Gable, the only living child of Clark Gable and possibly Suzanne Farrington, the only child of Vivien Leigh and have them there to honor the good work of their parents.

By picking and choosing one movie to honor, the Academy left out many other important landmark movies that had a big anniversary this year.  Hopefully next time they will stick with a montage of big anniversary films instead of just signaling out one movie.


Catherine Galda is a junior at St. Thomas Aquinas College.  She is a history and Communication Arts major.  She wants to hopefully write about all the people she finds fascinating.    

Addressing the Mindless Menace of Violence

By Catherine Galda

Throughout history, there have been many famous speeches that many people can still recite or know phrases from to this day.  Many known the opening to the Gettysburg Address, President FDR’s address to Congress on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, Dr. King’s I Have A Dream Speech and his last speech ever given, President Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, his Cuban Missile Crisis Speech, and his speech on Civil Rights.  However, there is one speech that I feel is very important to this day but sadly not many people know about this speech.  This speech was said on April 5, 1968 in Cleveland, Ohio by Senator Robert F. Kennedy. 

The 1960’s was a great time as well as a tumultuous time.  The country had many great moments as well as many dark moments that still leave a mark on us when we think of them today.  One such event happened on April 4, 1968 with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in Memphis, Tennessee.  When news spread of his assassination, rioters took to the street and burned over a hundred cities in anger.  One city that did not burn was Indianapolis, where Senator Robert F. Kennedy addressed the crowd, telling them of the assassination and how he sympathized because of the assassination of his brother five years earlier.  Although the speech RFK gave in Indianapolis has been considered a great speech, the one he gave the next day is the one that rings true to this day. 

The next day, RFK gave a speech in Cleveland titled “The Mindless Menace of Violence.”  The speech discusses the truth of that time and the truth of today; the mindless menace of violence in America. This is the speech:

[This is a time of shame] and a time of sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity -- my only event of today -- to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
 
It's not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one -- no matter where he lives or what he does -- can be certain whom next will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
 
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled or uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.
 
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily -- whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law, by one man or by a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence -- whenever we tear at the fabric of our lives which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children -- whenever we do this, then whole nation is degraded. "Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost."
 
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and we call it entertainment. We make it easier for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition that they desire.
 
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force. Too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of other human beings. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of rioting, and inciting riots, have by their own conduct invited them. Some look for scapegoats; others look for conspiracies. But this much is clear: violence breeds violence; repression breeds retaliation; and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our souls.
 
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions -- indifference, inaction, and decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books, and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man amongst other men.
 
And this too afflicts us all. For when you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies -- to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and to be mastered.
 
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as alien, alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in a common effort. We learn to share only a common fear -- only a common desire to retreat from each other -- only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.
 
For all this there are no final answers for those of us who are American citizens. Yet we know what we must do, and that is to achieve true justice among all of our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
 
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions, the false distinctions among men, and learn to find our own advancement in search for the advancement of all. We must admit to ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortune of another's. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or by revenge.
 
Our lives on this planet are too short, the work to be done is too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in this land of ours. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember -- if only for a time -- that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek -- as do we -- nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment that they can.

Surely this bond of common fate, surely this bond of common goals can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look around at those of us, of our fellow man, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

This speech was written almost fifty years ago, but still holds true to the standards of today.  Sadly, RFK became the next prominent victim of the mindless menace of violence when he was gunned down on June 5, 1968 and died the next day from his injuries.  Although this speech is not as well-known as its predecessor (the speech given the night Dr. King was assassinated), it is the speech that holds the most meaning and the one that still means the most to modern America and one we may hopefully be able to learn from. 
    

The Making of a Sports Team

By Angel Matos

“In high school I loved to play Lacrosse and Football. I remember my coach would tell me to keep with Lacrosse and bag Football, but I thought to myself, ‘What did he know?’ Right? ...Turns out I should have kept with Lacrosse.”
--Michael Looney, Assistant Coach for STAC Athletics

On the evening of Tuesday April 8, 2014 at 9 pm, a group of eager, young men gathered in the lecture room Costello 103. Just from a glance, I knew that many of us were clueless as to what the night would hold for us. Coach Michael Looney sent a group text to the men who signed up with him earlier that week, describing where to meet and mentioned the possibility of throwing the ball around. When Coach Looney made his way to the front of the room, everyone’s face lit up with excitement.

Two weeks prior to the meetup, Coach Looney sat by the STAC security office with large signs hanging behind him displaying Field Hockey, Baseball and more importantly Men’s Lacrosse. For a while, the school was only offering Women’s Lacrosse, which was unfair to the students, particularly males, who have played contact sports in their high schools and then come to STAC and there are no opportunities to play. That is talent gone to waste, if I may say. Luckily, the decision was made to introduce Men’s Lacrosse to the school, giving many young men another possibility to gain some Spartan Pride.

