There's Not Enough...

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day/Night, then the day after, I climbed up-down, up-down, over and over again through our 400 channels. There's lots there, of course, with lots likewise not there.

The short list of missing shows goes like this...

• Marty Tyler Moore
  

• Rhoda

• Phyllis
  

• Dick Van Dyke
  

• The Three Stooges

• The Honeymooners

• The Munsters

• The Addams Family

• Donna Reed

• Leave It To Beaver

• All In The Family

• My Three Sons (especially the original b&w episodes)

• The Bob Newhart Show - both versions. The second show was simply called Newhart.
  

Alright, most of these shows are ancient to an awful lot of people. There's no arguing with that. There is, though, something else they are; timeless. And they are nowhere to be found. Plus, they are all mindless, largely pointless, yet very amusing and extraordinarily well-written and well-produced situation comedies. And they were all very well-cast, too. Sadly, I can't seem to find any of them anywhere on my television.

It would by my opinion that upon this short list of sitcoms are all shows that hold up as well today as they did the day they debuted. Unlike a lot of other sitcoms that look almost disturbing today, shows that you make you wonder how and why they ever made it to the network, these half-hour pieces are still appealing.

For the sake of comparison, I suppose, mentioning a show or two that didn't hold up is necessary.

• Mork and Mindy. Enough said? Sorry, it doesn't work today, didn't work a year, five, ten years ago. Once upon a time, yes, it did. Mork and Mindy is a show that is not timeless. My opinion only, let's make sure and note that.

I say we need an Old Fart Channel, or perhaps less offensive, My Geezer Channel. OFC or MGC, we need one of these to accommodate picky grumps like me who want to re-live 1958, 1968, 1978. Surely you get the idea here.

Right you are, TVLand is out there, but for whatever reason or reasons, TVLand has jettisoned most of the aforementioned shows, although they did once air them. Contractually, it might be that they no long have rights to the shows. Why, I'm not sure, but my guess is that these shows have been mothballed for now rather than them being unavailable for airing.

I want them back.

I also want back...

• Petticoat Junction Again, as with My Three Sons, who's hiding the earliest season's b&w episodes? Let's go, let's have them. And while we're at it, how about My Favorite Martian and Dennis The Menace. Oh, and what kind of man have I become? How could anyone forget The Three Stooges? Sorry, guys.
  

One final thought this time around. Christmas brought a revelation, a watershed event.

Finally, after thirty years plus, I couldn't look at A Christmas Story again, not one more time,not even for fifteen minutes, not even at some of the best and classic scenes. Enough. Stop.

Even It's A Wonderful Life wore a little thin this year. It looked a little too familiar, so did The Wizard of Oz.

Bring it on...My Geezer Channel.

Just a Thought...

Not to preach, not to sermonize, not to tell anyone else what to do.

BUT...

Local merchants, not of the chain variety, and I ain't mentioning any names here, need to get their scat together.

There are several things I am looking to buy, some for Christmas, some soon after.

My wife Carol and I have spent years trying, oftentimes desperately and failing in the process, to do as much business as we can locally. We try. So help me, we try. At times, we go out of our way to buy "local."

A lot of you "locals" make it really tough to do so. Your choice, of course, you make your business decisions. Just remember that the consumer makes business decisions, too. One such decision might be to pass you by, to not even consider you when making a purchase.

One of the most egregious and impossible-to-understand things you're doing is NOT HAVING A WEB PRESENCE.

How you can not have a website as we get ready to swing into 2009 is beyond me.

Here, let me give you just one example of how you snooze and lose without a site - potential customers don't even know if you're still there, still in business.

Sure, pick up the phone and call, you say. Right, easy enough, you say. Sure, jump in the truck, drive on over, see for yourself, you say.

Sorry, it's not enough in this day and age. Looking up your number other than on-line and calling isn't an option for a lot of us consumers. We want to hit a search, find your site, get your hours, see what you might have in stock, then possibly do business with you.

It's not like I have a bag of money to throw at someone here, we're not talking thousands upon thousands. Hundreds upon hundreds? Yeah, that's more like it.

If your business is such that you can afford to throw away a sale, any sale really, then you're in good shape. Congratulations, you sure don't need me.

Radio on Sunday With Paul...

Don't much recall ever mentioning this man on the blog. The only reason for that is I do believe he likes his privacy. If there's a microsopce nearby, he doesn't want to be under it. Life in TV can be a soap opera, I don't think he ever cared for that component of the biz. Among his many qualities exists a healthy measure of modesty.

This is Paul Stueber. A little picture of a big man. A big man in so many fine ways, so many admirable ways. It's the best photo I could find.

Paul Stueber is a friend. He's also been a mentor, colleague, and he used to be the boss man. In his role as boss, Paul was a protector of sorts in that last job of mine. When Paul went, I knew there was every chance my days were numbered. They, of course, were.

Listen, I don't want to do is lay it on so thick as to embarrass this guy. That being said, you really need to know that he possesses what I consider to be the finest resume that has ever passed through this television market. He is smart, savvy, and "been there and done that" more than anyone I know who has worked, or works now, in the broadcasting business. It really is that straightforward; Paul Stueber is one of a kind.

This coming Sunday, the ever-gracious Paul has invited me to join him on his monthly radio show on WILK. It'll be my pleasure to be right there. I hope you'll listen, if only to learn more about this guy. Noon to 2:00 PM. Paul will lead, I'll follow wherever he wants to go. I look very forward to it.

Lots of Boscoving Today...

Did you Boscov today?

I know, I know. Look, if you're under, say, 45 or so, you probably don't remember the once very familiar radio and TV jingle, "Did You Boscov Today-ay?" You probably had no idea that Boscov could be a verb.

When Boscov's came to town, meaning Wilkes-Barre in this case, it was a big deal. Then Boscov's came to Scranton, then Hazleton, also big deals.

I'd heard lots of great things about this Boscov's place back in the mid and late 70s when living in Williamsport. Williamsport didn't have a Boscov's but there was one in Sunbury. Boscov's impressed enough Williamsporters that they drove over to Sunbury to have a look, came back, and raved about this chain.

(Williamsport then had its very own downtown department store, LL Stearns, now long gone.)

Al Boscov liked to put on a show when he opened a new store. The W-B Grand Opening featured Henny Youngman, Peter Lawford, Dagmar, and Zippy The Chimp.

Youngman was then, this was the early '80s, enjoying a renewal of his career, a career which stretched all the way back to Vaudeville.

"Take my wife...please!" was Youngman's signature one-liner, and this man was recognized across the land as The King of The One-Liners. One-liners were largely all he did, one-liners interrupted by Youngman's screeching a few chords on his ever-present violin.

Then there was Peter Lawford. Peter Lawford was in sore need of what Youngman had, a career restart, perhaps a new career altogether. He was down for the count.

