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.