By Brian Zanzonico
John Salzman was happy-go-lucky, a man with an infectious smile who greeted fellow members of the Franklin Square-Munson Fire Department with the same term of endearment.
To him, everyone was "Schmutz."
So it was only fitting that longtime friends Phil Malloy and Ralph Esposito enlisted a florist to create a fire helmet out of flowers and adorn it with the word "Schmutz" to rest beside the fire commissioner's casket. Salzman died of complications of diabetes on July 31, at age 52.
"John was a fun-loving guy," said Malloy, a fellow fire commissioner. "He always had a joke or something funny to say. He was always happy."
For 25 years, Salzman was a department staple. A chief from 1995 to 1997, he was elected to his first term as fire commissioner in January. Malloy said Salzman's election was the proudest he had ever seen his friend, next to the day Salzman's son, Johnny, followed in his father's firefighting footsteps.
"It was the happiest day of his life," said Malloy, a retired city police officer, describing Johnny Salzman's entrance into the Franklin Square-Munson F.D. "[John] was very proud of that. They responded to calls together. Johnny used to joke that he'd have to wake up his father to come out to a call."
Malloy said that Salzman's world revolved around his wife, Linda, and Johnny and their younger son, Joe, 16. Salzman coached his boys in the Garden City South Little League and kept the backyard pool meticulously clean for them. The water had to be the right temperature and have the precise amount of chemicals.
And the pool wasn't limited to just his family. Salzman insisted that he host every fire department summer barbecue so his friends could enjoy the pool - and his legendary feasts. Malloy said that in the days leading up to a cookout, Salzman would run to the store for pool supplies, to the fish market for lobsters, and the butcher for meat. He was, after all, the cook of the company.
"Before our company meals, he'd say, 'All right, we need T-bones, we need this, we need that,'" Malloy said. "He fed us well."
Malloy and Salzman met in the early 1980s, when both were maintenance workers at the Nassau County Fire Service Academy. During a snowstorm one winter, the two were operating a plow when the lifting mechanism in the truck broke. With snow accumulating rapidly - and no backup plow - they had no choice but to clear a path by hand. Malloy sat on the hood and manually raised and lowered the blade. At one point, the snow-covered Malloy looked behind him in the cab and saw Salzman shaking hysterically with laughter. Cold and wet, Malloy could do nothing but smile at the kick Salzman was getting at his expense.
In 1981, Malloy and Salzman, who grew up in Uniondale, joined the Franklin Square Munson Fire Department together. Over the next 25 years, the two became inseparable. Their families, along with Esposito's, would often vacation together. And when they weren't away, they were usually in Salzman's yard.
But since last winter, Salzman's health had been failing. A longtime diabetes sufferer, he had a series of complications around the time of the fire commissioner elections. In March he entered the hospital, where he remained until his death.
One of the last times Malloy and Salzman spoke, Salzman, knowing his death was imminent, made his friend promise to take care of the funeral. "He would have been proud of his sendoff," Malloy said. "We had an honor guard stand at his casket. We had a procession from Knauss Funeral Home to St. Catherine of Sienna Church. We had all our apparatus and, of course, we used a rig as a hearse. He went out with all the honors he deserved, just too young."
Esposito, a fire commissioner in the Elmont F.D., met Salzman at a fire in 1986 when the two were captains in their respective companies. Elmont was called in to assist Franklin Square-Munson and, after the call, Salzman invited the Elmont responders back to headquarters for pizza and soda. Esposito and Salzman hit it off and became good friends.
"He's the type of guy that five minutes after you met him, you felt like you knew him 100 years," Esposito said.
At a chief's dinner one year in Uniondale, Salzman was trying to get the attention of Esposito, who was locked in conversation with someone else. After calling Esposito's name a few times, a frustrated Salzman belted out, "Yo, Schmutz," causing everyone within earshot to pause. After that, Salzman affectionately called everyone, from probationary firefighters to longtime department officers, Schmutz.
Salzman added to his legacy recently, working with fellow firefighter Tim O'Connor to resurrect the long-defunct Franklin Square-Munson Squareshooters racing team. The Labor Day Parade and Drill, in which the Squareshooters will compete, will be dedicated to Salzman's memory.
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