My Pal Dizzy Dean

Jerome Herman Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is there because of his pitching, but also because of his career. They didn’t call him Dizzy for nothing.

He preceded Yogi Berra in being a public figure (i.e., baseball star) in part for his sayings. And for what people said about him.

St. Louis Cardinals teammate Pepper Martin once said: “When ol’ Diz was out there pitching, it was more than just another ball game. It was a regular three-ring circus and everybody was wide awake and enjoying being alive.”

Others get some credit for this remark, but I heard it first from Dizzy: “It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.”

In one Cardinals game, he told the fielders to sit down on the field, he was going to strike out the side. He did. He was the last National League pitcher to win 30 games in one season.

You will note that this article began with Dizzy’s several names. Some say his legal name was Jerome Herman Dean, others said Jay Hanna Dean. One story about Diz’s legal name is that he gave conflicting information to three different sportswriters in quick succession. A teammate asked him about it and he replied: “I wanted to give each of them fellas an exclusive story.”

Ol’ Diz once said: “It puzzles me how they know what corners are good for filling stations. Just how did they know gas and oil was under there?”

If you have some time on your hands, Google DIZZY DEAN QUOTES for laughs similar to those that ensued when Yogi said things like: “Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. It’s too crowded.”

This is a story about Dizzy Dean after his last days on the baseball diamond. But before I get to my friend (this is a stretch, of course, as you will see), let’s review some of the things that earned him entry into Cooperstown.

He was born January 16, 1910, in Lucas, Arkansas. He was just 64 when he died (July 17,1974, in Reno, Nevada). When he died, I was 40 and really felt I had lost a good friend. Actually, I hardly knew him. I knew him mostly as thousands did. But that’s for later.

He pitched for the Cardinals (1930-1937), the Chicago Cubs (1938-1941) and briefly for the St. Louis Browns (1947). I saw that game. I was 13 years old. But again, I am getting ahead of myself.

Dizzy was best known for leading the 1934 “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals to win the World Series in seven games over the Detroit Tigers. He had a 30-7 record, a 2.66 ERA in the regular season. His brother, Paul (they called him “Daffy”; that’s a fact), also pitched for the Cardinals. They both won two World Series games that year. Dizzy won the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award that year, and he was runner-up in the voting the next two years.

While pitching for the National League in the 1937 All-Star game, he faced Earl Averill of the American League Cleveland Indians. Averill hit a line drive back at the mound, hitting Dizzy on the foot. Told that his big toe was fractured, he replied: “Fractured, hell!! The damn thing’s broken!”

It was said he came back to pitching too soon from the injury, which caused him to change his pitching motion to avoid landing so hard on his sore left big toe. As a result, the story went, he hurt his arm and he lost his fast ball. By the next year, when he was with the Cubs, his arm was just about shot, but he kept at it for three more years. That year, 1938, he pitched well enough to help the Cubs win the pennant and he pitched gamely in the second World Series game before losing to the Yankees in what became known as “Ol’ Diz’s Last Stand”.

It was said that between ages 23 and 27, Dizzy was the best pitcher in baseball. By 28, he was just another pitcher, and at 31, it was all over. Except for that time in 1947 when I saw him pitch for real.

My Dad worked for Western Union and occasionally he would be assigned to Sportsmans Park for the baseball game. Using his telegrapher’s “bug”, he would transmit baseball results to other cities, and receive them for local consumption. Sometimes he would take me along, and I would be able to walk the bridge into the press box where my Dad worked along with sportswriters, the official scorer, and so forth, and Dizzy Dean and Johnny O’Hara in the radio booth.

Need I tell you? There was no security. I could walk all through the pressbox, including the radio booth. I was 10 years old. The year was 1944, and both the Cardinals and the Browns were in first place, and ultimately played each other in the World Series that year. It was a heady time for me, of course.

One night, I was standing behind Johnny and Dizzy, listening to them. Occasionally, they would look back at me, smile but not shooosh me away.

From my vantage point, I could not see all of the field, and a batter lofted a high fly to right field. It looked like it was going over the Mississippi River. I could not help myself. I was a kid. I started hollering WOWWWWWWWW!

The right fielder caught the ball.

Johnny was doing the play-by-play. He turned around and so did Dizzy. They said nothing. I have thanked them quietly ever since. I got into no trouble that I know of, and I never told my Dad. And I guess that was the start of my radio career, as that was the first word I ever said on the radio.

It was quite a while before I had the courage to return to that position in the pressbox.

And actually, it was because of my familiarity with my new-found friends in the pressbox that I had the courage to go to the radio booth one Sunday afternoon after a thunderstorm had caused a rain delay. This day, the Browns were scheduled to play a double-header, and before the first game, they had a “Long Ball Hitting Contest”, involving star players from both the Browns and the Detroit Tigers. I remember Chet Laabs was one of the Brownies’ stars and pitcher Dizzy Trout was one of the Tigers hitters.

The first game was interrupted early. While I had been sitting in the grandstand behind third base, when the rain stopped play, I went up to the pressbox, worldly as I was, of course, at age 10. And, of course, already fascinated with radio work, I headed for the radio booth.

Johnny O’Hara and Dizzy were just sitting there with the radio engineer, not on the air. Their broadcast had been returned to the studio during the rain delay. I think Johnny and Dizzy wanted to remind me about hollering about a high fly to right, but they didn’t bring it up. They started talking with me as though I was an adult.

Dizzy started really talking about the long-ball hitting contest. He asked me if I had seen it. I had. He asked me who I thought should have won. I think I said Chet Laabs. I remember, however, vividly what Dizzy came back with: “Dizzy Trout hit the HARDEST home run. That line drive would have gone through a mule!” I agreed. Dizzy wasn’t through. “He’s a pitcher, you know!!!” I said yes, I know he is a pitcher. Dizzy always told his radio audience what a great hitter he was.

The story is not finished. I had no place to go, doncha know, so I stayed right there as we waited out the rain delay. But the rain never stopped. Eventually, the umpires called off both games. And here came the bad part. The stadium announcer said all fans could get refunds at the streetside ticket windows WITH THEIR STUB for today’s admission.

I reached in my pocket to find my ticket stub. I pulled out four stubs. Obviously, I wore the same pants to several games, and never threw my stubs away. My mother always had clean clothes for me, but most likely I wore and wore the same pants to ballgames.

I held the stubs in my hand to show Dizzy. I asked: “How can I tell which stub is for today?”

As you know, they didn’t call him Dizzy for no reason. He replied, to his 10-year-old friend, “Turn all of ‘em in. You’ll get alot more money! They won’t be able to tell.”

It sounded good to me. I went downstairs to the ticket windows, and stood among the throng in front of the windows. There were no lines; it was just fight-your-way-up-there.

When I finally made it to the window, I turned in the four stubs. The woman ticketseller took my four stubs, and for the next two or three minutes, panic was starting to set in. She showed the stubs to another ticketseller, and then came back to the window, and in a tone similar to a school teacher, she asked, no, she demanded to know: WHERE DID YOU GET THESE?

As God is my witness, I broke into tears and replied rather frantically: DIZZY DEAN TOLD ME I COULD TURN THEM IN!