The dashing Englishman, a former Hollywood leading man, an Honest-To-God member of the beyond legendary Rat Pack, wasn't having a good go of things.

Peter Lawford, once married to Patricia Kennedy, sister of JFK, RFK, and Teddy, making him a member of one of the world's most watched and beloved families, was relegated to picking up gigs opening department stores and, I suppose, other small-time venues that paid a couple bucks. The fall from the big rooms of Las Vegas to the Community Room of Wilkes-Barre's Boscov's must be dizzying.

You, me, loads of others, would be tickled peachy pink to get paid to show up at grand openings. You, me, we're not Peter Lawford. You, me, we never had a big Hollywood career. You, me, we never spent weekends at those six acres in Hyannis on Nantucket Sound known to the world simply as The Compound.

As to the other two headliners, Dagmar and Zippy The Chimp, you can Google them if you're of a mind.

So, how do I know all this stuff? Simple. I was there.

Working for WARM at the time, the radio station played a a big role in publicizing Boscov's W-B Grand Opening. My contribution, for which there was indeed compensation, was doing my early mid-day show for a couple days live from the front doors of Boscov's on South Main.

Never did see Youngman, or Dagmar, or Zippy. Lawford, yes, I saw him just fine, right up close and personal. I had the opportunity to interview Peter Lawford. Lawford was clearly in rough shape, yet he was charming, cordial, pleasant, and just plain nice. Peter Lawford died a little over a year after that interview. Peter Lawford died on a Christmas Eve.

So, did I Boscov today? Why, yes, I did Boscov today, Pearl Harbor Day of 2008. And what to my wondering eyes did appear?

A fully jammed parkade!

Well, you can just deck my halls all to heck. There wasn't a spot to be found on the first pass, not on the second pass, but I managed to wiggle into what I believe to be a space on our third trip around. The store was crowded and employees were smiling. The employees we had the pleasure of dealing with were quick to tell us how much they loved Mr. Boscov. We were quick to tell them we loved their store, and that we couldn't remember the last time their parkade was full.

Working literally next door to the entrance ramp to that parkade for twenty years, I could easily recall many a week or so before Christmases past, days and nights when you'd without fail find a blocks' long traffic jam waiting to "Boscov." Maybe Santa will bring a few of those this year.

I sure hope so.

Time For A New Toy...

Men, boys, prices of toys. We've all heard the variations a bunch of times.

"The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys."

It's pretty much it. Christmas means toys, or perhaps just one new toy. I never boxed it into Christmas alone. If I needed a new toy, I went out and got me one.

There never seemed to be any pattern to when the need for a toy would arise, when that itch would first start needing a good scratch. One day, one minute, one thought would enter your head. That visiting electrical impulse popped the kernel of a seemingly unecessary yearning for a new toy.

Once it's in your head, you're really not happy until the toy is in your hand. You can, however, wait it out and stare it down, which I've honest to God done a few times. There have been times I just had to have a thing, a toy. Instead of running out and buying "it," I showed some self restraint, self-control, and waited until the urge faded. And it will...if you wait.

A whole bunch of my acquaintances have a GPS in their car or truck. They love them.

Or maybe loved is more like it.

Seems that the biggest shortcoming of a GPS is that once you come to the painful realization that you don't drive somewhere unknown five to seven times weekly, and that most of the America we know is fairly well-marked, a GPS is more a novelty, and amazing one at that, than anything else. It's a toy. The biggest appeal of that unit sucking on to the inside of your windshield could be to someone on the outside of your windshield who might want to walk away with it.

I toughed it out. Probably for the better part of nine months now, I denied the urge. Then, just within the last couple weeks I awoke to a day where the smoldering want for a GPS was gone, it was over, it had passed. Patience had paid a dividend, brought its own reward, which is me not throwing money away on something, a toy, that will serve no purpose, fulfill no practical need. Phewwwfff, that was close.

I want a set of drums.

I've always wanted drums. A real set of drums, with a real bass, a couple of attached Toms, a floor Tom, one hellacious snare, and some big crashing cymbals. Give me a couple pair of sticks and cut me loose. OK, there is no need for a big honking drum set like the one on the right. Maybe a simpler set, as seen below, would do just fine.

One problem, I don't play drums. Nor do I play any other musical instrument you might name. I have no musical ability.

Where to start?

One paragraph ought to pretty much cover things. See, I have no musical ability whatsoever. Despite loving music forever, despite growing up in a music loving family, despite trying several instruments in my life, and that would include paying for lessons, I can't play a thing.

So, why drums?

I figure it this way - I am never going to play in a band, never going to perform solo, never have to amuse anyone but myself with a set of drums. The added benefit, of course, is even lacking an ounce of talent, I might be able to make some sense of the drums, some recognizable beats, some rhythm.

I actually know more than a few guys who can pound on drums and make them sound good. These are guys who don't read a note of music, never took a lesson. These are guys who just got tired of tapping on table tops and glasses with spoons and forks, then went out and bought some drums.

Then, just last evening, I remembered once having a neighbor who used to beat on his drums in their attached garage. I remembered how, when he'd first start to "practice," you would have sworn someone had just tossed seven or eight galvanized garbage cans out into the street from an attic window. You had to listen with some intensity to make out a vague repetitive noise that would indicate drums, and not the township's recyclable truck doing a rollover nearby.

Yeah, a small set ought to do it.

Charming, just charming...

From my old pal Michael Neff, I share this present - his list of favorite and deeply troubling Christmas songs. I swear, all of them, each of them, every single one, is actually a song...

Michael writes: Vince -Every year, I look forward to playing these highly-depressing songs. And, answering the suicidal calls that follow. *special note* - These are REAL songs!

The Little Boy That Santa Forgot - Nat King Cole

(" ... he's such a sad little laddie, 'cause he hasn't got a Daddy")

Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas - John Denver

(" ... don't make Mama cry, as you get high on beer and wine, that's why she's cryin' all the time")

Christmas In Jail - various country artists
(" ... he's spendin' Christmas in jail, 'cause what he did with a gun, it just wasn't fun, and now he can't make bail")

The Lost Puppy - Terry Clark

(" ... the puppy I got today, it just up and ran away, so please bring him back to my toddler, as that's what you ought to do, so my baby's dying wish can come true")

Santa Got A DWI - Gretchen Swinn

(" ... the reason Santa didn't come this year, like your no-good Daddy, he had too much beer, so go ahead and cry, Santa got a DWI")

Mama's Gone On Santa's Sleigh - The Cartwrights

(" ... when the kids ask why Mama died on Christmas, this is what I say, she went to be with Papa, she left that day on Santa's sleigh")

The Ring That Broke The Circle - Patty Lovelle

(" ... the ring he gave me for Christmas, I couldn't accept like this, I couldn't tell him that the baby, it just wasn't his)

Not having to listen to any one of the above should give us all cause for great joy and contentment this holiday season.