On the night of April 8, Coach Looney gave the young men a clear breakdown of what the main goal of the Men’s Lacrosse program was. He began by explaining that the program will be considered a club sport and running on a club schedule.

“Playing on a club schedule can go one of two ways: 1) We can be the sort of club league that goes out to the field, throws the ball around a few times and then we have a kegger on the field or 2) We can be the club league that practices hard and goes off to weekend tournaments with other club Lacrosse leagues and competes. We’re going to be the club Lacrosse that practices hard and competes in tournaments every weekend,” he said.

The men who were in attendance that night were given an honorable opportunity to become the start of a legacy at STAC by becoming the inaugural team for STAC Men’s Lacrosse. For those who continue to follow the program or become interested along the way, they will be given practice sessions from two potential coaches, whose credentials are spoken highly of, and play on a club schedule for the program’s first season, Spring 2015. The following season, tryouts will be implemented and the Men’s Lacrosse program will evolve from a club sport to achieving the program's main goal: becoming a Division II team at STAC.

There is time between now and Spring 2015 to recruit more athletes to participate in this program as well as time to practice on Lacrosse skills. Of the men at the meeting, only a couple had a decent amount of experience and there were even a few who never played the sport before. The rest in attendance had experience playing the sport but it’s been some time since they last played.

There will need to be dedication to the practices and the sport itself to compete with Long Island schools with a longer-running Men’s Lacrosse program like Molloy College. But there is no doubt that STAC will have yet another sport bringing school pride and spirit to its doors.


Angel Matos is a student at St. Thomas Aquinas College who is a Career Ambassador on campus and is going for a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts. He is determined to use the skills he learns to pursue a career in public relations or broadcast television.

Mentoring 101

By Angel Matos

Recently, I was given the opportunity of attending a year-end event held by the auditing company KPMG. For those who are unaware, KPMG is one of the four most successful accounting firms as well as one of the largest professional service companies; and it showed. Upon arrival at the KPMG worksite in Montvale, NY, we were surrounded by big glass windows and a metallic decor that made the whole entranceway pop. Everything was very organized; the lanyard nametags that were given to us had a back-up safety pin.

We were escorted to the room in which the event was being held and from the moment you walked in, it felt like a dining hall for a resort, with a keen eye for white and blue. It was refreshing. Those who designed the interior of the room kept in mind that people may try to fall asleep and it was wise thought because the sunlight bounces all around the room. It also seems that they were so determined to make sure that no one falls asleep by having snacks like cookies and Starbuck’s coffee and even funnel cake! I am not one to overlook careful planning and that is certainly what occurred in making the event happen.

The event was one for their mentoring program that allows selective colleges/universities, such as St. Thomas Aquinas College, to pair a student with a trained and passionate mentor. The mentor will then help the student in building confidence, in making career choices or any other sort of support that the student may need to be successful. At the event, the students who were assigned a mentor were given a chance to meet with their mentors and “break the ice.”

The event was designed around professional tips to ensure a successful interview, business lunch and proper business attire. There was even a PowerPoint presentation depicting all of the possible tips for success as well as a few fun facts about the company, for example, how the “K” in their KPMG logo has a specific angle to it and any other form of it would be incorrect.

Overall, it was a wonderful event and I am happy to have been able to attend and learn all of the professional tips from business professionals at one of the four biggest accounting firms worldwide.

Speech 101

By Angel Matos

On April 14, students in a Mass Media class gave speeches on the most valuable form of media in their lives. The topics varied widely from a handheld smart phone to Facebook to a video game. For whatever the medium of choice, the student was required to write why that particular medium is so valuable, give its history, the reason for its popularity as well as what the unforeseen future is for the medium.

We had St. Thomas Aquinas College instructor Dr. Barbara Klein at the helm, so the students knew they had to give their speeches a bit more pizazz than just the ol' statue-reading-from-a-page kind of speeches. And I was most impressed by what I saw.

There were two presentations in particular that really made me sit at the edge of my seat with excitement. One was about the comic book company DC Comics and the other about one superhero everyone knows and loves, Superman. These two caught my eye, not only because I am a fan of superheroes and what-not, but it was due to the fact that there were hardly any words in the media presentations as the students spoke, instead the presentations provided amazing pictures with vibrant colors, vintage looking comic books to newer versions.

The other aspect that really had me going “wow” and “ahhh” was the information they were dishing out. The pictures were worth a thousand words; I got to learn about the history of Superman and DC Comics, which is the comic book company that thought up Superman in the first place, in one sitting. The best part was how articulate the students were with their speeches.

As Dr. Klein pointed out to each student, “I could tell that with the medium you chose, that you were comfortable with what you were talking about.” And that, folks, is part of what makes a great speech, knowing the information so well that it is almost second nature to talk about. Finally, with applause all around, each student was recognized for his or her great work and courage in public speaking.