DIZZY DEAN TOLD YOU!!! she hollered as all fans within earshot roared with laughter.

I realized it was too farfetched a story to continue. So I just kept crying. She actually identified the one good ticket for the day, and gave me a refund. God Bless Her for not having me arrested for fraud. I know she never believed my answer. Nor did the nearby fans. Sneaky kid. Got caught.

Actually, Dizzy was pretty famous as a baseball broadcaster. He first started with the Cardinals and Browns in 1941 right after his playing days were over. In those days, the broadcasters did not travel with the teams but Ol’ Diz had a good deal for the season, as, when one team left town, the other team came home. Dizzy was both funny and colorful, partly for butchering the English language, much to the chagrin of St. Louis English teachers.

When Al “Zeke” Zarilla tripled, he described how Zarilla “slud into third”. When the English teachers complained, Dizzy simply enjoyed more opportunities to say “slud”.

An English teacher once wrote to him that he shouldn’t use the word “ain’t” on the air, as it was a bad example to children. He responded to the teacher on the air, not so elegantly: “A lotta folks who ain’t sayin’ ‘ain’t’ ain’t eatin’. So Teach you learn ‘em English, and I’ll learn ‘em baseball.”

Dizzy advanced to join Pee Wee Reese on the CBS-TV Game of the Week each Saturday, which he did from 1955 to 1965.

And yes, I enjoyed actually seeing Dizzy Dean pitch in an official baseball game. His last, so to speak. It was September 28, 1947. He was 37 years old.

By this time, Dizzy was well-known for his broadcasting. The story has been that he had been doing the St. Louis Browns’ games, enduring several poor pitching performances in a row, and he got so frustrated, he blurted out on the air: “Doggone it, I can pitch better than nine out of the ten guys on the staff!!!” The wives of the Browns pitchers complained, and team management, needing to sell tickets any way they could, took him up on his offer and had him pitch the last game of the season.

I thought Sportsman Park would be filled and got there soon after the gates opened. Sad to say, it was far from a sellout. But Dizzy did not disappoint. He pitched four innings, allowed no runs and got a single in his only at-bat. Rounding first base, he pulled his hamstring, ending his experiment.

Returning to the broadcast booth later on, he told his radio audience: “I said I can pitch better than nine of the ten guys on the staff, and I can. But I’m done. Talkings my game now. I’m just glad that muscle I pulled wasn’t in my throat.”

So that’s my story about my pal Diz. Now don’t forget to Google QUOTES BY DIZZY DEAN. Here are two that clearly identify him:

“I won 28 games in 1935 and I couldn’t believe my eyes when the Cards sent me a new contract with a cut in salary. Mr. Rickey said I deserved a cut because I didn’t win 30 games.”

And….. “Anybody whosoever had the privilege of seeing me play knows I am the greatest pitcher in the world.”

Tiger in Philadelphia

It has been my pleasure to have watched the play of many of the world’s top golfers. This past week, I hit the jackpot when, for the first time, I saw Tiger Woods “live” (i.e., not on the telly).

Tiger did not have an especially good tournament, finishing four over par in the AT&T National at the Aronimink Golf Club in suburban Newtown Square, PA. He finished in a tie for 46th, and won $16,581. Many Tiger followers will call that “chump change” for the likes of Tiger.

I agree with most golf fans of today “in the know” that Tiger is the best golfer of all time.

Before Tiger, I once put Ben Hogan in that slot, then Jack Nicklaus.

I never was able to watch Sam Snead in person (nor another great Byron Nelson). Snead won more golf tournaments than anybody. Now, Tiger is on a mission to surpass Slammin’ Sammy. Of course, at this writing, the Tiger question most golf fans want answered is WHEN is Tiger going to return to better than $16,581 form?

My first golf tournament was the 1963 Western Open in Chicago. I don’t remember much about it, except Bob Goalby and Bob Charles and Jack Rule were in the field. Arnold Palmer won the tournament, but I don’t remember much about my visit to the Beverly Country Club. The most noteworthy thing I remember is that I was in Philadelphia on the Friday of the tournament for a job interview with WRCV Radio-TV, owned by NBC. The news director and assistant news director, during the interview, seemed favorably impressed, and said they would contact me the next day back in my home city in Iowa. I had to cough up that I wouldn’t be home, but rather at a golf tournament. At the time, I didn’t think that might be a good thing for my resume, but Saturday night, after all day at Beverly, the call came through: you have the job.

Although I have watched Arnold Palmer in person since the early 1960’s, I could not adopt him as Number One of all time. But I well recognized he has been called “The King”. While working for WHO-TV in Des Moines, I was doing the half-hour Sunday night TV newscasts and one Sunday, Arnie was playing an exhibition at Waveland Golf Course in Des Moines. With a noisy camera of the era, I followed him around all 18 holes, recording virtually every shot. I had asked him prior to the exhibition if it would bother him; I said my camera was anything but noiseless. He said it would be no problem if I started the camera at least 15 seconds before he hit the ball. On one occasion, I was asleep at the switch, discovering he was about to hit an approacb shot to the fourth green, turned on the camera amidst the deafening silence and practically on his backswing, Arnie stopped. Everybody laughed but me. I was terribly embarrassed and suffice it to say I did not resume the coverage until the next hole. A little post-script to that faux pas: Arnie started once again to hit the ball, and then actually topped it up the fairway, so I felt further hurt. But he put his third shot on the par five hole on the green, and walked off with a birdie anyway. I have thanked him for that ever since. That night, after our film editor had put the whole three-minute package together, I used my local knowledge of Waveland (which I had played a hundred times) to ad-lib his entire round. It brought many nice compliments from people who did not trudge 18 with Arnie.

I still felt Ben Hogan was the best ever.

When I heard that Bantam Ben was coming to Philadelphia for the IVB Championship, in 1966 at Whitemarsh Country Club, I asked our Channel 3 sportscaster Jim Leaming if I could use his media pass if he wasn’t. No problem. My goal was to watch Ben Hogan.

To my surprise I was pretty much alone in my admiration for Ben Hogan. He was joined by the Hebert brothers, Lionel and Jay, and somebody else I do not recall, and me. Four players and me. No other gallery for Ben that day. Are the people in this city crazy???? It was not Ben’s first visit to Philadelphia. Perhaps you remember his famous one-iron to the 18th green at Merion to win the 1950 U-S Open? This was just more than one year after his horrific auto crash with a Greyhound bus in February, 1949. He was nearly killed; a broken collarbone was only one of his injuries that had doctors unsure whether he ever would pick up a golf club again. Glenn Ford played Ben in a movie about his life called “FOLLOW THE SUN”.

I wish I would remember more about his round of Wednesday practice golf at Whitemarsh. There were no Arnold Palmer-topped-fairway-wood moments. In fact, he was rather jovial all around the course, enjoying some, for him, casual banter with the Hebert brothers. Even in those days (he was now 53), Ben was pretty much a robot on the golf course. I am pretty sure Ben did not make the cut for weekend play in that tournament. I also watched him all around the course on one of the regular tournament days. I thought I was watching the best ever.

