L'Osservatore Scrantonio...

Pardon my mangling the Italian language and kindly overlook the liberty taken with the localization of the name of the Vatican's official newspaper.

L'Osservatore Romano is the Holy See's weekly newspaper, available in myriad tongues.

I've never read it. I should. It's always good to get all sides of any given story, and you if you can't count on L'Osservatore for solely one side, heck, who can you count on?

Recent developments, emerging developments, in the Diocese of Scranton are such that observing them at present is left to the individual, since "officially" no one seems to know what's really and truly unfolding here. Whatever it is, suffice to say it's unprecedented.

Unprecedented is the resignation of a bishop not under any Curial injunction to do so, meaning the man is not yet of resignation age. By the Church's yardstick, he has years to go, miles to travel, much to accomplish before Rome demands he submit his resignation. Apparently, he has done just that.

Unprecedented is a bishop moving from the traditional home of diocesan ordinaries, which would be next door to St. Peter's Cathedral on Wyoming Avenue in Scranton. He has moved to the former Pius X Seminary in Dalton. Though no longer a seminary, the buildings and property have not been abandoned by the diocese and offered for sale.

Unprecedented is a bishop strolling around downtown Scranton without benefit of a Roman collar and smiling with warmth and sincerity at passersby. We've seen the photos.

Published reports claim Joseph Martino has suffered "a near nervous breakdown." As to that, I have neither substantiation nor opinion.

What I do have are observations of my own, my L'Osservatore Scrantonio.

It's established that Bishop Martino is about to become the former Bishop of Scranton. Precisely why, I feel safe in saying, we will never know. There are three possibilities in my view;

1) He collapsed beneath the stress and weight of doing what he felt the need to do here. Subsequent to following orders, he became the target of severe criticism and contempt across the width and breadth of the diocese. All of this took an awful toll. Toll taken, he resigned.

2) Those who sent him here to do what needed to be done realized that the emotional damage and the emptying pews far outweigh the pecuniary benefits of shuttering churches and abandoning neighborhoods that are in need of the stabilizing effect of an open church. It's the flaw of "Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing..." Damage done, perhaps far overdone, he was asked to go with as little fuss as possible.

3) What is now playing out has been the plan all along, meaning this man was sent here to do seriously unpopular work which, once finished, he could leave behind and go elsewhere. Drama done, curtain down, no bows, houselights up, go home.

It could be any of the above, it could be a combination, it could be all three.

Monday's news conference will shed scant light on the situation, it's a strictly controlled affair not open to the public. Shocking? Hardly.

I'd love to be there. I'd love to ask a question, just one question:


"Bishop Martino, sir, considering your shutting down dozens upon dozens of churches due to the weighty burden of expense, just why is a 'closed' seminary still in use by the diocese? How can the diocese justify the upkeep, including grounds maintenance, of this expansive piece of property in a very pricey neighborhood?"

Is there an answer to the question. Sure.

Will it ever be revealed? Of course not.

The Mighty Potato Chip...

Each time I crunch down on a potato chip, I think of mother.

Mother and her beloved potato chips. No, no, Mom never made potato chips, she just adored them.

(Mom and my gram, mom's mom, did make outrageous fish and chips, however, and that's a story for telling another time.)

Divinely simple, the potato chip is an American invention. History seems sure of itself in saying that one George Crum, then chef at a high-end resort in New York, Saratoga Springs in fact, invented the potato chip in 1853. Crum grew irritated with a paying dinner guest who griped about his french fries being too thick. Chefs can be a testy lot, so Crum decided to make a fry so thin that his unhappy diner would surely walk out in a snit. No snit. No walking out. It was love at first crispy bite.

Do I speak for all when I say we understand why?

Potato, oil, salt. In the basic form, that is it. Sure, we Americans can never leave well enough alone, so over the century plus since Crum's insolence changed the snack world, maybe even created the snack world, we've tinkered and toyed with that which might be close to perfection.