Just Who Is This Guy?

OK, not exactly a matter of serious concern, not a pressing issue in today's troubled world, but just something that annoys me a bit.

Over the past weekend I've heard this guy alternately called...

The Big Guy - The Man - The Jolly Old Elf Himself.

Let me first say that I love the idea of a benevolent and giving being who manages to cover the entire planet in under a day with gifts for good little girls and boys. It would delight me no end if such a being existed. It's the neatest thing most of us can imagine, which must explain our never ending fascination with Santa.

Then we have the following...

Saint Nicholas - Father Christmas - Kris Kringle

Whatever you call him, he flies through the sky in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. Eight TINY reindeer.

TINY is the point here. Clement Moore wrote, "...a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer."

He then wrote, "With a little old driver, so lively and quick,I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick."

Santa Claus, the Santa we as Americans know, the Santa given us by Clement Moore in his wonderful poem mentioned in another post, is an elf.

If that's not enough, Moore again tells us, "He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf..."

Is "elf" PC? Yes, I do believe so, because it's not meant to define or describe a being of human origin.

Instead, and this is from Teutonic mythology, the elf was originally thought to be a minor strain of nature, often males and females of great beauty. They were believed to live in deep forests and underground places, like caves. They often lived in wells and springs. For whatever reason, we sent one to The North Pole, whether magnetic or geographic or terrestrial North Pole.

Possessing magical power, the elf was believed very real for a long, long time.

But an elf is an elf, and elf is small, diminuitive, stature deprived, not big. How do you suppose his sliding down a chimney was justified? Sheesh.

I once won a cash bet based on Santa being an elf. No fewer than three people thought I was drinking my own bathwater in insisting he was an elf, a little being. I actually went and got a book with Moore's poem and shoved it in their, well, shoved it in their faces and said, "Look, look right here, Santa Claus is an elf, E-L-F. Get it?"

Is there a point here? Does there have to be? It's a couple days before Thanksgiving, so the time seemed right to unload my unhealthy feelings about Santa being inaccurately described. Doing so a few days before The Fourth of July wouldn't work as well. It's all about timing.

I feel better already.

Now, stuff and tamp that in your pipe and smoke it, which in itself is another matter; Santa smokes. Discuss as you will.

It's Not All About You...

***Please Note: I wrote this way back when I first started this blog but never posted it for various reasons. Taking a second look at it recently, it seemed worth tossing out there, especially for TV types.***


That's what she said. Looking over the tops of her half-lens readers, while not looking up her from her laptop and in my eye, that's what she said.

She said, "It's not all about you, Vince."

Her trace drippy Texas twang made "Vince" come out more like "Vayyyhhhnce." I didn't like this woman. It wasn't the Texas twang, either.

This was our second meeting - I didn't like her from our first. Why? She was a boob, that's why. She was a fashion consultant masquerading as a talent coach. They're not one and the same. Somehow, she'd fooled others into believing they were. Maybe it was that Texas twang, maybe it made her sort of a "swait thaing," know what I mean?

She was very organized, probably over-organized.

Organization Is The Sign of A Weak Mind. I saw it on a sign one time - I've witnessed it firsthand countless times along the streets and avenues of life. She was organized, proper, a bit haughty. She was all that and a bag of BBQ Fritos.

I'd been coached by talent consultants several times over my TV years. A few times in radio, too.

Here's how it works; someone who thinks they know more than you steps into your life and tells how to get better than you are. It's pretty standard stuff.

Never mind that near none of them ever worked eight minutes in front of a camera. I guess they'd read all the books, consumed every shred of research, and found that dream job of showing guys like me a better way to do things. Maybe they were all blessed, gifted.

Or maybe they were latter day snakeoil sales consultants whose major skill was knowing how to manipulate the system. I'm going with that.

My suspicions began when I realized that everything she was suggesting I do was the polar opposite of what every other coach/consultant before her had told me. But, I held my tongue, kept my counsel, shut the pie-hole. It was a struggle.

My instincts were to stop her cold and say, "You're a goddammed fraud, and you know it, don't you?"

I didn't. I listened. But sometimes people just don't know when to stop. They force the issue. The pick, they poke, then they keep poking at that beehive until the swarm takes their face.

"And I really need to talk to you about that outfit. The shirt, tie, and suit are completely mismatched.

My fuse had been smoldering some, now it was sizzling, speeding, heading towards detonation.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Hey, how's that for a show-stopper?

"I said they do not match." Now her eyebrows were arched a bit, as was that Texas twang.

"They match perfectly! In fact, when I picked up the suit, the mens' shop owner tossed in the shirt and tie for free. Of course they match, they match like they came out of GQ."

I could see her hands twitch. The Yellow Rose of Texas was not accustomed to a challenge. She was taking a second to compose herself. I fired another round before she could take aim.

"Look, my wife has exquisite taste. Do you think for a second that she'd let me wear an outfit that looked bad. Besides, I know how to dress myself quite well."

It was the mention of my wife that did it. I knew it immediately. I'd called her on her fashion sense, told her my wife's was equally as good, maybe even better. I awaited a Texas Stampede.

Instead, things got really weird. She went into what I can only describe as a sort of semi-trance in which she began repeating affirmations in a somewhat unsettling, at least to me, mantra-like state.

Tex here had apparently been through some sort of self-help program and paid big bucks to learn this exercise. She wasn't going to let me get the best of her. No sir, especially not a Yankee like me.

Spooky as it was, it was short-lived. In under a minute she was back into her laptop, this time criticizing my performance in front of the camera, telling me that I moved around too much, that I was too animated.

(It's television, you're supposed to move. Otherwise, you might as well be part of an oil painting. Like the one of Lincoln on his death bed, the one with seventeen dozen people in the room. If they'd all really been in that one room, the building would have collapsed.)

"Well, of course I move around. I've been doing that for years, it's how I work."

That one went unanswered. Now, it was my hair she didn't like.

"You need to freshen up your hair style, it's too long. I'd like you to get out today and have it cut much, much shorter."

"Yeah, well I'd like you to suck my shorts, sister." That one went unspoken. No words were really necessary.

We were clearly at war.

She was subduing her human instincts with some sludge she'd picked up at a three-day "You Can Turn Your Life Around" seminar that likely cost her five or six grand. I was climbing back into the trees, looking for a hard banana to lob at her.

"Look, you really need to understand something: It's not all about you, Vayyyhhhnce."

You wanna bet? Her comes that hard banana.

"You look," I snarl through gritted teeth, "it is all about me, all of it is about me. It is all about me, and each and every one of us who work in front of the camera."

And I ain't near done yet. That was only my warm-up banana...