In those Whitemarsh days, Arnold won the championship in 1963, the same year I saw him win in Chicago. But Jack Nicklaus ultimately won three times at Whitemarsh, and I must be candid: Jack was the better golfer. I interviewed both of them during my TV years and found Jack to be the far more congenial, frank and cooperative. I think I caught Arnie on bad days, I’m not sure. For some time, Arnie had a tough time realizing that Jack was surpassing him. Now, they are pals, and I like that.

Jack has won 18 major tournaments. That is more than anybody, ever. And up until the last decade, I had changed the “best ever” from Ben to Jack. I saw Jack do more incredible things on the golf course than anybody else.

Until this past weekend. Tiger is the best ever. There is no question about that. Of course, I am talking golf here, not incorporating his off-course behavior into that analogy.

More than a year ago, it was revealed that the Congressional golf course in Washington, DC was to be renovated and re-shaped for a future U-S Open. It was the site of the 2009 tournament that was Tiger’s personal signature. For the next two years, however, the Tiger AT&T National needed another home. So 20 months ago, Tiger and his Foundation looked for a substitute home course for two years while Congressional is getting its major fixup. And his Foundation would continue to receive parts of the profits from the tournament.

Then, November happened. Tiger and his girl friends hit the front pages of newspapers and all the sports and celebrity TV shows all over the world. It was a horrific crash. Anybody, as I did, who already had bought a weeklong ticket for Aronimink wondered what it meant insofar as Tiger finally playing Philadelphia.

They sell “season” tickets for golf tournaments the same as NFL football teams. You have to buy the whole package: Tuesday through Sunday. In the NFL, you have to pay for the “pre-season” games when the regulars hardly even play. In golf, Tuesday is a practice day, Wednesday the pro-am.

Aronimink probably was one of the first events in which many people were happy to buy the “pre-season”. I watched Tiger play nine holes (he only played nine) on Tuesday, and 18 Wednesday. But actually, nobody saw him play all nine, or all 18. Oh, sure, some healthy blokes might have seem him walking or putting on every hole, but hardly in the fashion of being able to say you SAW HIM.

If you were lucky enough to get a spot where you could see him drive, you likely did not see him finish the hole. There were just too many people. So, after you had seen one laser drive (he was hitting the ball just about farther than anybody in the field, with the ball resembling an Astronaut in a Cape Canaveral rocket), you realized you had to concentrate on your position on the green, most likely the next green, not the one you just saw him where he hit the laser.

For the first day of competition, I had decided to forego watching his drive, and went directly to the Number One green. It was a 12:56 p.m. tee time so just about all the Tiger Fans already were on Aronimink real estate. I was fortunate to get a standing spot just behind a guy not any taller, and I was able to see Tiger’s Thursday drive off #1 alight in the fairway. His short approach to the green was dead-on, and Tiger drained the putt for a birdie. The pros say you can’t birdie ‘em all if you don’t birdie the first hole. Tiger had birdied the first hole.

But, alas, when he played the second hole, I already had headed for #3 green in the hope that I would find another vantage point almost as good as at #1. I did not see the play on the second hole. And Tiger bogeyed #2, and he no longer was one under par with just 71 more holes to go.

While earlier this year, Tiger has been spraying drives off the fairways, in this tournament he was impressively accurate. And long. He hit the ball so long off the tee. He said afterward he used his driver almost every par four and par five hole. He sounded as though that was alot of fun for him.

On his first day, Tiger birdied the first par three hole (fifth hole) to once again get a red number on the portable scoreboard. He finished the first nine at one under par, and his huge gallary already was figuring this was just Thursday, heck, this tournament is in the bag. (He was the defending champion for the AT&T National, having won last year at Congressional.)

But, of course, Tiger having proved his mortality in the November revelations, he bogeyed the 14th, a par three, to fall back to even.

He then did the un-Tiger-like: he bogeyed the par five 16th (Tiger bogeyed a par five??? C’mon!!!). Now, he was over par. And he never again for the four days would see a red number.

In fact, the very next hole, the par three 17th, Tiger double-bogeyed. His par on the 18th gave him a three-over-par 73 for the first day.

Most of the Aronimink gallery was there to see Tiger. Last November did not interfere except perhaps between Tiger’s ears. Then again, at the British Open in less than two weeks, Tiger may erase his recent negative golfing past.

The attendance at Aronimink was 36,685 Thursday, 45,366 Friday, 45,231 Saturday and 35,872 Sunday. While the blue sky weather moved into the 90’s for the weekend, I think the Sunday decline was as much due to Tiger’s far-back standing as it was perspiration. At the start of the day Sunday, Tiger was 13 strokes behind the eventual winner Justin Rose, who won by the narrowest of margins.

Tiger had even par rounds of 70 Friday and Saturday, but this kept him three over par and far behind. There was no charge. And Sunday, he finished with a one over par 71. In Round 2, he did birdie two holes in a row, #3 and #4, both par fours. Tiger had 13 birdies in all. I saw about half of them. I am happy about that. As the song says in “FIDDLER”, ON THE OTHER HAND, he had 15 bogeys and one double-bogey, mostly from faulty strokes with the flat stick. From tee to green, I would say: WATCH FOR A TIGER IN THE SHORT GRASS AT ST. ANDREWS, the British Open July 15-18.

I have seen Ben, though not in his prime, and I know his terrific record. I saw Jack and Arnie in their prime. And now Tiger.

Tiger is the best ever.

Robin Roberts

Hall of Fame workhorse pitcher Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies died today (Thursday, May 6, 2010) at his home in Temple Terrace, 10 miles northeast of Tampa. He was 83.

Mr. Roberts started three games on the final five days of the 1950 season and was the winning pitcher in a victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers that gave the Phillies their first pennant in 35 years. That year, he became the Phillies’ first 20-game winner since Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1917.

I report on Robin Roberts because I had the rather unique pleasure of meeting and talking with him over a period of months in the mid-1970’s. I had personal experience in meeting a man whom many today have called “a very nice man”.

At the time I was Executive Director of the Philadelphia Civic Center. After the demise of the Philadelphia Blazers in 1973 in the World Hockey Association, the owner of Mrs. Paul’s Kitchens, Ed Piszek, formed a minor league hockey team in the North American Hockey League and they played their games at the Civic Center. Mr. Piszek was a friend of Robin Roberts’ and invited him to be the team’s General Manager. I am not sure but a comment left on the philly.com website today said Robin Roberts was part-owner of the Firebirds. I just do not recall that distinction.

However, he did seem to enjoy his role as the GM of the Firebirds. Once or twice a week, he would call me from the Firebirds second floor offices to see if I was available for a meeting. While I believe I was “available” for all callers, I always was “available” for Robin Roberts.

He usually would ask for some kind of cooperation from “the building” for something the Firebirds wanted to do. I served as his enabler, so to speak, and was honored to do so. His requests always were reasonable.

Our meetings were maybe 30% business and 70% baseball. Once he found out I was an ardent baseball fan, he knew he had a major audience of one with someone seven years younger than he.

I told him that as a young resident of St. Louis, I had been weaned on Stan Musial of the Cardinals. Robin Roberts spoke with great admiration for Stan the Man, whom he faced numerous times.

