Gary Bright: Not a Lot of Spare
Time
Gary
Bright was still working flat out, usually seven days a
week, sometimes at two jobs. Late last summer, he put
together a combination that suited him fine: working
evenings as a waiter at Spazzio's restaurant on Columbus
Avenue and, during the days, as a temporary insurance
analyst at Aon Insurance in the World Trade Center.
He came to New York from Indiana about six years ago
with a master's degree in therapy, and in his spare time
&emdash; of which there was not much &emdash; he
counseled a child pro bono. But mostly he worked. "He was
one of the hardest-working people I have ever met," said
Sarah Adams, who worked with him at Spazzio's. "If
anybody deserved success, it was him. He was intelligent,
he was warm and he gave us all advice."
His mother, Anna Bright, said, "He wanted to get
ahead, he was big on that." He had recently bought
himself a house in Union City, N.J. &emdash; a "kind of a
fixer-upper," said Mrs. Bright, who came east from her
home in Muncie, Ind., to help with the fixing. "He turned
the backyard into a little park, with a fish pond and a
fountain," she said. But Mr. Bright was not planning to
stay there long. "It was just a beginner house," his
mother said.
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