"You've got no idea what the hell you're talking about, do you? People out there can get weather anywhere. But they don't get it anywhere. They get it here. Why? Because I'm here, that's why. That makes it all about me, now doesn't it? TV is a popularity contest, whether you like it or not. The more people that like you, the more that watch you. Have you bothered to take a look at the research on me? You couldn't have. If you had, you'd know it was all about me."

With that, I was done, spent, and in full realization that I had just lost control, which was really stupid. I've long been my own worst enemy. Damn, I was angry, mostly with myself for launching on Tex, who was now mumbling, sputtering, and generally looking like she was going to come apart at any instant. I was even more POed at myself for saying such idiotic, immodest, boastful crud. True as it all was, I was ashamed of myself.

The meeting was over. I walked away. I don't know what she did. Maybe she sent out for a Xanax hoagie. She wasn't happy. Tough dog turds, neither was I.

As I often say, all good stories need a beginning, a middle, and an end. Here comes the end.

It took awhile before the realization fell upon me that she'd been encouraged to rough me up, to whack at me like a pinata. My immediate superior(which he was not in any sense of the word)wanted me gone, wanted to fire me...he couldn't. He need some ammo to convince corporate that I was a liability. I was not. I was one of the best things they had, and that's not a lack of modesty, that's verifiable, certifiable truth.

But it was inevitable. He got me. First, a demotion. Five years later, I was fired. All in all, it took five years, by which time he was gone, he'd been fired. So, who won?

Tex and me had one more encounter...a very pleasant one at that.

We were at a station sponsored cocktail hour. She sat next to me. She smiled. I smiled back. She said something nice about the suit I was wearing. I thanked her properly. We had a bit of a chat, all small-talk and nothing more.

Yet sure as I sit here writing this, I sat right next to Tex that night and knew, just knew, that she'd felt very guilty about attacking me on orders from him, the guy who wanted me gone. All was well between me and Tex after all.

"Obama said they also want to adopt a puppy from an animal shelter..."

Dear Mr. Obama;

Greetings and congratulations from the heart of NE PA!

Now that you've brought the subject up, sir, I think you're pretty much stuck with it.

While we can't offer either, or both, of these two gorgeous pups, we always have others. See, these little babies were adopted about a month or so ago, but they were indeed in our shelter and in our tender loving care for a time.

OK, I know there are hundreds(at least)of other animal shelters in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA, and I know there are thousands of homeless dogs out there worthy of your consideration, but if I failed to publicly ask, that would make me derelict in my duty. So, here I am asking.

You're on record as saying you want to adopt from a shelter. Surely you'll want to stick with that idea, it's a noble one at that, and a really nice thing to do. How about from our shelter?

If you'll adopt from us at The SPCA of Luzerne County, I'll pay the adoption fee as my inaugural present to you, the First Lady, and your loving daughters.

You have friends around here. Joe Biden, Bobby Casey, they're both from right up the road and they can probably attest to what a great organization this is. You and Senator Casey ate waffles one morning very near our shelter. Listen, when you come to pick up that puppy, breakfast is also on me. Hope to hear from you soon!

Oh, would you consider adopting a couple of really beautiful kitties, too? Thank you...

A Long Winter's Nap...

The phrase long winter's nap is, of course, direct from Clement Moore's marvelous poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas, which we all know as Twas The Night Before Christmas.

Or at least we've long thought that Moore wrote the poem.

The cutesy-Christmasy version is that Moore sat down and scribbled it out for his kids as some sort of present. Maybe Moore was a tightwad and thought he could put the poem 'neath the tree and all would be well. Maybe his portfolio was in rough shape and there was no extra cash for presents. Maybe he didn't write it.

There are those who now say he never did any such thing, but rather claimed authorship of the poem after the fact.

Is nothing sacred?

The answer is a resounding no. No, nothing is sacred. And that may be all well and good. Kings of antiquity(and not such antiquity) believed they were sacred and just consider the messes some of them caused, not to mention those they sent to eternity in the name of them being sacred.

Whatever the case, I still love the poem. More importantly, I still love the idea of a long winter's nap. I could take one in July. Set the AC to where ice crystals form along the windowpanes, jump into flannel jammies, then nod off for a good ten hours sleep.

This time of year getting into bed is sheer joy, while getting out of bed is sheer agony.

This is not my gripe alone. Today I spoke with several people who were in complete agreement.

The very next comment, and this also today happened several times, was about being in a slump, or feeling uninspired, or unmotivated, or just being in a funk of unknown origin.

Each year, and there is no science involved here, I seem to come across this sentiment right around this time, and from an awful lot of people. Age, not a factor. Gender, not a factor. Socio-economic status, also not a factor.

It is what is.

What I happen to think it is, while it may sound foolish, is an innate, fundamental, long-ignored natural inclination to hibernate. I suspected this for years, maybe decades.

Then there was a book on the subject.

"A book, The Hibernation Response, reminds us that the seasonal disorder affects at least twenty-five percent of the earth's population, especially those living in northern climes where light and sunshine are diminished throughout the winter. The consequence, the authors contend, is winter depression and many attendant discomforts."

Fitting very well with that, is this from an article about the book:

"The subject is hibernation. Bears hibernate, so do millions of other creatures, including thousands of different insect species. It is nature's method of preparing inhabitants of cold areas for the winter months. By settling into a state of inactivity, energy is preserved and body fat utilized slowly.

Since humans are part of nature, why have we been excluded? Or have we missed the cues while becoming adjusted to a society that turns night into day? Are we fighting a losing battle because the "unnatural response" has brought us chronic fatigue, respiratory diseases, and frequent loss of interest in work and play?"

Then just last night, there I sat, watching an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown, who's getting weirder and weirder with each passing season. (Alton, though I am a fan, has gotten away from what he does best. My opinion only.) So, there I sit, dog in lap, cat at feet, newspaper in hand, cold beer (Victory's Prima Pils)nearby, when the thought struck.

Is this what Christmas is all about? Really, truly, could all of this be what drives what we collectively call The Holidays?

I say, by golly, it just might be.

In our never ending attempt to circumvent, to defy, and more importantly, to deny nature, we came up with this lengthy festival which would rival the Greeks and Romans, this extravaganza that now stretches unending from at the latest Thanksgiving week to New Year's Week. Our society at present did not invent Christmas, yet it reshaped and remade the holiday, stretching it far beyond its intended limits for our very own selfish reason; we don't want to hibernate.

We so desperately wanted something to excite and incite us to corporal pleasures that we figured, "Hey, you know Christmas? Why don't we do all kinds of silly and distracting things on a daily basis so it won't end until we totally run out of excuses to keep it going?"

Look, lest anyone think me Scroogey for all of this, then please look no further than Scrooge, look to Dickens for a complete and honest treatment of what Christmas was like a short 150 years ago. In total it was, A) One day off from work, B) A respectable meal with family, C) A time for worship for those so inclined. That was it.

