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...

WARM, Yonki, and Me...

WARM? David Yonki? Me? In common, what do we have in common?

For starters, we both grew up listening to, and in awe of, The Mighty 590. Mythical, magical, absurdly beyond the ordinary, WARM held the concrete fascination of generations here in NE PA. To my good fortune, I was a member of one of those generations, as was Mr. Yonki. (Dave and I are also both political-weenie/junkies of the devoted kind, a story for another time, another place.)

Dave has unveiled his latest project, a tribute site devoted to WARM. If you spend way too much time on the net, and most of us do, you know that countless radio stations, AMs long fallen from popularity, have tribute sites. WARM's, in my opinion, is long overdue.

It is now here. Visit, enjoy, and David, let me be among the first to "...wish you well in your future endeavors."

While I have had at least a few unspoken thoughts over the years, really, I do have more than a few things to say about WARM. As David, and a good many others know, my reflections are not all WARM and fuzzy. My perspective comes from both sides of the fence.

Think, "Great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there..." and you'll get a feel for where I'll wander before too long.

David, I love the site, I will visit often, and thanks to your generosity and graciousness, I will share my thoughts. Thanks!

Every Man Should Have A Hobby...

It must be true. A man needs a hobby. If not true, there wouldn't exist hobby shops, right? Hobby shops equal truth. Obama and McCain need to be talking about hobbies more. Do either have a hobby? I mean, outside of running for president, what do these men do?

Of course, the great American hobby shop has suffered serious changes over the years. Gone for the most are the small Mom&Pop(mostly Pop)shops that catered to the hobbyist who modeled trains, planes, and cars. Although I can with some pride tell you that a branch of my family continues to own and operate the Scranton Hobby Center, an enterprise of longstanding.

I worked there once, stood behind a counter and sold model trains and planes and cars and assorted other hobby type things that are all part and parcel of the hobbyist's life.

Hobbyists collect things, lots of things.

Not only do they collect the object of their affection, model trains for instance, they need to have all the tools, gizmos, dooflathchies, and assorted apparatus that only a respectable model train-weenie would have. Yes, I was one once. Leaving that behind, I morphed into just a plain train-weenie, a lover of the real thing, real trains.

Model rocketry was big when I did hobby sales for a living, although its charm was forever lost on me. You go up, you come down. That's it...if you're lucky. Most guys I knew who gave model rocketry a shot never got off the ground, literally. The few times they did, there was nothing to see. If you do it right, your rocket streaks into the sky so fast you can't see it beyond maybe a brief glimpse.

Since then, I've had my share of hobbies. Seems to me that I always had some distraction in my life, one to take my mind off of life. I say that's a good thing. I say that's what a hobby is all about. If it's productive, all the better.

For a good many years it was fly fishing. Fly fishing was more passion than hobby, more part of my life than a moment or two away from it. Like all else, that passed.

Then it was gardening. With complete abandon I tossed myself into horticulture and botany, arbor-culture and soil amending, germination, cultivation and composting. Same deal, that passed, too.

As a kid, I always admired those who could, are you ready for this, whittle. Yes, I said whittle.

Every time I put knife to stick the finished product look like a stick that someone had been hacking at with a knife. Try as I could and did, whittling wasn't one of those gifts we all possess in some form. I couldn't even make a stick look like a stick.

I physically ached to be able to hand carve a neckerchief slide(actually known as a "woggle") when I was a Boy Scout, like the one on the right. My particular favorite was that of an Indian Chief in full headdress...hand carved, of course. Fat chance. I couldn't get beyond a block of wood that was the right size. If you have a second, try this site devoted to woggles and the apparently lost craft of making them.

So it was that a couple years back I decided to try another take, a different spin, on the wonder of whittling.

It came to one day as I wandered the trails of Frances Slocum State Park. Making my way along a pitched mountain path, the idea of a walking stick seemed like a pretty solid idea.

Not that where I was hiking was dangerous, treacherous. Slocum ain't Mount Katahdin. But a sturdy staff for guidance would be a nice tool to have at one's disposal, should one lose balance like the big, clumsy, not at all surefooted oaf that one is. Whereupon one such oaf would slide down the side of hill full of rocks and twigs, many of which would then become embedded in the flesh, thereby causing some pain.

Pain would be wages enough for being a klutz, never mind that someone should see Mr. Oaf take the tumble. The humiliation would test the best of us. (Remind me to recount the time I did take a lovely header at Lake Scranton. I understand that those who witnessed it - and there were several witnesses - laugh about it to this day.)

Now, I make walking sticks. Find a suitable stick, strip the bark, sand, sand again, do some more detail sanding, clean with a tack cloth, apply first coat of tung oil...then you sand and oil, then sand and oil again. In the end, you may use a paste wax, buff to a lustrous sheen, then take a hike.

The sticks pictured here look nothing like mine, except that basic no-frills model you see third from the left. I've yet to get into fancy handles and knobs. On the outside chance I don't get bored, I may do so before long. Maybe one day soon we'll see you at Knobs 'N Knockers on a Saturday afternoon.