That whole "I was born on a diet..." thing is always over there in the shadows, so I need to make the disclaimer that, should I eat seventeen potato chips a week, that's pushing the limit. Since so few are consumed, each bite assumes greater and greater importance. Savor, I do believe, would be the best word. Linger is another good word. The potato chip is to be lingered over while being savored. Such is the potato chip's appeal, nay, its near euphoric delight, that it must be slowly and deliberately enjoyed.

Or, if you're skinny, you can plow them down by the handfuls several times a day.

Mom spoke often of her love for the potato chip, going so far as to declare that should things deteriorate to where there might be one food left on the planet, her fondest wish was that it be the potato chip. That about covers it, don't you think? She never mentioned brand or style.

You could make mine Herr's Sour Cream and Onion Ripples.

Mr. Spellman's Roses...

Things began with a hot and steamy Monday off from work. It's August.

In an August not long after the end of WWII, you see my grandfather Sweeney holding my sister in our backyard. It was August of 1952 in fact, and there's a rose in bloom to his right. Remember that rose.

My occasional days off are pretty much spent being a housebound layabout. I nap a bit, catch up on email, take another nap, get the dogs out to pee, catch another nap. It has a pleasing drowsy rhythm to it.

This past Monday, though, I had a nagging urge to drive to Scranton, to poke around some neighborhoods unpoked by me in one whole heck of a lot of time.

After lunch with my wife in Tunkhannock, Scranton it was.

I was particularly interested in the Pine Brook section of the city, and for a couple of reasons; it's where I'm from, and it's a neighborhood about to be changed forever by the arrival of TCMC a few blocks away.

This is the house in which I was "born."

When the folks brought me home from Mercy Hospital, also but a few blocks away, home was right here in Pine Brook. A double, we lived on the left side at 1008 Monsey Avenue. On the other side at 1006 lived Mr. Spellman, William Spellman.

The photo is fresh, taken just Monday from my truck as I sat across the street. Mr. Spellman, an elderly gentleman, was our landlord and just a really nice man. To the left of the house is an auto parts store, where some guy, maybe an employee, started eyeballing me as I fired off a few frames of the old place. He stared. I stared back. I'm betting he made me for a real estate agent.

I have vivid memories of Mr. Spellman. Some mornings I'd toddle - that's what toddlers do, right? - on over and sit with the kind and gentle Mr. Spellman at his breakfast table. The aroma of fresh brewed or perked coffee reminds me of him to this very second.

My parents were very fond of the Spellmans, staying in touch over the decades until most all of their generations had expired. Mr. Spellman kept a very nice backyard, had himself a green thumb. Even though we moved from his house in 1953, I do remember the backyard and the flowers in bloom. There was also a small vegetable garden up in the left corner of the yard.

Not that you'd be inclined to go in search of it, I'm here to to tell you that there is no 1008 Monsey Avenue today in Scranton. The house is there, the 1000 block of Monsey is long gone, as is the 900 and 1100 of Monsey. While Monsey Avenue surely exists nearby, those three blocks of it were renamed Sanderson Avenue somewhere back in the late 50s. For whatever unknown reason, the city changed the name.

When I memorized my address as just a little kid, it was 1008 Monsey Avenue - and that would Ten-Oh-Eight. The brand new Mr. and Mrs. Vincent T. Sweeney are seen here on their wedding day in the front room of that house on Monsey. My father and mother in the middle, flanked by my uncle and godfather, Jack Sweeney, and my late aunt, Betty Davies. Dad looks like he was working on some Kramer hair long before the world knew what a Kramer was. My mom, Nancy, was the last survivor of that bunch then so young. She was the last to go.

I hadn't even driven past the front of the old house in what has to be at least ten years now. The pleasant surprise is its condition, which isn't half bad at all. My guess is that the property is no longer occupied. Oddly, however, it looks like it hasn't been all that long since someone was performing at least minimal maintenance on the place. Over the 56 intervening years, I have no clue as to its history of residents and/or owners, but it's still there, complete with unbroken windows, in itself remarkable.

Back to Mr. Spellman. There's an alley behind the old house named Spellman Court, which takes its name from his family, so I swung up Ash Street and around and through the alley to get the back view of the once 1008 Monsey Avenue.