Don't want to visit Dickens? Fine, I can go back to my own mother and father, both of whom recounted what Christmas was like when they were kids in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It bore no resemblance to what we now see.

Here's what I figure...

Before electricity and the light bulb, there was a lot of dark a lot of days. Candles in abundance lit the way for many, but on average, the American family went to bed very early and arose rather late.

Early bed times helped keep you warm, since central heating didn't exist, nor did central plumbing, meaning indoor plumbing. Outhouse versus chamber pot? You tell me on a seventeen degree below zero night. On that very same night, outhouse versus a pants pocket and the winner would be the same.

Edison finds a way to light lives with electricity, so when the sun goes down, Americans don't have to slide into bed with it. Lighting the darkness means more time of day when you can see that hand in front of you. Americans don't sleep as much, or at least as long, and the denial of hibernation has begun.

Standing around staring at chickens, sheep, and cows doesn't move most who now have that electric light thing going. They need something to do. Their body says go to bed and sleep like a bear, but the temptation to do something, anything, with all that light is too strong. What to do?

What we did was create the make-work project we now know collectively as The Holidays, which gives us plenty to do most each and every day until the new year comes. From the new year forward, until the sun shines later and later, we needed something else again.

That's why we have the NFL and Superbowl Sunday.

The Cell Turns 25...

The 25th Anniversary of the first commercial cellphone was observed last week. Don't much know it if was celebrated, since I think most of us were never given time to prepare for the silver jubilee of a device which is now as much a part of our daily lives as this lousy economy.

We've had a cellphone since, oh, this is a very good guess, 1987/88. That would put as pretty close to the beginning. Our "cell" then wasn't small, convenient, nor easy to use. What we had was a bag phone, a sizable and clumsy affair that took up space, always need charging, and given the limited cellular signals at the time, really was little more than a novelty.

The phone you see here is a pretty good representation of what we did have back in the olden days.

Let's be fair about this. The technology, even in the mid and late 80s, was nothing short of incredible. I could take off for a day of fly fishing somewhere out in Columbia County, or down in Monroe or Carbon Counties, and give wifey a call once I was there, and once I was on the way home.

Sometimes.

Again, back to signal limitations.

See, there were more dead than live spots back then. This wasn't a NE PA shortcoming. Most of America, that is the America outside of major metro areas, was just starting to get cellular service. I do believe cell companies were selling cellphones to people who lived in places where they could never use them, except to look cool while faking a phone call.

Whatever the limitations, my memory of the following is solid. I didn't know how to answer a call on that bag phone should anyone call.

They never did.

There was a good reason. Neither Carol nor I knew with certainty what our cell number was. At some point, yes, I suppose we did write it down, and I suppose, it was on our monthly bill. About all I can figure is this - we used it so infrequently that we simply did not take it as serious means of serious communication.

Trading in the bag phone, we ended up with a phone not quite as bulky as this one, but it was a huge improvement over lugging and wrestling with a bag phone. Still, neither of us could ever remember the phone number. It had to be our lack of serious intent when it came to the cellphone.

Don't leave home without it? We more often than not left home without out. Somewhere back ten to twelve years ago, we lent the phone to family. They were traveling to New England and felt a little safer having a phone along. We were happy to oblige. They figured, if need be, we can call home. Sure, easily enough said.

Making that call home, should they find the nerve to attempt it, required a tedious process of punching in a series of different numbers, actually connecting with an operator, following that operator's instructions, then punching in more numbers. Put another way, there were a dozens hoops you needed to jump through to make a call to another state. Those hoops also carried an attendant price tag, which was somewhere around $10 a minute.

While they were in New England I tried calling them. The cellphone rang. And kept right on ringing - they never figured out how to answer it either.

The photo at left tells a story.

The event was Great Race V. The time would have been Spring/Summer 1985. This Great Race thing was an "-athalon" of some sort, whether bi, tri, or quad. A handful of us at WARM had put a team together to participate in two of the competitions; running and canoeing.

From left to right; me, Diane Wasta, Steve St. John, and the late Terry McNulty. Diane and Terry were runners. Steve and I weren't canoeists, but we dipped our paddles with exuberance nonetheless.

Seems I remember us coming in last. Dead last. The river was low. Steve and I carried the canoe more than we paddled it. There's a name for that; portaging. Embarrassing as it is, that's not the story the photo tells.

Behind us is the banner of the sponsor of Great Race V(was there a Great Race IV or VI?). That sponsor was CELLULAR ONE, a brand new cell phone company, proudly selling cell phones and service to the citizens of The Wyoming Valley, most of whom, and I'd bet a paycheck on this, had zero clue what in hell a cellular phone was. I sure didn't.

CELLULAR ONE is still out there. The Great Race, and this is just a guess, went away a long time ago. It was a benefit for The Environmental Council of NE PA, which pretty much faded into history an equally long time ago.

As a final note on the cell's turning 25, I'll confess to being unable to imagine life without one these days. Yes, I have memorized my number, and yes, I now know how to answer it.

The Crazy Redhead...

Funny thing about nicknames - sometimes they defy logic and reason. They often don't carry any real sense of what the person was actually like. If anything, they portray just the opposite.

The Crazy Redhead was, in all reality, anything but. A redhead, sure. Crazy by any definition, absolutely not. Tim Karlson was about as sane as they come.

To make another relevant comparison, you might remember The Big Fella. That would have been Terry McNulty. Terry called himself The Big Fella for years. He was no such thing. Terry was thin and fit, he could run ten miles and barely break a sweat, and he was of perhaps average height.

One thing they both had in common was that they were nice guys.

Another thing is they're now both gone.

Tim died Thursday afternoon. Terry left us roughly two years ago. A third thing in common, along with this blogger, we all worked together for years at WARM.

Let me tell you about Tim Karlson, The Crazy Redhead.

One of my first assessments of Tim was an easy one to make, it was that obvious; he was a devoted family man. I doubt we'd worked together a week before he invited me over to their home for lunch one day. Off of Main Street in Old Forge, the Kidwells lived on the second floor of an unremarkable duplex in a pleasant working-class neighborhood, the exact same type of neighborhood I'd known growing up.

Timothy Ralph Kidwell was his given name. It's not exactly a secret, he never hid the truth from anyone. Tim had come from a time in radio when a lot of guys(and we were mostly guys)changed their names. How or why he picked "Karlson" I have no idea. Could be he told me once. To most who knew him, he was alternately Tim or Timmy.

(In case you might wonder, no, I never did change my name. I will, though, admit to having several "air names" picked out before that first job came along. My full name is Vincent Thomas Sweeney, Jr., which I seem to remember mentioning elsewhere on this blog.)