Sticks, the bare starter sticks, are everywhere. Probably around your property, or your neighbors' property. Likely there's a usable one blown down from a tree during a recent storm. If you're lucky, it'll have blown down a year or more ago. The older the stick, the drier the wood, and the drier the better for present purposes.

If your testosterone isn't already bubbling, consider this: You get to use tools, even power tools! Yes, a jig saw for trimming, an orbital sander for rough sanding, and a Dremel tool for the finer and more delicate touches. Why, it's man's world, I tell you!

If that wasn't enough to get your genes all giddy, you even have to do some sanding by hand. Yes, by golly, by hand. If you want a real fine finish on that stick, you'll need to do some hand-sanding.

What I guess has taken place is me finding a way to whittle without being able to whittle.

It's fun, harmless, keeps me out of the saloons(I go to Wegmans, see previous post), and it gives me something useful when done. Oh, yeah, I've fully completed one stick so far, but it is a dandy. I'm quite proud of it, thank you.

Now all I need to do is start walking again...

ID, Please...

Wegmans now sells beer. For your pleasure and convenience beer is now available in smaller amounts, no case lots of suds. Many pizza joints, convenient stores, and diners likewise sell beer, both for on and off premises consumption. Hey, do you realize, and I'll bet most don't, that Boscov's sells beer in its basement restaurant in Wilkes-Barre? If they no longer do, that's a new development.

Wegmans isn't the first supermarket in Pennsylvania to sell beer. I used to buy beer at Madzin's Market on Prospect Ave. in Scranton over twenty years ago(Hello, Joe Madzin!). Digressing, as is my usual process, Madzin's bought all the old Schumacher recipes for bologna, knockwurst, and liverwurst. When Schumacher's sadly shut down, the Madzin family purchased the recipes and took to making and smoking some fine German sausages.

Back to beer.

While not the first, Wegmans, unwittingly or not, has opened the door for every supermarket in Pennsylvania to now successfully apply for and be granted a beer license.

Many are pro, many are con. I have no position. However, if one chain can, why can't another, regardless of size? If a chain can, why not the single-location shopkeeper? You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. No bell yet rung has been un-rung.

If you've ever the had chance to travel the west, as in Utah, Idaho, etc., you'll find beer for sale in gas stations, gift shops, barber shops, and just about any other place with a cash register and someone to make change.

That Pennsylvania's liquor laws are considered archaic by many is no secret. Calls for the abolishment of our PLCB State Store system have been in the air for decades. My opinion is that fixing something unbroken is generally a fool's pursuit. Why bother?

Interestingly enough, the loudest cries for deregulation, really complete elimination of the state store system, come from the advertising sector. Newspapers, television, radio stations, etc., all want to see it trashed. You can figure that one out with ease; competition means windfall advertising dollars. Fine, we all need to make a buck.

But I want to get beer where and when it suits me. More importantly, far more importantly, I want a really good selection of imports and micros by the six, or even by the single. I don't want to make the plunge into a case unless it's beer I like.

If and when the plunge is made, I have several friends who are in the beer distribution business, and I am always more than happy to spend my money with them. For those who may not know, like out-of-staters, a distributor can't sell you a six-pack, although those I know sure wish they could.

Saturday, I bought beer at Wegmans.

Saturday I got carded.

Two months ago last week I turned 58.

As I stood at the checkout, they carded a guy in front of me, clearly also an easy 50 years old or more. He was getting cranky over the process.

They're carding everyone, right?

Wrong.

My wife bought a six-pack of pale ale a few weeks ago. She didn't get carded. Somehow, she slipped through the cracks. I believe a head could roll for that failure. In a gesture of great magnanimity, I will not disclose the day, time of day, or exact date of the uncarded purchase. Nor will I reveal the gender of the person conducting the transaction.

(The pale ale was Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Good, but not exactly to my taste. Hoppy I like, the excessive sweetness I do not. Other IPAs bring a better balance.)

When Wegmans announced that its W-B Township beer license was hanging on the wall and they were good to go, they also claimed they would be carding everyone, which sounded silly to me. But I suppose their thinking is "Better we embarrass one 73 year old than allow a 31 year old to sneak through with a twelve pack of Coors Light."

Frankly, I don't care one way or the other. The only thing it means to me is that I now have to have my wallet with me whenever we go to Wegmans.

Saturday's sampler was a four-pack(yes, four bottles in a carrier)of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, brewed in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England. I've heard this stout raved about for years on end. Some will say it is a stout that defies description, that it's that good.

I don't think so. While good, well-brewed, incredible head with complex flavors, it finishes way too sweet for my tastes. It is supposed to have a bittersweet finish. For me, too heavy on the sweet, too light on the bitter.

In closing, let me drift back to when I was considering a run for political office. A gentleman who would have been my opponent said to me, "About the worst they're saying out there about you is that you like beer."

Gee, you don't suppose, do you?