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...

I'll Take Scranhattan...

I love Scranton. I was born there, raised there, and left a bit of my heart there a long time ago.

I don't live in Scranton. It's not intentional, mind you, it all came about by wanting to cut drive times to and from work. So we moved to The Back Mountain some years ago. I also love The Back Mountain, but it's not Scranhattan. Most of us, I suspect, have some sort of thing for our hometown, wherever it might be.

Recently, The Scranhattan Festival was held. The first ever. If it were me, and I were running the show, I would have called it The First Annual Scranhattan Festival, entrusting my optimism to the four winds.

Those would be the four winds that blow from Minooka, Petersburg Corners, Hyde Park, and Bulls Head, or maybe from The High Works.

Hey, baby, you gotta be from Scranhattan to know about The High Works. How many under 50 even know the approximate coordinates that define The High Works? How many care?

Right, few if any, and fewer it is each and every year.

What I genuinely love is that Scranton is trying so hard to reinvent itself. Even more encouraging is that by all accounts the city is succeeding. At times, succeeding in spite of itself. What stirs me more than the reinvention is the fact that it's men and women in their 20s and 30s who are driving this resurrection of the once and future City.

(Scranton: Once and Future City is a documentary done over 20 years ago centered on what was then the widely expected imminent comeback of Scranton. It's worth a watch whenever it runs on WVIA.)

I know a lot of us smelled a turnaround in the air going all the way back to the early 80s. I was then beginning my 30s and quite excited about watching the hometown turnaround.

Being the native son and all, it's my prerogative to take a swipe at Scranton now and again. So, for those who might not remember, by the time the 70s gave way to 1980, Scranton was in one sorry state.

As a visitor to downtown Scranton sarcastically said to me in, best guess, 1981, "I never knew the Wehrmacht got this far." The mark from that bruise is still tender to the touch.

The comeback has taken far longer than expected. Yet, it is underway. Sadly, my youth, by varying definitions, slipped away waiting for the city to get the hell moving.

Now, of course, we have Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and The Office to pump even more national interest into the Scranton Phenomena, and yes, I think there is such a thing, there is a Scranton Phenomena.

For a long time, many have half-jokingly called Scranton The Real Center of The Universe. The thinking behind that is this; no matter where you travel, nationally, globally, you inevitably run across someone with Scranton roots, if not someone who still lives in Scranton. Carol and I both have experienced this dozens of times from Ireland to Canada, from Mexico to Louisiana, from Colorado to The Virgin Islands.

(Quick example. One morning over twenty years ago, while traveling west from Chicago aboard Amtrak's California Zephyr, I had walked the few steps from my sleeper to the dining car for breakfast as we pulled out of Denver. The dining car steward seated me with an elderly couple from Pullman, Washington, who were returning from visiting family in Chicago. The husband asked where I was from. I said "Scranton, Pennsylvania, sir." He said, "Huh, how about that, my mother was from Scranton.")

For a brief while there, maybe a couple years ago, some were referring to Scranton as Scrantona Beach. I liked that, thought it had great possibility, that all it needed was some serious repeating by the right people.

There's something fun, carefree, sunny, bright, and two-tons-of-fun sounding about Scrantona Beach. Scrantona Beach sounds like a destination to me.

It never stuck, it never took, so Scranhattan it is.

I'll take Scranhattan.

I'll also take all the attention that Joe and Hillary and The Office can bring to one pretty neat city.

To put a period at the end of this post, I was in Scranton early this morning paying a visit to my old pals Daniels&Webster, Dave, and Ruth, leaving town around 10:00 AM. Before putting Scranhattan in my rear view, I had to swing by City Hall, the Treasurer's Office. I got a parking ticket. Pay it within 24 hours and it's only ten bucks. And so I did. I overtime-parked, I deserved the ticket, I paid the ticket, I did not complain. In fact, I had a nice gab with several women in the Treasurer's Office, mostly about doggies and kitties. What else, right?

OK, Mayor Doherty, you are doing one heck of a job efficiency-wise nailing overtime parkers, which well you should.

How about doing something, ANYTHING, with Lackawanna Avenue. The city's original "main drag" is an absolute disgrace. That new $900 crown in my mouth felt like it was going to blow out, hit the windshield, and bounce back and embed itself in my face. Seriously, Mayor Chris, Lackawanna Avenue is an embarrassment. Twice in two weeks I drove the "Burma Road" that Lackawanna Avenue has become, and twice in the last two weeks I've wondered how it can continue to be neglected.

Still, I'll take Scranhattan...