Tim was a PK; a preacher's kid. PK is not a term of derision. The PK is sort of the civilian version of the Army Brat, inasmuch as moving around a lot is a part of life for them. Most children of clergy are quick and proud to tell you that they're a PK. His Dad was an ordained minister in The Reformed Episcopal Church, at the time shepherding a flock which had recently moved to a brand new church on Scranton's East Mountain. Tim's Dad was a heck of a nice guy, as was his Mom. It was easy enough to see that Tim was one apple that hadn't fallen far from the tree. He was gregarious, warm, pleasant, and quick with a compliment. Quick to laugh, too.

Tim was just an ordinary guy, an everyman who'd been blessed with a great voice, one that he used to create an on-air presence, first on radio, then on television. There wasn't an ounce of pretense about him, none whatsoever. Trust me, though, he wasn't just a voice. Hardly. Tim had style and a head for timing. He also knew his stuff. Stuff in his case ranged from music to cars to sports.

Tim was every bit at home wiggling his way under his car to change the oil as he was running a slick and successful afternoon drive show on the area's far and away #1 radio station. Tim was handyman, had all the tools, he could fix most anything.

Even from our first hour together I knew this was a guy who loved sports, lived sports, and who was infected with a passion for the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore was Tim's hometown. Although he'd been transplanted here when his father accepted the call at Grace Reformed Episcopal Church, it was clear a big piece of him never left Baltimore.

My first recollections (very clear at that) of Tim were listening to him at WSCR, which was one of the many WARM wannabes in the 60s/70s hereabouts. To come out of broadcasting school, Career Academy in Washington, and land at WSCR was an accomplishment. His WSCR Days were his Crazy Redhead days. Once out of there, he was just Tim Karlson. (Fellow blogger David Yonki recalls Tim being The Crazy Redhead when first at WARM. Could be he's right, though he'd lost that nick by the time I got there.)

So, come 1978, there we were, working at WARM. Over the next several years, Tim and I did a lot together. We even fished a time or two. What we didn't do together was run the saloons at night. Like I said, he was a family man. At night, he was home with that family. Besides, while neither a prude nor teetotaler, I can't say that I ever knew him to take a drink.

By the early 80s we were both fed up with our situations at WARM. Abundantly clear was one thing; WARM had become a dead end street. Let's be generous here for a change and not blame WARM. The fact was, he and I were both in our early 30s, we wanted more, we wanted a challenge or two, a change in scenery, we needed a different place to go to every single day. He was the first to go. My escape would have to wait at least a few more years.

Many won't remember this, but Tim's first job in television was at WBRE, where he briefly did weekend weather. It wasn't long after that WNEP offered him a part-time position in their sports department. There were three of us who traveled the same path out of WARM; Tim, Brian "Francis" Roche, and me. We all, and in that order, took the weekend weather job at WBRE. We all got fired at WARM shortly after we did. We all didn't care. Moving along was a pleasure at that point, although it was admittedly a financial burden for a while.

In time, Tim was appointed WNEP's Sports Director. Perfect. He deserved it, he was more than capable of handling the job, which he did for many years. When I wound up with the main weather job at WBRE, Tim and I joked about how luck had smiled upon us. He was so right.

Time takes no prisoners, it leaves victims. Too much of Tim's time on earth was taken up battling a dreadful illness. God rest his soul. God bless his family.

This is for Tim alone - "...ain't the beer cold!"

If The Phone Don't Ring...

Alone, forlorn, incongruous upon today's landscape, I first spotted it a few weeks ago. Odd, because I drive past this location at the very minimum of weekly.

How long has it been there? I'm trying to find out from some friends I have at Frontier Communications, owner, operator, and presumably, maintainer of this phone booth.

Do you realize that there are kids out there who have likely never seen a phone booth, maybe even have no idea what a phone booth is, or what the point of a pay phone was.

In the background, the old Dallas High School sits boarded and awaiting a rescue that may never come.

For those who've never seen, or have forgotten what a pay phone looks like, here's a tighter shot of the once ubiquitous pay phone. Once everywhere, now nowhere. Is this the only pay phone out there?

Would you know how to use one? How much for a call? The coin slot indicates a nickel, dime, and quarter. I'd guess it's a quarter, but if you go over on your call you need to deposit more. How does that work nowadays, is there still an operator somewhere to help you complete a call, to ask you for more money? Can you still make a collect call?

Last question, a three-parter: Who collects the money, when do they collect it, and who comes around and collects when the collector person is on vacation?

The numbers tell a story; payphones in America dropped by more than a million in just a decade, according to the Federal Communications Commission, falling from 2,086,540 in 1997 to just 1,006,802 at the start of 2007.

The American Public Communications Council has bleaker news still, they estimate that the number of pay phones is actually closer to 830,000 to 850,000 today. The shocker, to me anyway, is that there are that many left.

What has to most amazing of all is that this phone works. The dial tone was there the second I picked up that handset.

Know, however, that this is a phone booth not complete in all its parts. It's probably more accurate to say that it's what's left of what was once a phone booth.

Missing are the front door and the glass panel on the right, if you're facing the booth. There's a domelight you can only guess no longer works. If you remember, the light would come on when the folding door was closed.

Two things I didn't check for were a phone book and a phone number. Pay phones all had numbers. Next time by there, I'll stop and check.

Oh, and I didn't remember to push the little metal spring-loaded door and wiggle my finger around in the coin return poking for loose change. Hey, I can't think of everything.

Tights Are Tight...

Times are tight. Money is tight. Tights are tight. Tight as in just where do you get tights?

Before we go a sentence further, let me make it sparkling clear that I have no idea who that guy over on the right might be, none whatsoever. What I do know is that he might want to consider being ashamed of himself when he gets a minute.

Never thinking of being in the position to need a pair of tights, I'd never have given them a second thought if they weren't necessary for my outfit. Really, I didn't, and still don't, see many options.

All I knew about tights came from having two sisters who wore them as part of their Catholic school uniforms way back when. Tights appeared to be a sort of unattractive thick pantyhose, worn by most Catholic school girls in the colder months, at least while in grade school. High school brought about a conversion to knee socks, even on frigid mornings. I remember those rosy red knees which were probably minutes away from frostbite. You do, of course, remember Catholic schools, right?

To get back to the start of things, let me say that we, Carol and I, were part of a lovely event where costumes were mandatory. Admittedly, I haven't been into costumes and Halloween since fifth or sixth grade. Then, yep, I was really a big Halloween fan. Somehow time ate away at the dressing up for Halloween routine and it came to be more of an annoyance when necessary than the fun it once was. For me, it came full circle.

Last weekend we set aside time on Saturday afternoon to shop for costumes. More accurately, to shop for a costume rental. I don't see taking the plunge and buying a costume, because any costume that isn't cheesy, corny, and stupid-looking is gonna cost some serious money.

"Look, I'm going to take the first costume in the door that fits, OK?" That's what I told Carol.