Mr. Roberts was amusing and blessed with philosophy. He said even then (I think he was 46 or 47 at the time), old-timers with the Phillies all still greeted him the same way: “How’s the arm, Robbie??”

He said he always would reply: “The arm’s fine, thank you.”

He said he enjoyed his position with the Firebirds and enjoyed working with the young hockey players. But I never will forget what he added: “You know, John, I made a big mistake when I retired.”

If you know of his way of talking, and visualize his sitting there in the chair in almost a confidential tone, he told me: “I made a big mistake….because I should have been smart enough to get a bunch of business cards printed. Just my name and phone number, and under that, just one word: CONSULTANT.

“The guys who make all the money these days are consultants. And, y’see, you don’t say what kind of consultant you are. You’re just a consultant. And when they call you up and ask you whether you can consult on something, of course you can do that!”

He laughed.

Albert V. Gaudiosi

Albert V. Gaudiosi was described in an obituary in the Philadelphia Daily News as “the quintessential tough, hard-boiled newspaper reporter who later became a tough, hard-boiled city official under Mayor Frank L. Rizzo”.

Al was my boss during the Rizzo for Mayor Campaign in 1971, and when he was (briefly) City Representative and Director of Commerce in the mid 1970’s. He died April 7, 2010, in Houston at age 86 of complications of lymphoma.

The Daily News obituary writer, John F. Morrison, suggested Al “might have been abrupt, impetuous, pushy and annoying, but, as those who knew him agreed, was also a fine administrator with a keen intelligence and quick wit”.

During the 1971 Rizzo Campaign, I recall going to Al’s office to ask him about the new poll he had just received. To hear the newspapers tell it, the race was going to be very close between Police Commissioner Rizzo and Repulbican candidate Thacher Longstreth.

“John,” Al said. “Don’t worry! We’re winners. We’re winners.”

He said it with such confidence, I stopped the worrying!

In 1963, Gaudiosi and fellow Philadelphia Bulletin reporter Jim Magee along with photographer Frederick Meyer shared a Pulitzer Prize for an investigative series on a numbers racket with police collusion. Myers photographed gambling transactions from a room they had rented in South Philadelphia. Gaudiosi took the photos to Rizzo, then a Chief Inspector, who identified the policemen or had them identified.

That was the beginning of his relationship with Rizzo.

The Daily News had a bit of the Gaudiosi scenario a bit incorrect. It said that when Commissioner Rizzo decided to run for Mayor in 1971, Gaudiosi was in the Philadelphia Bulletin newsroom taking a story from a reporter when city editor Sam Boyle came up and pulled off Al’s headset.

“You’re out of here,” Boyle declared.

“What do you mean?” Gaudiosi asked.

“Rizzo just named you his campaign director.”

You would think, by the Daily News obituary, that this came as a surprise to Al Gaudiosi. On the contrary, Al was prepared for this for many months. My source for this? Myself.

One day, back in the spring of 1969, I got a call from the Commissioner’s office. “The Commissioner would like for you to stop in his office this afternoon.”

At the time, I was a reporter/newscaster for KYW-TV.

When I arrived, Frank Rizzo sat down at his conference table and said he had two things he wanted to say to me “off the record”. He said he had just decided to run for Mayor, having received the private assurance from Mayor James H. J. Tate that he would have the Mayor’s endorsement some day in the future.

And, he said, I want you to work for me. He told me I was “the second newsman” to know about his decision. I soon realized that reporters who go into politics don’t necessarily do it overnight. This was 2 1/2 years before Election Day.

The first newsman? Al Gaudiosi.

Harry Belinger

Harry R. Belinger, four-year Philadelphia City Representative and Director of Commerce, and my boss during that period, died Wednesday, September 23, 2009, of complications of heart surgery at Lankenau Hospital. He was 82.

While I met him after we both received job appointments by incoming Mayor Frank Rizzo (in 1972), Harry primarily was known for his prior posts as City Editor of both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.

For the most part, my contact with Harry came when he would come once a month to the Philadelphia Civic Center where I was Executive Director. He sometimes would attend the monthly Board meetings at the Civic Center.

As Director of Commerce, he spent far more time at the Philadelphia International Airport, where he was instrumental in finishing the $300 million modernization program there.

He quit the cabinet position with Mayor Rizzo four days after a dispute with the Mayor about union picketing outside the newspapers’ building on Broad Street. An estimated 250 labor union members were protesting what they considered unfair articles about the Mayor.

Harry subsequently became Vice President of Public Affairs for ARA (now known as Aramark).

Harry received a journalism degree from Temple University, and he was a teacher of sorts as newspaper editor. He was of the “old school” of journalists who knew and stressed proper grammar and word usage. Today’s papers are sprinkled with grammatical errors and the like and could benefit from a Harry Belinger-type editor.

I was on the receiving end of one example of his teaching, and I have appreciated what he did ever since. In speaking with him on the phone one day, I said that somebody (the subject of our conversation) “inferred” that he approved whatever we had decided.

I don’t remember the subject, but Harry quickly interjected: “No, he did not infer. He implied. You inferred.” He went on to explain the difference. I think Don Imus, radio star in New York, probably encountered a Harry Belinger somewhere along in his radio career, as Imus took pains on the air on more than a few occasions to outline somebody’s implication and his inference. I wish I would have heard Don Imus before that day on the phone with Harry! However, Harry, still wearing his editor’s eyeshade, so to speak, was both friendly and helpful with his correction. I am pleased to say it was the only time he corrected me!

His wife, Jean, died in 1998. He is survived by their daughter (Lizanne R. Hayes) and two grandchildren. His obituary also listed as survivor his loving companion Rosemary Vickers.

In his obituary writeup, which he prepared for the newspapers five years before his death, he wrote: “Three lives and thoroughly enjoyed the career changes because each change was like being born again.”

Lolly Pannella

Lolly Pannella, my business partner for 30 years, died in her sleep Friday evening, September 18, 2009. Members of her family were with her. Her published obituary is at the end of this post.

Lolly lived only 71 years and exactly seven months. But she poured an active life into this span, a multi-career woman. She was a hard worker throughout her careers, starting as a young woman as a cosmetologist. Those who knew her knew it: hard worker. She was active until lung cancer and liver cancer and their complications slowed her down, requiring several hospital stays, the last being three weeks before her death.

She and I met as a result of our separate contacts with Philadelphia Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo.

Commissioner Rizzo won the Democratic Party nomination for Mayor in May, 1971. At his invitation, I resigned my job as reporter at KYW-TV (now CBS3 in Philadelphia) and joined his campaign. He was elected Mayor in November.

Some people thought I got the greatest job in the campaign. It was my assignment to handle 32 women known as “Rizzo Girls”. Hold your excitement. It was not easy.

The Rizzo campaign manager (Al Gaudiosi) had initiated the efforts to get the Rizzo Girls by contacting a Philadelphia police detective, Frank Pacifico. Frank’s wife was among those selected. Lolly was her close friend and quickly agreed to be a Rizzo Girl, too.

I split the 32 women into eight crews of four each. Some assignments were cushy, but I tried to give each crew approximately the same number of each kind of event. Things went fairly well until a major Rizzo appearance at the Latin Casino. Gaudiosi felt it was appropriate to select Cass Pacifico’s crew as a reward for starting the whole project. Al told me that only four could be assigned because of the special occasion it was.