Straight ahead, I could see the back doors that I honestly remember as a three year old. In between those doors, there's a set of "Bilco" doors leading to a split basement, one for each side of the double house, or as they've come to be called, double-block houses.

The backyard should be far more overgrown for an abandoned house, which increases the mystery and my curiosity as to just what's going on here. Lacking only a pass or two with a mower, the lawn looks like one that lots of guys spend every weekend babying. It appears to be doing fine all by itself.

I'm sitting there in Spellman Court, staring into a backyard I haven't so much as glanced at in what could be over fifty years. A flood of memories sounds a little corny, so let's just say there was a slow trickle. Right at the head of that trickle were thoughts of Mr. Spellman's roses, which were pretty much smack in the middle of the yard, closer to the house than the alley.

That's when I saw what I really didn't believe I could possibly see.

Right there, still pretty much smack in the middle of that very same yard, roses. White? Cream? Without trespassing, and it was a brief consideration, there was no real way of knowing.

Is it possible? Could the roses I first thought I saw, then racked out my lens and did indeed see, could they be from the same rosebush my grandfather stood near in 1952, the same rosebush I ran around in my shorts in 1953?

Wishful thinking, I suppose. A bit of whimsy as I look back on life in the realization that far more is behind than ahead of me. One thing not capable of being blamed is imagination. Roses, apparently of the same color, are in approximately the same place as were roses nearly 60 years ago.

Consider that there are rosebushes in this country whose documentation verifies them as being 250 years of age. Click and enlarge this small collage. See what you see. See if it might be the same as me.

It was a hazy, hot, and humid day with nothing to do.

I did do something. I saw Mr. Spellman's roses again. I really think I did.

Me and Woodstock...

If you look real hard at the photo over there on the left, you could find someone who might look like me. It's not. I was nowhere near Woodstock.

Claims that Woodstock defined my generation never sat right with me. Undeniably, such has been said countless times by those who observed the phenomena, either first-hand or through the reversed looking glass of time in film, photos, on vinyl, and by legend, truth, and pure myth. Not to be ignored when discussing Woodstock is the fact that, if everyone who said they were there was there, we'd be looking at several million bodies minimum, rather than the factual half million tops. Still, that is one whole lot of people.

Forty years ago, driving to Bethel, New York, to stand in the mud without food or water wasn't high up there on my short list of things to do for the weekend.

I couldn't really tell you for sure where I was most of that weekend in 1969. But it wasn't in Sullivan County, New York. And it most assuredly was not in Woodstock, because Woodstock wasn't held at Woodstock. Woodstock's in another New York County, Ulster, and is almost forty-five miles from what was officially called The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, and subtitled, An Aquarian Exposition. Let us give proper acknowledgment that the The Fifth Dimension had told us with great excitement and anticipation that "...this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Age of Aquarius."

Somehow, and no matter how hard I try, The Fifth Dimension and Woodstock don't make much of a fit. And, do tell, just what became of the Age of Aquarius?

Woodstock's town fathers, mothers, and others, had told concert organizers to get lost, they didn't want the headaches of all those hippies in their backyard for a weekend. So, they took it down the road to Bethel.

Wherever it was, I wasn't there. Yeah, I know, it's been said a million times; if you remember the '60s, you weren't really there. Really, I wasn't there, there at Woodstock.

If you were to push the following statement in front of me in any form capable of being signed and witnessed, I'd never make it to the notary. All I can swear to is that I can't swear to this being true. Forty years has blurred much, the summer of 1969 is fuzzy. Elusive memories or not, here's how I remember me and Woodstock.

Like most all of us in our teens, I had this circle of friends which sat inside a broader circle of acquaintances. I can tell you that about all I recall about Woodstock as it unfolded was that a handful of us talked some about going and actually began to drive in that direction. We didn't get very far.