I was serious. Spending hours poking through racks of costumes just doesn't appeal to me. I wanted to come home and get a nap. Typical guy, you say? Yes, I am, thank you. A good nap is where I stay with the pack, stick with the flock, do not stray from the pride, and don't feel like getting all "mavericky." I love a good nap.

First thing in the door that fits... was the plan. It worked. Fate? A planetary alignment? Dumb luck? Whatever.

There it was, just hanging high behind the counter.

My guess, Carol's guess, Barbara the shopkeeper's guess, is that it was a Henry VIII outfit. Complete with hat and swinging medallions, I still think it was Henry VIII. Others, not so.

A couple people at the party thought I was Columbus. Hearing that, I decided to go with something a bit more obscure, like Vasco deGama or Ferdinand Magellan, maybe even Amerigo Vespucci. I considered using Mercator, but couldn't recall his first name, which I now know was Gerardus.

"Columbus? No, no, no, my dear lady. Can't you see that I am Gerardus Mercator?"

Let's just settle on the costume being 15th - 16th century upper class, sort of foppish, and definitely requiring some type of undergarment to work properly.

I figured tights. Look at Henry over there on the left. Tights, right? Or whatever passed for tights then. (Anyone remember Men In Tights, a Mel Brooks film?)

Wearing tights is one decision, finding them is one dilemma.

Best guess would have me spending at least three hours over the last week hopping store to store looking for, well, big tights for a big woman, since men's tights don't exist. If they do, you can't just grab a pair over at CVS while picking up that beard coloring kit, the one you didn't use. Another story.

Five stores, one pair of tights. Not the color I was after, and not the size either. Carol found a pair of one-size-fits-all tights at a big-box store that wouldn't fit Barbie, or more germane to the present discussion, wouldn't fit Ken.

That I managed to get my feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs, hips, rump and waist into this two-legged elastic torture device was remarkable...but I did. With grunts, groans, snarls, mumbles, and obscenities, I wiggled tights all the way up beyond my waist, just for good measure.

Two of our dogs ran from me, they looked scared, like I was a stranger. The smartest of our dogs, and there is always one, knew me tights or no tights, Tudor look or not.

The cats? They didn't care. Please, do they ever?

And off we went to the costume party (where I was the "roastee") and we had a ball dancing the night away, with me taking a moment from time to time to pull up my tights.

If you have a few seconds, take a look.

Thanks, Joe...

Some days, some weeks, are interesting.

Some are drier than dust.

Some days I get an e-mail every seven minutes, and I mean e-mails that are important, not mail trying to talk me into buying Viiagara or Xantax.

All in all, last week was a really good one. Thanks, Joe.

The highlight, of course, was being back on the teevee with Joe Snedeker. This was the second time Joe was gracious enough to have us on with him from WNEP's Backyard. The occasion was our SPCA's 18th Annual Walk for The Animals. Joe makes us way beyond comfortable when we visit, we feel genuinely welcome.

Joe lets us come up with a couple dogs and talk up our event live on the air. Thanks, Joe. He even has me do a little weather before I'm through, which still makes me smile. To look at myself in a monitor and see WNEP's logo sitting along the bottom right of the screen cracks me up. It's one of those "I never thought I'd live to see the day..." deals.

Above you have Joe as he looks today. Below you have Joe as he looked at some undisclosed time in the past. The Joe The Younger photo is there because it happens to be floating around on the net. A remnant, I'm guessing, from a previous incarnation of WNEP's website. The photos are for comparison only.

If that visit with Joe wasn't alone more fun than a guy my age should be allowed to have without medication, I actually got to talk about anal glands on live television, which is another "...live to see the day" things.

Joe got down and scooted, asking why dogs do that.

I suppose I could have made some goofy remark about dogs recognizing its entertainment value and in their neverending efforts to amuse and entertain us, they scoot. They scoot, we laugh.

Fact is, they have an itch in need of a big scratch, scooting feels just fine. It's all about their anal glands. Thanks, Joe, for letting me say "anal glands" on your show. Anal gland issues can be serious, just ask your vet.

"The only thing constant in life is change..." may be a corny old saying, but there's a ton of truth in it. Things change. Change, can be good, healthy, and beneficial. Whatever it is, it is.

That being true and said, let me confess to one thing not changing, and that would be the way I feel when in a radio or television station.

I feel right at home. I feel like I belong there. Of course, it's really little more than conditioning. Having spent thirty-plus years in broadcasting, it would only make sense that it's a comfortable environment for me.

So, to Joe Snedeker and everyone at WNEP, thanks for having us on. Maybe next time around we can finish that conversation on anal glands.

Happy 5,000th...

It's not often you get to offer congratulations on a 5,000th anything. As most already know, Daniels and Webster are about to hit that milestone at Rock107. It's been a long time.

I see John and Jay often enough to know that, our "careers" of twenty, thirty, or more years pass in the blink of any eye. For me, thirty-three years in the broadcasting biz feels like it was maybe nine or ten years, that it stretches back to the '90s and not the early '70s that it does.

That this morning show, this team, has managed to not only survive, but hugely succeed, for the years they have is nothing short of remarkable.

Broadcasting is a nasty business. That's Life may nail it straightest and best, "...ridin' high in April, shot down in May." If you've been there, done that, got the coffee mug, t-shirt, and the frisbee, you know that to be true.

To further Sinatra-ize this, "Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention." And that is the honest-to-God truth.

So it is with great sincerity that I wish Daniels, Webster, Miller, and DiRienzo my heartfelt congratulations on achieving that which really few others have, past or present, in this radio market.

To have been a part of it once is a source of great pride with me.; it carries legitimate bragging rights.

I'll end with this: In my over three decades of broadcasting, the best work I ever did, and I do mean EVER, was the work I did with D&W.

See Ya' Later...Bye-Bye

He was saying "...bye-bye" long before SNL made the flight attendants' parting words(often buh-by) an entry in our national lexicon. Ron's signature sports' sign-off was, "See ya' later, bye-bye." I heard him say it literally hundreds and hundreds of times over the course of the seven years we worked side-by-side.

It wasn't always side-by-side.

At the beginning, he was my boss.

(The picture is 100% Ron Allen, it captures the man completely; Ron making a point. I stole the photo from Andy Palumbo. Thanks.)

In time, things came and went, including his titles, duties, and authority, meaning that we were more or less co-workers, colleagues I suppose. The company we both worked for was in constant flux during at least the last five years we did work together, it was tough to know the players without a daily scorecard; you'd be management, semi-management, or just plain staff one day, the next day wipe the board clean and rearrange all the pieces all over again.

It was a company big on titles, not so big on money. It was also a company that had lost its way, at least as far as running this radio station was concerned. WARM had been the giant. It was slipping.

I was alternately music director, production director, or just disc jockey. Oh, and for a brief time, I was also a talk-show host.