Other Rizzo Girls screamed in protest. Lolly phoned me after the event to let me know there was trouble brewing. Rizzo Girls were threatening to quit. I told her what was done on the Latin Casino outing, and why, and Lolly assured me she would try to resolve the issues with the other women. She made a few phone calls, and everybody was happy.

A bullet dodged.

After Frank Rizzo was elected Mayor of Philadelphia, I was appointed by him as Executive Director of the Philadelphia Civic Center.

Only months after starting the job in January, 1972, I was in the middle of negotiations to bring a major league hockey team (Philadelphia Blazers) to the Civic Center (Convention Hall). In May of that year, Vineland trucking company owner Bernard Brown and Attorney Jim Cooper of Atlantic City obtained a franchise to play in Philadelphia starting in October that year. It was a new major league hockey team competing across town against the Flyers.

One of Lolly’s friends and also a Rizzo Girl, Carol Mignogna, was a huge hockey fan, and was very familiar with Bernie Parent, John McKenzie and Derek Sanderson, stars of the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins, and now with the Blazers. Jim Cooper was the idea man for the startup of the hockey team. One of his ideas was to have young women as ushers, replacing the men who served at the various Civic Center events.

The ushers union protested to me, and after a short war, the men agreed to accept the Blazers demands. The Blazers paid for bright new uniforms for both the men and newly-hired women. Jim Cooper asked me to set up the new “union” (I found out they really had not paid dues nor conducted any union business; it was informal and managed by the union president just so they could handle the work for events such as the Philadelphia 76ers and Ice Follies.)

Jim Cooper wanted a new operation for the ushers, much more identifiable with the Blazers. Carol Mignogna was asked but did not want to manage it. She said she only wanted to watch the games, not work at them. But Lolly was interested.

She formed the Ushering Service of Philadelphia and was the instant boss of 40 ushers. She handled the hiring of the young women (in the old days, you could say “girls”; most were in their ’20’s).

It often is said that success requires being in the right place at the right time. About the same time the new uniforms were first being used, in October of that year, the road manager of Ice Follies asked whether the Blazers would allow their uniforms to be used for the ice show in December. The Blazers agreed.

The road manager (Jerry Walser) during that summer was going to dismiss the woman he had in Philadelphia handling group sales for the ice show. While talking about the ushering arrangements with Lolly, he asked her if she was interested in the group sales job. She was.

So Lolly went from being unemployed (and not job-hunting) in May to having two jobs in the fall. It all stemmed from Frank Rizzo a year before. For the rest of her life, she was a busy woman.

She handled the ushering service even after the Blazers left town (after one year), and during the two years of play of the Philadelphia Firebirds minor league team. (The Firebirds’ General Manager was Robin Roberts, Phillies star pitcher two decades before.) Lolly handled Ice Follies group sales until the show moved to the Spectrum in the late 1970’s.

Both Lolly and I found ourselves out of our jobs at the end of Mayor Rizzo’s second term.

We soon pooled our interests and formed a travel and tour company in 1980, buying what formerly was a Philadelphia boutique (store). We handled all forms of travel, specializing in motorcoach tours. We hired our first employee in 1981. Part of the operation was a travel agency, which made it possible for us to offer cruises and other forms of travel to our motorcoach customers.

In 1986, we bought the first of five motorcoaches we used in the business. We bought the second three years later.

In 1989, we bought the building next door and expanded our staff further.

One of our employees was Marie Bosak, who worked part-time for us and part-time for TWA Getaway group sales. Marie summed up Lolly in the mid-1980’s: “When people sit down in that chair,” she said, pointing to the chair next to Lolly’s desk, “they buy!” Lolly energetically spoke with her customers, who could sense her enthusiasm for the planned trip.

We sold our last three buses at the end of 2004 as part of our plan to retire. Anytime Lolly would hint to a customer that we planned to close up shop, she would hear the wails of a pleading customer: please don’t retire, we NEED you!

In the next two years, we downsized, as the saying goes. We agreed that we should prepare for our retirement. However, in 2007, I needed treatments for prostate cancer and surgery for liver cancer, and during the four-month period, Lolly handled the office alone. Retirement had to be put on hold.

The process on planning to retire resumed in late 2007 as the two of us handled a reduced amount of business, taking care of our best customers, some of whom had been with us for more than two decades, again a tribute to Lolly and her ability to sell and win friends. We each worked in the office three days a week, with Wednesday being the day when we both were on the scene.

On Thursday, November 13, 2008, Lolly left for the day the same as always, not knowing she never would return. Two days later, on Saturday, she was hospitalized. The next day, Sunday, she learned of her cancers.

Soon thereafter, she told me I should proceed with our plans to retire and close up. She said quietly, “You know I won’t be back.”

She waged a courageous 10-month battle.

She was a good lady.

LORETTA J. PANNELLA “LOLLY” (Tirendi)

PANNELLA
LORETTA J. “LOLLY” (nee Tirendi) on Sept. 18, 2009 of Langhorne, PA. Beloved wife of Louis R. Pannella, loving mother of Louis Pannella and Michael (Erica) Pannella, loving daughter of Mary (nee Ruane) Tirendi and the late Anthony Tirendi, dearest sister of Anthony Tirendi, Lewis Tirendi, and Ginger Lorman. She is also survived by her one granddaughter Julia Rose. Relatives and friends are invited to attend her viewing Thursday, from 9:30 A.M. until her Funeral Mass 11 A.M. at The Church of St. Andrew, 81 Swamp Rd. Newtown, PA 18940. Entombment will be in Sunset Memorial Park, Feasterville. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to St. Mary Holistic Center, 215-710-6948.
www.fluehr.com

Radio Icon Paul Harvey

Paul Harvey, star network radio newscaster for decades, died Saturday, February 28, 2009, at 90. He was on the air within the past year; he was heard nationally for nearly 58 years, since 1951.

I met him six years later (1957).

It was during my year at the School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. Every Spring, the Journalism School would sponsor “J-Week”, when classes were suspended in favor of students listening to a score or more of journalism professionals, experts in the field, pros who had “made” it. It was a terrific week.

One of my classes that spring was in radio news. I was an “intern” for the early morning newscasts on Radio Station KFRU. This was the same station I worked for each night from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. It wasn’t fun getting up early but it helped me get through Journalism School in one year.

Among the guest speakers for J-Week was Paul Harvey.

I was told I would assist him in his preparation of his morning newscasts on ABC Radio coast-to-coast. I was told to be there (at the downtown newspaper newsroom from which the newscasts were aired) at 5:00 a.m., a bit tough for somebody who worked till 11:00 p.m. No way he was going to be there at 5:00 a.m., but I was a student. What could I say ??

I got there about 4:55 a.m. and Paul Harvey was waiting for me.

He was about 38 years old at the time, but like most “elders”, to a young guy he seemed like 60. As you might expect, he was all business. He wanted me to sort the copy from the news services, and all I had to do was watch him work. He had gobs of blank newsprint paper. He wrote his copy on this stuff.