As I sit here forty years past, I can't help but wonder how it was we all knew about Woodstock. No internet. No MTV, VHI. No blogs. TV coverage, while surely existent, couldn't have been all that huge, the networks weren't big into flower power or the children of the flower or promoting any of their gatherings, at least not until after the event. A good guess would be that news of a pending mega-event spread via that underground which ran through every college campus in the country.

That we all knew it was coming is a certainty. We even knew where. I just don't think any of my pals were keyed up enough to make sure they were there.

We set out upon the journey from Scranton to Woodstock.

Somewhere around Hamlin Corners one among us started whining about how he had to be home that night for his grandmother's birthday party or some such, so around we turned and home we came. Any excuse, clearly, was compelling enough. Cutting grandma's birthday cake demanded respect enough that no one was going to challenge the need to be there. I don't recall any sigh of relief. I'd speculate there was one. We might have stopped in the Hamlin Diner for a bite, then popped a Canned Heat tape into the eight-track for the fifteen minute drive home.

For us, the drive to Max Yasgur's farm would have been maybe ninety minutes on a normal day if, say, you were going to Yasgur's to pick up some 'lopes and wax beans. The weekend of "a generation's defining event," driving there from here was likely a five to six hour experience, with a goodly piece of it spent walking or clinging to the roof of a VW bus trying to get closer to the center of the universe, which that weekend was right there in upstate New York, right over the state line.

It's long seemed to me that Woodstock wasn't really Woodstock until it was over, and maybe long over. The sense that something cataclysmic had happened didn't much occur to the mass of sweat-soaked, mud-splashed, and manure-caked, stoned and/or soused young men and women until after they'd gone home, cleaned up, and returned to the banality of their normal lives.

Whatever happened at Woodstock was meaningful, if only because nearly a half million people peaceably gathered in one place without any major problems.

Personally, I know no one who can verify they were there. Unless you were on stage, I suppose no one can really verify being there.

Just today I read a quote from one who swears he was there, in which he says, "I don't remember anything, but 'the vibe' is still with me."

Like, wow, man.

Ghosts of Scranton Not All That Long Past...

It's really not so much that the place went out of business way too soon. It's not that so much optimism has once again been seemingly flushed down the toilet of failure. And it's not anything connected to a sense of personal loss, since I never set foot in the place. No, it's none of those things.

It's the plywood.

A window once aglow with life and prosperity is now boarded up with a sheet of inexpensive plywood. A sheet? We should call it a shroud of plywood. Shrouds of which Scranton has seen far too many of over the decades.

Don't kid yourself. While Scranton might be hiking along the comeback trail, it's barely learned to put one foot in front of the other in relation to completing any sort of journey. Me? Yeah, I believe in Scranton, although Wilkes-Barre has become the "I Believe..." city. The plywood shroud is not an unknown in Wilkes-Barre, either.

Particularly disturbing is the reappearance of plywood at damned near the exact moment when the rebirth of Scranton, the rebirth of all NE PA, is about to begin in earnest. Yes, I know, we've been re-birthing around here for likely thirty years. This time, though, it's genuine. The mid-wife, if you will, is TCMC, the new med school, the one whose first class made proud headlines over the weekend.

My voice is not alone crying in any wilderness. Heck, I'm not even a sole advocate wandering around by Mayor Doherty's tree house in Nay Aug. What I am is one of a minimum of tens and tens of thousands who know that TCMC's going from idea to reality in the relative blink of an eye is the messianic occurrence long awaited to bring us back. And it will.

Then, no sooner does TCMC's first class arrive than plywood returns.

The plywood shroud has made a comeback in downtown Scranton, where not all that long ago there was probably more plywood than glass. Its reappearance is a dark and grim reminder. More shameful than that, it's demoralizing.

The Scranton Parking Authority owns the building. The Scranton Parking Authority needs to get rid of that plywood immediately. Please, replace it today.

Whaddya Hear?

"If you close your eyes, you'd swear it really was Ben Franklin."

I got that one from my wife. No, she didn't make the claim, she heard someone else say it after they'd seen and apparently heard a Franklin impersonator - or maybe that's a Ben Franklin Tribute Performer.

