In Memory of Harold Tritt...

This blog is about a memory of a person that I know by the name of Harold Tritt. Harolt Tritt passed away last Sunday, May 18, 2008.

Harold Tritt is a person I know and met when we both went to National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in Rochester New York back in 1983. I met him during the Summer Vestibule Program (SVP) back in 1983. One day I was schedule to go get eye exam just like everyone else was to get an eye exam during SVP. He was in the back of me in line. I had no clue who he was and so on. The strangest thing he said to me in line "Move along, George Washington." I am like saying what? He said it again and was teasing me. That was a strange way to met each other.

Before the Fall Semester, he saw me sitting in the lobby in Tower B. He simply came up to me and beg me to be his roommate. He knew I was a good person and he knew I was the right roommate for him. I had no clue how he knew but he refuse to give up trying to get me to be his roommate. I finally gave up and became his roommate in Sol Heumann Hall. We lived on the second floor from 1983 to 1984. One of the oddest thing that happen one night was that I told him I was gonig to visit my girlfriend and he told me he was going to do exactly the same
thing. He was following me to the same bedroom I was going to. It turned that his girlfriend
was my girlfriend's roommate. I find it strange that I did not know that my girlfriend's roommate was Harold's girlfriend or that they knew each other. That is something I never heard of girlfriend and boyfriends were roommates out of the whole campus.

After the first year, Harold and I were roommates for next four years including 2 years at
Riverknoll apartment on campus. Harold and I graduated from NTID with AAS degree in Data Processing. Harold and I then transfer to Gallaudet University in the Fall 1987.

During our first year at Galllaudet University, both of us was involve for a short time with the Protest in the Spring of 1988. The protest was known as Deaf President Now. Harold and I
left Gallaudet on Thursday during the protest to go to New York to visit Harold's parents and family. Harold and I got our picture taken to be put in the local newspaper in New York talking about the Protest experiences at Gallaudet University.

Harold left Gallaudet at the end of the spring Semester of 1988. He left to go work for the Federal Railroad Administration under the Department of Transportation in Washington DC.

Later on, Harold got a BS degree in Computer Information System from University of Maryland. He also got married in 1994 and he was almost married 14 years next month in June. He and his wife has two sons who are age 12 and 9.

In December 2007 on Christmas Day, Harold had some very pain feeling and had to be rush to the Hospital. He went in to Surgery on December 26 and he almost died on the operation table. He had organ reputure and internal bleeding. He loss his large intestine. After that, he was place in the ICU at George Washington Hospital for about two months. He had a lot of operations in January to make sure his organs were working. I think he also almost died during another operation in January.

By the middle March, he was release to go to a Rehab Center. He did not last very long there as I think a week or a week and a half. Something happen at the Rehab that causes Harold to go back to the hospital. He was transfer to Prince George Hospital. He had just about the same problem he had at George Washington which was his breathing and kidney problems.

Harold Tritt died in May 2008 after a long illness. He is a friend I had and knew from NTID until he passed away. I didn't get a chance to visit him at the hospital because his wife only wanted family members and people that Harold knew to visit him. She wanted Harold to relax and get better. She said she would let me visit Harold if he went back to the Rehab place but he never made it back to the Rehab. He will forever be missed as a good friend.