Manny Gordon has died.
By now, all who knew the name must be aware that he's gone. At the same time, those
who didn't know the name now have some sense of what a neat guy he was, what a genuine treasure he was. Although he lived until ninety-seven years of age, his passing takes a gentle poke at us all with that subtle touch of sadness over a friend we'll not see again.There was a time for me when a Manny sighting was a near daily thing. It's been some time since.
Remembering when Manny was fast becoming a household name and face isn't all that tough for me. That's probably because I was working in the business that made the man famous when it happened.
Manny was a media darling.
Undeniably, irrefutably, no questions, no hesitation in saying so, Manny Gordon was one big old media darling. Manny's face could light up a television screen.
If in your car, his signature "...enjoy, ENJOY," which really came out as, "...an-JOY, ANNNN-joy," jumped right out of your radio and into your lap.
It was as genuine as the Declaration of Independence, as real as the earth beneath your feet, because Manny Gordon was the real deal. He lived the dream, he loved the dream. He was a delightful man, one whose company in which I found myself many times over the years. It was my pleasure each and every time. Bumping into Manny made your day, if your day needed making, and whose doesn't at times?
As with too many others who've died recently, what in the name of all that is good and holy can I say about Manny that hasn't already been said, will be said, then likely said again?
Well, here you go.
Surely what I'll say will fly smack into the eye of prevailing thought. A few toes might feel stepped upon, while a few others might feel the relief of small recognition long overdue.
See, while most attribute Manny's great "celebrity" to WNEP, I'm here to tell you that it was someone and something else that made Manny a star, or at the very least first spotted the star that WNEP fueled until it exploded and screamed across the sky of one full corner of Pennsylvania for likely thirty years.Manny, and I honestly believe this, owed his incredible and surely deserved notoriety to that guy over there. That's a young - very young - Harry West. Harry looks like a junior at his hometown alma mater, Reading High.
The pipe is a prop. Harry never smoked, mostly because of his father's heavy smoking, a story for neither here nor now. The pipe almost looks Photo-Shopped, except for there being no Photo Shop at the time, no computers then, no such thing as digital photography, it wasn't even a wild dream at the time. The wheel, however, had been in regular use for some time.
Before Manny was "household" in Lock Haven, Athens, Minersville, before he'd found a place in the hearts of those in Bloomsburg, Centre Hall, Bastress, and Girardville, one Manny Gordon, District Forester, was already pretty darned well-known throughout that make-believe place where so many of us once lived, a place called WARMland.
The facts are these; Harry West and WARM had for years been involved in a beauty pageant of sorts, the winner of which became Miss Flaming Foliage, subsequent to which some lovely young local woman, along with her runners-up, would find her picture in the "brown section" of the old Scrantonian and become herself a minor local celebrity. That's where Manny first came to the attention of the media, print then broadcast, the connection between Fall's foliage and Pennsylvania District Forester being obvious. (My wife is a former Miss Flaming Foliage, affording me personal and inside knowledge of this once celebrated event.)
While "...an-JOY, ANNNN-joy" didn't exactly fire up the printed page, it was an immediate hit when heard delivered by the man himself, Manny Gordon. And it was Harry West who heard it, shared it, and launched what became a long, long run of being loved, idolized, and respected (the most important benefit of all), by several generations of people who do or did call northeastern and north central Pennsylvania home.
Once heard, our natural nosiness was to see the man behind these two words that had captivated the imagination of WARM's audience which, as we all full well know, was beyond sizable at the time. WNEP was right there, astute enough to know that we wanted see this guy. WARM and Harry let us hear Manny, WNEP showed us Manny.
And so it is that I say credit where credit is due, even if it is long overdue. Thanks, Harry. Thank you for so many things, one of which would be letting us all in on what a gem Manny Gordon was. Thanks.
WNEP gets abundant credit for ownership of the wonderful phenomena that was Manny Gordon, full credit for bringing us into the tent so we could see and fully experience Manny, but it was Harry and WARM that brought Manny to the dance, and what a long and memorable dance it was.
There shall be no other like it.