"Hi, I'm Benny Franklin, and I am right here through the weekend! Try the mutton, it comes with a free trip to the Gruel Bar. Mention my name, get a farthing off."

Listen, if you've heard Ben Franklin's voice, or have a recording of same, you've got yourself a serious news story.

Then, just when you think that maybe you'd heard most everything, there's this.

"This isn't heat. I'm from down around Philly. We get real heat there."

I swear as I sit here, I not only heard this, I saw the guy who made the comment. I saw him on the teevee.

Let's try and give this some context, set it in the right place, time, situation.

Extreme heat, and conversely, extreme cold, demands news coverage. Regardless of whether or not these wide swings in the atmosphere deserve it or not, someone seemingly demands it. Often enough, and do please keep in mind that I was there and saw much of it firsthand, a lot of it is at very best superfluous.

No sense discussing the merits, the validity, of news coverage of our part of Pennsylvania being hot or cold, because the compulsion to attach some undeserved importance to its overwhelming status is apparent, although please indulge me in saying that this sort of weather is pretty much to be expected in these latitudes this time of the year. Now that that's out of the way...for the moment, how about we have a look at the statement itself.

I could just call it stupid, but there's an arrogance about it that extends to so many other things we hear up here in the sticks, the boondocks, this deprived part of the world we all call home, and by golly, some of us actually like. There, I said it. I like NE PA.

You know, some of us go a bit beyond and truly love it here. So some of us like, oh, me, get a little testy when visitors here love to stick our snouts in the fact that wherever they live, everything is better, bigger, more important, beyond what we have here.

Let's take another run at that statement.

"This isn't heat. I'm from down around Philly. We get real heat there."

So, what do we have here? We have some clod who wants the world to know that whatever exists here is certainly not even close to as good as what he has at home. Here's a revolutionary and earth-shattering thought - if you have better at home, stay home. You think I'm kidding, being a bit facetious? Not a chance.

If it's bigger, better, HOTTER, at home, why the hell do you waste your time driving a couple hours to where things are, well, I guess, to where things are just inadequate.

I'm pretty sure we could live without you.

While I'm good and snarly here, let me say that all of this reminds me of someone I years and years ago knew. More accurately, let's say I found myself in her company more often than I would have cared to.

She had this intolerable habit of inferring to all she met that she was from New York City. She was not. She was from New Jersey. Try and hope and stretch all you want, sister, New York City, pick any borough, and New Jersey are not the same place.

She would forever pepper her pointless ramblings about growing up with the term "...the city," with the clear implication being that it was, of course, New York City, and that it was home to herself. Herself was a Jersey Girl, complete with Jersey accent.

A couple times here and there and this nonsense was no big deal, it rolled off of me. She was relentless, and it got worse and worse and worse. I think she'd managed to convince herself that she was indeed from not only New York City, but that she was from Manhattan. If she went unchecked, she might have gone ahead and picked some plausible address on the Upper West Side and had some fake ID made to further this charade.

I could stand it no more. I became an army of one. I saw it as my duty to stop the lying.

Simply but unceasingly, whenever she began the blather about "the city" this, and "the city" that, I'd say, "She's from New Jersey." She'd stop, glare at me, I'd smile. She'd work her way back to where she thought she could hint at being from New York again, and I would again softly say, "She's from New Jersey." Surely she hated being exposed for the fraud she was hoping to be. Surely she wasn't fond of me. Surely my level of caring was minimal.

"You just can't get good kielbasi around here." Did I ever tell you about the guy who said that to me? I think I did. So stunning is the comment that any response seems empty and pointless.

It's Monday. I might be grouchy. I'll stop.

The Litter Box...

Every blogger, and real writers like nationally syndicated columnists, seem to have catch-all pieces they occasionally issue, pieces to get rid of a lot random thoughts, none of which on their own constitute a decent monograph, but collectively do fill some sort of void.

I've got plenty of random isolated thoughts. All I've needed for some time now is a name under which to place them.

I kind of like Floor Sweepings. All the other names, such as Bits and Pieces, This and That, Odds and Ends, and even Scrapple, are already taken.

