Freda Aron around the time of her 90th birthday, broadcasting another installment of the weekly “Frankie and Freda Show” on Raven Radio.
When we learned last week that Freda Aron was in hospice care, and then in Friday’s Sentinel that she had died, the sorrow was short-lived. As regular listeners of “The Frankie and Freda Show” will recall, Freda was comfortable with her mortality, and — while fully engaged with this life — was more than just a little giddy about what awaited her in the next. She had two names on her dance card in heaven: her husband Richard Aron and Frank Sinatra. Only Freda knows who got the first dance!
Besides hosting a weekly show, Freda recorded regular commentaries for KCAW. Her last, from the autumn of 2011, is here.
Although her topic changed regularly, from the war in Iraq to corporate personhood, her theme was consistent: This nation and its leaders are only as good as the outcomes they produce; all the chest-thumping in the world can not help a single-mother living in poverty, or immunize a child.
But her outrage at injustice and criticism of politics were tempered by an all-out joy in just about everything else. She doled it out liberally, like candy at a parade. Joy made her fearless, and makes her absence easier to bear.