To me, the irony was to see how this radio newscasting star prepared his copy. Every story was on a separate sheet of paper. Some of the stories were hardly more than one line long, but I realized this was the “style” his listeners easily tuned to.

He also wanted me to locate all the “kickers” I could find. Wire services often lumped kickers into a single dispatch. A kicker was a funny news story.

He would close his newscasts with a kicker. He always led it off ….. “For what it’s worth”…… Sometimes he would call it “our ‘for what it’s worth’ department”.

Knowing how unfunny the kickers were that morning, I thought he would start hollering at me for not finding at least one good kicker.

I soon got a liberal education in radio journalism, Paul Harvey Style. Paul Harvey took one of the unfunny stories and made it funny. And he always could get away with it, with that two-second pause after he uttered the punch line: “Paul Harvey…………… Good Day!!!”

I was so pleased and frankly honored that I had been selected to be his intern that morning.

His appearance in Columbia climaxed with his speech at the noon luncheon that day. He was one of the J-Week star pros.

Paul Harvey gave a great speech. He was already considered “conservative” and for some at the already liberally-tinged J-School, he was off his rocker. And because he was perceived as somewhat of a comic and cynic on his radio broadcasts, he surprised. He presented a clear description of the waste in government (yes, they even had it way back then) and the various hypocrisies in the news of the day. His audience discovered a conservative is not a whacko.

When he finished, he got a standing ovation.

Dean Earl English then came back to the microphone to thank Paul Harvey, and he brought down the luncheon when he said, rather sheepishly: “There were some of us who weren’t sure about inviting Mr. Harvey, but I must say, after listening to him today, I don’t know how we could have thought anything like that.”

Paul Harvey. Good Day!!!!

On Getting Prostate Cancer and Liver Cancer, Too

It is mid-July, 2007. I figure I’d better write about this now so I do not forget what happened. On the other hand, how could I ever forget what is happening every day!

Earlier this year, at winter’s end, I got a call from my urologist of 25 years.

UROLOGICAL ASSOCIATES, PC Jay J. Handler, M. D., F. A. C. S., Urology and Urologic Surgery located in the Calvanese Building Suite 2D 2137 Welsh Road Philadelphia, PA 19115 phone 215-698-7333 (fax 215-673-9492).

“I have your test results back. They are not normal,” he said.

He told me I have prostate cancer, something that affects one in six men. It is fatal for one man in every 34 with the disease.

My urologist said the PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) readings were borderline, but he was especially concerned because they had doubled in the past year. He scheduled an in-office visit. In his office, he told me the conclusion was unmistakable: I needed a program to get rid of the cancer.

He said he wanted me to attend a meeting involving other men also recently diagnosed with cancer of the prostate. I did. During the meeting, I asked the oncologist “how fast does the cancer grow”. The reply: “very slowly”. But the key is to attack it at your earliest time.

MNAP Oncology Center Department of Radiation Oncology Steven J. DiBiase,M. D. 9908 East Roosevelt Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19115 www.mnaponcology.com phone 215-673-9260 fax 215-673-9254.

At that meeting, it seemed to me that the suggestion of side effects from the radiation centered on NOT TO WORRY about them. Some men have problems during the treatments, many do not. That may well be true, but not in my case. If I have any criticism of the program, it is that the full measure of possible side effects was not conveyed.

I started the radiation treatments May 29th, the day after Memorial Day. This was about two months after that meeting in the urologist’s office.

I was given the appointment time of 9:20 a.m. each day. I was to be scheduled between a breast cancer patient and another man. The daily nods of “Hello” soon became routine, but I must admit my friendly demeanor, if perceived, was orchestrated.

This is because after a week of treatments, the side effects started. Pain during urination. Frequency of urination. Dizziness. Nausea. Exhaustion. Loss of appetite.

I was told the pain during urination could be controlled. After my experience these past six weeks, I need to tell you there has been, at least in my case, almost no control of the pain.

It has been vicious. And ongoing. Every 10 to 15 minutes. And more often than that. Urgency to go. And then, just a trickle, but terrible pain.

I told the doctor of the pain. I told him I usually could not make it to the bathroom before I started going. By the time I got to the toilet, the only thing left was the excruciating pain of the last trickle. He gave me a prescription (Phenazopyridine) designed to increase the flow, and he also gave me a prescription for Flomax, the recently-heavily-advertised pill for those with a “going problem”.

Still, pain.

I asked the second doctor (on duty that day) if there was any other relief. She said another possible remedy would be ibuprofen along with the Phenazopyridine and Flomax. This could be in the form of Advil or Motrin. I bought both. So, in addition to the two prescriptions, I was now taking ibuprofen. At first I was taking 600 mg four times a day. Doctor Number One at the oncology center a week later suggested I cut down from three capsules four times a day to two. This is because I also take Plavix, a well-known prescription for heart patients. However, so long as your urine and stool do not become bloody, the Plavix may continue. That’s the way it is with me, with the Plavix continuing to protect my heart and blood lines.

It should be noted here that ibuprofen is NOT recommended if your kidneys are not working well. I only can conclude that the oncology doctor was not aware that my kidneys were starting to emerge as new problems amidst everything else. (See below for more on this.)

Through these weeks, the pain continued. A urinalysis was ordered, and my family doctor also tested me.

Family Doctor: Frankford Avenue Family Practice, P. C. 8846 Frankford Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19136 215-332-8221 fax 215-332-2979 Paul H. Miller, D. O.

Earlier this week, my family doctor (Dr. Miller) said I have developed a kidney disease of some sort, and I will need to get an ultrasound (next Thursday), and see a specialist, a nephrologist, a week or two later in July. A nephrologist is a physician who has been educated and trained in kidney diseases, kidney transplantation and dialysis therapy.

Before you draw any conclusions, I need to explain: all four doctors are top-notch. They all attended college classes the days the professors discussed bedside manner. They learned well. They are good.

And I was told that most men do not encounter the side effects that have hit me. (One evening, in my office, I threw up so much and so long, I would have to say it was the home run of vomits in my life.)

I am sorry for the graphic descriptions here but I need to be totally forthcoming for you. Prostate cancer is curable, and has a high success rate. But it is not an easy road. I have heard about patients getting chemotherapy who have suffered far more than I. Just today, in the Philadelphia Daily News, there was an item about Gary Papa, sportscaster for Channel 6 here in Philadelphia. His prostate cancer has returned. He thought he had licked it more than two years ago. He now has another fight on his hands. I do not know what stage of prostate cancer he had three years ago. But according to the Daily News item, “an emotional Gary Papa announced” during yesterday’s 6 p.m. newscast that he is undergoing a second round of chemotherapy. I believe chemo is used most often when the radiation clock already is at midnight.

As of this day, Saturday, July 14, I have had 31 radiation treatments. The usual series is 39 or 40. Before I started, I was asked to add four more for purposes of a survey. Total 44. I agreed. Last week, I asked out of the final four, but the doctor urged me to hang in there. So far, I still have 13 to go, not nine. Despite the pain, I suppose I will try to hang in there.