Then, upon a second and third think, another name came along. Given my line of work, The Litter Box seemed like a nice fit. So, The Litter Box it will be.


Frozen pizza: Everyone likes pizza. I've been trying frozen pizzas recently, and for a couple reasons. One is that most supermarkets have vast choices when it comes to frozen pizza. It must be good, right? I also get too lazy to make my own, and my own is really good. So far, yuck on the frozen. Even a couple that promised me delivered pizza taste don't cut it. Typically, the crust sucks. I've been trying to reverse engineer their dough, at least in my head, and figure out how they can get it to taste as bad as it does. Haven't figured it out yet.

No Food or Drink Allowed: This sign sits in a retailer that has several soda machines within ten feet of the sign. By a soda, then get the hell out, that's pretty much what this business says to me. I did get out. I won't go back. I didn't buy a soda, or anything else for that matter.

No Personal Checks - No Exceptions: Great, your choice. Now, here's my choice, no business from me. I recently shopped where the clerk behind the counter nearly jumped out of their skin when we pulled out the checkbook. We left. We won't be back. All the big box stores take checks, you little Mom&Pop operators need to take them, too. You get burned on a check, sorry, but that really is the price of doing business in the here and now.

Commonwealth Medical College: The new med school under construction in Scranton will have an unimaginable impact on life in NE PA, most especially in Scranton. It's the first new med school in the country in over twenty years, and the first in Pennsylvania in over forty. I really don't believe any of us can grasp the enormity of its importance to future life here over the coming decades.

Summers Under The Tent: Carol and I often reminisce about Scranton Public Theater's time under the tent during June, July, August, and oftentimes, some of September. We both miss hot nights in the valley when a cool-down was a short drive away atop Montage Mountain. Where a play, always extraordinarily well-done, and cold drinks awaited and friendly faces welcomed your presence. They were good times. I imagine many miss them. SPT's alive and well, with the days beneath the tent gone.

Senator Al Franken: The snickering over Franken's winning of a senate seat wasn't as loud or as widespread as I'd expected. There was, though, a good deal of tittering prior to his formally being declared the winner, most of it because he's only a comedian. Standard practice in America seems to be that what you need be in order to catch any respect as candidate or winner is to be a successful businessman. Look at the economy. Look at the last two years. Look elsewhere for elected representatives. "Successful businessmen" have taken us to where we are today.


Hummingbirds and butterflies: I'm still a little concerned about the lack of both around the property this year. The same lack as last year, and the year before. We do see some hummers and we have hung a new finch feeder which has been pulling in the goldfinches, house finches, a few grosbeaks, and others. The butterflies are still largely a no show. Some blame Katrina, figuring that breeding habitat along the Gulf Coast was so decimated that the number of butterflies morphing there and coming north has been likewise decimated.

Traffic on "The Mountain": Is it just me? Could it be that I'm the only one who finds traffic on Montage Mountain (or is it now Sno Mountain?) enormously un-newsworthy? Seems that no matter what the act, no matter how big the act is, no matter that tens of thousands of people assemble on that mountain, all we hear about is traffic coming and going. Who the hell cares? The only people caught in the traffic are those who know all about the traffic and got into that traffic because they want to go see a performance. Good God, get off the traffic problems. Same goes for any NASCAR race at Pocono. Traffic is not news.

Montage Mountain: Who came up with that name? Why? What does a montage have to do with a gorgeous chunk of the Moosic Mountain range? Never cared for the name, never thought it had any relevance. Nobody asked me.

Bugs on Bridges: I have to concede that the mayflies hatching off of the Susquehanna don't demand headline news as they once did. Good. Here's the deal, plain, simple, and scientifically verifiable; mayflies in the river are an enormous indicator that the river is coming back. In fact, they just might indicate that it is back. The mayfly is the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to water, especially moving water. Mayflies, and there are thousands of species, do not live in polluted water. In short, the Susquehanna is in far better shape than most believe. It's all about image. The river needs more advocates. Count me in.

For now, I'm out of The Litter Box.