Then for an even briefer period of time, I was one half of this market's first ever radio "team" which was St. John and Sweeney. Me and St. John, Steve St. John, did afternoon drive at WARM...sometimes. When the then program director was of a mood, we teamed up. When he wasn't, we didn't. It was a mess.

Throughout it all, Ron was there most every day, whatever his capacity, except for when he and Mary Ann vacationed out west. They did that a lot during those years. Ron would put together this spectacular itinerary for visiting national parks all over the inter-mountain west, then they'd fly into Vegas, rent a car, and drive, sightsee, and love life for several weeks straight.

Ron could be very passionate about many things. Some were transient passions, burning themselves cold in a year or less.

It was Chinese food for a while. Ron became intimately familiar with Chinese food, and I mean real and authentic Chinese, not a bowl of canned chop suey, speaking about it at great length when holding court, which is something he did almost daily.

Once Chinese cuisine, and its preparation and cooking(Ron prepped and cooked himself extensively), slipped off of Ron's hit list, he turned his attention to wine.

He knew his stuff. Remember, this was long before the internet, so Ron's grasp of wine was all self-acquired, learned by reading and trying, by trial and error. Hell, by drinking a lot of wine. A few times I asked for recommendations on wine. Ron was right there without hesitation, he nailed it every time, never making a bad suggestion that I can recall. One of the best wines I have ever tasted was a Ron Allen favorite; a vintage Mondavi Napa Valley Chardonnay of perhaps four or five years of age, which way back when ran roughly $17 a bottle.

As has and will be noted countless times, Ron's passion for sports and movies never waned. Both were powerful forces in his life. Encyclopedic is not a misused description of Ron's knowledge of sports, his motion picture grasp the same. Name it, he knew it.

Ron died this past week after a lengthy stretch of declining health. By today's yardstick of life expectancy, he wasn't an old man, Ron was 71.

Another Ron memory just this second occurred to me. Ron's cars.

Ron lived near the station for most of his years there. I do believe it was by design. Not that he loved his job so much, but more because he found making a long haul to and from the job annoying. Since he lived close by, Ron became the expert on choosing the One Hundred Dollar Junker.

Some guy he knew in Old Forge would find Ron a junker that ran fine but would likely croak within several months. Ron would give him a hundred bucks and drive this running wreck until it would no more, at least not without major repair. Then it was back to the junker lot for another. In time, another, then another. I'd say he drove the wheels off these cars but someone else already had before Ron got hold of them.

I have more Ron Allen stories. For now, though, let me sincerely say that we'd all be better off had Ron lived a longer and healthier life.

I liked Ron. My deepest condolences to Mary Ann and Laurie.

Maybe He Was Right...

"He" was a writer for the old Scranton Tribune, the one that existed before being bought out by The Scranton Times, which then became The Times-Tribune.



His name was Tom Casey. Tom was not only a great writer, he was also a keen observer of life in and around Scranton and Lackawanna County. His apparent first love was politics. Being the political-weenie of longstanding, I read Mr. Casey's columns with regularity, actually blowing past all else in The "Trib," the morning paper, just to get to Casey's column, then go back and read the rest of it.

I never met Tom Casey. There was a time when it was probably just as well I did not. Tom lost me when he began bashing what I strongly felt was a key component of NE PA's comeback, the same comeback that I mentioned in my previous post, the one which wobbled along on spindly legs for far too long before hitting stride.

Tom Casey thought that bringing minor league baseball, especially on the lofty level of Triple A, to this area was an enormous mistake. Tom said it wouldn't work. Tom, himself a huge baseball fan, a Yankee man if my memory is any good, was insistent that failure was a built-in given in any attempt to play baseball before big crowds here.



Logically following that thinking, he concluded that any stadium erected to house this team would be a white elephant of the first order, a financial ball and chain for taxpayers present and future. Again, I rely on memory in saying that he felt a basic grass field, with no more than steel-framed bleachers with wood seats, was really all this area would tolerate, meaning that it was about all us locals would pay money to sit on while watching baseball. His meaning was clear; us folk here in the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre wouldn't pay much to watch any minor league teams play.


I didn't like Tom Casey for saying these things. At the time, I began to view him as a cranky middle-aged guy on his way to old age who just couldn't stand to see anything succeed. I began to think of him as being possessed of what some call the "Coal Miner Mentality." That's roughly defined as most NE PA residents thinking that a good many things are too good for us, that we don't deserve them, so we push them away in an odd act of self-destruction. Any truth to it? An argument, perhaps, for another time.


Despite Tom Casey's protestations, his dire "you'll be sorry and I told you so..." scolding, AAA Baseball came, a fine stadium was erected as an early monument to our finding the way back, and there was much joy in the shadow of the big mountain in Moosic.


It was a rough ride over the years. Attendance was up, it was down, up again, down again. Allentown made no secret of its wanting our franchise, even building a stadium to house what had been "our" Red Barons. They were confident it would happen. It did.


But we did better yet. The Yankees came to town. The honest-to-God-genuine-America's-baseball-team-of-record moved their franchise from Columbus, Ohio, to Montage Mountain. The Yankees!


Here is where I must confess to not being much of a baseball fan. Yeah, as a kid I adored Mantle, followed Maris' every homerun right up to and a bit beyond the record-breaker, but I am just not a baseball kind of guy.


Yet even a non like me knew that the Yankees were big, maybe the biggest thing to happen in ten, twenty years. The Yankees would be the hottest ticket in town, not to mention saving at least one political career.


They didn't save that career. They haven't been the hottest ticket in town. The sad fact is, tickets sold for this past season failed to break a half million mark. Despite being the International League Champions, two of the Governor's Cup games played here sold less than 3,000 tickets each. Tickets sold versus how many pairs of cheeks were in the bleachers,of course is another matter, they don't always match.


Attendance down, revenue down, and I suppose you really can't muster a very strong argument against interest being down.

In all fairness, this economy isn't helping. Gas prices, money need elsewhere than entertainment, etc., all could play a big role in what was a little season.

Now, a new stadium is being discussed. Heck, it might even be demanded by the Yankees or they'll literally take their bats and balls and go home, wherever that home may end up being.

That new stadium, some are strongly suggesting, should be built in downtown Scranton. What then of Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County's investment in the team? Is Lackawanna County going to write a check and buy out Luzerne County's share in the venture? Somehow, I don't think so.

What I think is probably not all that important. I don't go to games, don't follow any International League teams, don't own any Scranton/Wilkes-Barre merchandise, don't really have much of an emotional investment in the team.

One thing I do have is some pride in the fact that such a nice facility exists here. Even at 23 years of age it's still an impressive site. There is also pride within me that AAA Baseball exists here. What apparently doesn't exist here is widespread support for a AAA club calling our home theirs.

Was Tom Casey right? I wish I had an answer.

For now, though, could be that he was...