I should point out what you probably already have concluded: my experience may be unique, and very well may be unusual among the many patients at my oncology center. However, I think I know why the doctors did not “announce” at that original session with more than a half-dozen men that the side effects are brutal. If they described the pain, the urgency and so on, probably they would see some of their patients seek another opinion. I want to hasten to add that I do not criticize the doctors because nobody at that original session asked, in effect, how bad can it get?

In between the urgencies, I am OK but always exhausted. I am writing this on a Saturday evening when I have had to stop periodically to run to the bathroom. And most of the time today, it has been very painful when I urinate. Oh, and I forgot to mention the diarrhea: yeah, I get that, too. Sometimes it consumes my morning. And maybe most embarrassing of all of it: I am wearing diapers on the basis of a recommendation from the woman doctor at the oncology center. But it helps. Before diapers, I was soiling five and six underwear jockeys each day.

I cannot walk from my car into my house without becoming out of breath. I hardly can walk from my office to the bank, less than a block away.

The woman doctor at the oncology center suggested I contact my family doctor to check whether I should continue to take the ibuprofen since a kidney disease was suggested by the one urinalysis. My family doctor said the ibuprofen does adversely attack the kidneys; he suggested Tylenol. No offense to Tylenol, but the pain came back today stronger than during the past week.

But I trust my family doctor and will stay with the Tylenol. Maybe its good days are ahead of me.

If you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, prepare to fight it as you would any anomaly. The doctors deal with the several treatments and patient care on a daily basis. You should not shy away from the necessity of treatment.

Maybe my comments above will help you to ask more direct questions about the side effects of radiation. My business partner’s husband was treated earlier this year at the same treatment center as I. He finished his 40th treatment May 1. Yet, in mid-June, he still had some of the agonies described above. So radiation lingers.

I never sought a “second opinion” partly because of the experiences of my partner’s husband. We both have the same urologist, who impresses me as no less than an expert in his field. A nice guy, too. And, as noted above, all four doctors treating me are superb. And nice people. Bedside manner, so to speak, is needed for those patients undergoing chemo and/or radiation.

Since reading about Gary Papa, another nice guy, I have been preoccupied thinking about the recurrence of prostate cancer. Gary first disclosed his cancer in May, 2004, actually. So his came back and the article did not explain why.

Thus, despite an apparent high success cure rate, chemo or radiation may not be enough. It demonstrates the need for men to be tested at least once a year, if not more. My “not normal” readings were part of a four-times-a-year blood test in the office of my family doctor. As apparently happens in most cases, once you are known to have prostate cancer, your friends are quick to give you reassurances, based on other cases with which they are familiar.

Earlier in these remarks, I mentioned that the treatments started about two months after my urologist reported the findings. The two-month period apparently is inevitable, due to the several steps that must be taken prior to radiation. Of course, it had been a biopsy which revealed the cancer. That was first after the blood test. And while nobody said so, and I didn’t ask, apparently it takes a while just to prepare the paper work involving a patient’s hospitalization plan. But as far as I could tell, this did not “delay” treatment.

An early procedure, with advance preparations similar to a biopsy (fasting, etc.) was to insert three “markers” on my lower stomach. These markers are not visible to the naked eye, but are evident on a machine. Each treatment requires the drinking of 1 1/2 cups of water just before the treatment. This serves to lift the prostate into better position for radiation.

There are three treatments (i.e., three patients) each hour, 20 minutes apart, at my oncology center. The actual radiation procedure takes about 12 minutes for one person, and only starts when the technicians are satisfied they have lined up the radiation machinery according to those three markers. This assures them that the radiation is going directly to the prostate gland, regardless of its position, which changes from day to day.

And about those technicians. They do a great job. The crew for each patient almost always involves two women, sometimes three. They even have to place my legs in a cast, which was created prior to the radiation treatment program. There are scores of those casts on the shelves of the radiation room. A lot of men are under treatment for prostate cancer. Likewise, the women patients who are battling breast cancer go through essentially the same procedures. The women technicians are friendly where the situation desperately calls for “friendly”. The same goes for the rest of the small staff, including three women at the front desk (at least two are nurses who once a week take my blood pressure, weigh me and ask me howzit goin’ now, and so on; let’s call one of them Heidi, who is warmly friendly each day and who has her own pleasing bedside manner, so to speak). The others are professionals, too. And the young woman in the “Interview Room” (she does the leg casts) gives you a heartwarming smile every time she walks by. Where is she going all the time?

Anyhow, now, I am about to head into my last 13 treatments. I know it will continue to be a struggle; I more or less figure I will continue to go through the agony until weeks after the treatments end August 1. But let me hasten to add: I have thought not infrequently about the alternative. What if there were no treatment? Many patients die of cancer yearly because the cancer maybe was diagnosed too late to avoid its becoming an eventual killer. So while I am concerned about the remaining treatments, and the aftermath, which may not ebb until mid-September, I am even more concerned for Gary Papa.

_______________________________________________________________________________

After the above summary was posted, there was a visit three days later (Tuesday, July 17th) with the oncologist doctor right after Radiation Treatment 33.

I told the doctor I was spent in more ways than one. He replied that he thought I was depressed. Inasmuch as I rarely become depressed, I told him it could not be depression: it was the hot poker pain and the other maladies described in the summary above. I suggested that he READ it to understand my dilemma better. He said he preferred just to continue with the interview. I know he’s busy, but I rather think he was not fully grasping the severity of my many discomforts.

At some point on this day (Tuesday, July 17th) or before, the doctor had suggested I might be suffering from a urinary tract infection.

In any case, the next day (Wednesday), I received Treatment Number 34, after which the doctor met with me again (normally, he meets with each patient once a week). Heidi took my blood pressure and reported it to the oncologist. It was 88 over 50. It demonstrated I was in poor shape with low blood pressure.

The doctor suggested that I was dehydrated and needed to go for hydration somewhere.
The conclusion was to go to the Emergency Room at Frankford-Torresdale Hospital, about seven minutes’ drive, “for an hour or two”, the oncologist speculated. He asked whether I was able to drive myself. I replied that I could drive throughout the radiation period, despite fatigue and shortness of breath, if I took a few minutes to recover. So I got in my car just minutes before Heidi would have been calling for an ambulance. Getting to Frankford-Torresdale was not a problem, and the ER was just as the doctor had suggested: few patients waiting at that time, about 10:20 a.m., unlike the scene most nights, when you may not get “seen” for hours, due to the many people ahead of you (if you are not an emergency-emergency case, which would mean you would be taken much sooner).

Thus, last Wednesday (July 18th), I started what turned into an eight-day hospital stay.
Within minutes, I was being interviewed by Nurse Linda Nowak, who also doubled as my ER nurse. She was the first of a zillion top-shelf nurses to treat me both in the ER and in the Telemetry Unit and thirdly in one of the regular wards. I was placed in the Telemetry Unit Wednesday night due to my heart attack two years ago when I spent three days at the same hospital. In the ER I had been put on a heart monitor. By the way, they are “wireless”. Pretty snazzy.

When I was in what became my ER room for about 10 hours, Linda Nowak told a male nurse “UTI” was suspected. UTI is hospital lingo for Urinary Tract Infection.

