"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.