The doctors and nurses in the ER had plenty to do and having been there in the past, I know the activity often is big time hectic. However, the hospital personnel proceed with high professionalism, and take pains to make sure they get my medical history and names of my doctors. As noted in the summary above, I had quite a bit to report. Soon after arrival, the male nurse inserted a “line” for IV and I was told I would be getting “fluid” that would hydrate me.

But as for the pain during and after urination, I was told it was likely I had an infection in the urinary tract which in large measure was the main culprit for the pain.

After I was in the Telemetry Unit, doctors and nurses combined to diagnose the ills and try to alleviate my situations. Included were the periodic runs to the bathroom to urinate. I made it on time about half the time. Because of the urgencies described above, in no time I was spreading the “orange” on the bed sheets, all over the floor and on and near the toilet, the orange being the result of the medication I was taking.

The easing of pain throughout my stay could not be sustained.

More often than not the nurses changed day to day. “Mari Pat” and her Nurse’s Aide, Terry, were on duty two days in a row last Thursday/Friday. But the schedule changes, and this is highly significant, did not result in any reduction in the level of care or caregiver knowledge.

As you would see on another summary on this site, I do not regard lawyers as the Number One saviors of our society. I recognize some of them perform outstanding service, but we have far too many of them in this country (read “LAWYERS ARE RUINING OUR SOCIETY”) and far too many of them literally or figuratively chase too many ambulances.

It may be that the Oath of Lawyers says to first do harm, as they often do. (Some judges and the judicial system also aren’t squeaky clean; we need also to remember that.)

You would think that doctors are the scourge of lawyers, and of course some physicians seem not to operate by the Hippocratic Oath (irrespective of which Oath form you consider). The original, it generally is concluded, goes back to good ole Hippocrates, the father of medicine in the fourth century BC.

The doctors I have encountered over the years for the most part have been professional, hard-working and dedicated to my care.

I have not followed the medical procedures in recent years, but apparently my family doctor, your family doctor, cannot come into a hospital to see his/her patients. At Frankford Torresdale during the past week, I was seen by, I think, two hospital doctors and a half-dozen specialists.

My main doctor was a turban-attired Medical Doctor by the name of Bakhshish S. Sandhu. I had the feeling he had 1,000 patients there. He also has a private practice. He would visit me each morning; it was somewhat tornadic. But I mean that in a nice way. He was terse and at first I wasn’t prepared for his quick exit. He usually came into my room so early in the morning that I was still more than half-asleep as he spoke with me. What I realized soon enough is that I had to ask a question quickly, as he was so much on point, I almost wished I had a tape recording of his visits. Soon, however, I realized there was plenty going on in his brain at its own cyclonic speed. This was evident not only in his quick analyses and decisions but in what the nurses were able to tell me, and do. It was impressive.

It was the conclusion at ER the first evening, before transfer to my room, that I needed two “units” of blood. The transfusions (two pints, I suppose) took from midnight till 6:00 a.m. Thursday. My dizziness and shortness of breath abruptly stopped with the blood.

On Friday morning, a lab technician took 10, yes, 10 vials of blood from me. At first, I tried to joke with a nurse that the hospital was trying to get its blood back from the day before. Yeah, it wasn’t funny. Dr. Sandhu was throwing the book at my problems but with total focus.

During my stay, the various nurses were superbly efficient in following up on my complaints. It did not take long for me to realize that the Frankford Torresdale nurses are well educated and highly trained to perform under constant daily pressures. I was asked for my name and date of birth 1,643 times during the week. The checks on my identity probably could have been reduced to 1,521, but each caregiver is carecarecareful, and I am grateful they are such.

After the blood transfusions, an antibiotic (Levofloxacin) was administered daily via IV. This was to attack the UTI. Do I seem to be picking up the medical lingo??? They also ran a fluid IV at almost every available time period. Saline? Electrolytes? Looked like water.

Pain during urination and frequency and urgency continued throughout the week, but Doctor Sandhu et al attacked my problems. Through the blood tests, it was learned that maladies discovered by my family doctor became re-exposed in the hospital. A “mass” on my adrenal gland. A “nodule” on my liver. My family doctor also was concerned about my kidneys.

Monday night, still in the hospital, I encountered pain between near midnight and 3:00 a.m. Tuesday that exceeded all that I had endured since early June. If there was a chance of depression creeping in, it had to be early Tuesday. But it could be boiled down to the other activities involving me. There were times when the medications could not be administered when they would do their best. On Monday, I had a CatScan on my adrenal gland.

Late Monday night, I asked the nurse, Jaime, to give me medication for the pain. A bit later, she asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was the pain. During the six-week period, including pre-hospital, I often had answered 9 or 10. It had been that way for 10 or 15 seconds. Early Tuesday, my reply was “11″. It was the worst pain of all.

Within two hours, Jaime had me on the way to being pain free, at least until the next recurrence.

What I have come to discover is that each medication designed to handle the pain during urination, the urgency and the frequency must be administered at the right hour to be effective. And I suppose it is impossible for both nurse and patient to be forecasters who are timely and right every time.

And there are the interruptions, such as the CatScan. On Tuesday, I was given an MRI to look at my liver. That was the test that showed the “nodule”. Yesterday (Wednesday), I had a followup on the liver: a biopsy. Results to be available shortly.

Dr. Sandhu is comprehensive, thorough. He may be terse, but he is reporting the medical facts to scores of patients daily at Frankford Torresdale, he is getting alot done in a short time and he clearly is an asset to the hospital. You see such doctors on TV drama shows; I got to watch a “show” with even better examples of the service of the medical profession. They involved me! And I repeat: just about all of my up-close experiences with doctors this year have been favorable and impressive.

A hospital is a powerful place. What goes on there impresses me far more than the rich oak walls amidst the book cases and legal cases in a law firm. I guess some lawyers save people’s lives, in a matter of speaking. The people at a hospital save people’s lives, period.

In listing and thanking some of the people who worked so hard for me this past week, it always is a possibility that I will overlook someone, such as those two male nurses in the ER, and the doctor who explained at length what the blood transfusions would be, and why I had to have them. I don’t know the names of the men who pushed me around in my bed or wheelchair, or the fellow who pushed my wheelchair to the ER entrance last night so I could go home. I don’t remember the names of technicians in radiology. They have to be super efficient and accurate all day long. They were terrific.

And then, how about the nurses? They are so smart. Each patient has an RN (Registered Nurse) and a Nurse’s Aide. The nurses and their aides must be mini-lawyers in their own right, and investigative reporters. There was Rachael (yes, that’s the way it’s spelled) who took my blood pressure, my diabetic blood count, my temperature and my pulse rate. And the RN’s did the same things from time to time.

One day, my IV “line” had to be changed (after four days with the first line). My nurse on duty tried to find a vein twice. Tracey knows how to do it, but some days a patient’s blood lines go to Upper Darby. Or maybe I don’t have any veins??? Tracey sought help from Jess, Nurse Number Two, who tried an additional three times without success. I was a bit confused on her identity but I think “Lidia” was the third nurse to try. The third time’s a charm. Lidia found the lifeline. She should be a contestant on one of those TV shows where they ask for a lifeline. The “line” was used yesterday as part of the liver biopsy.

What I say about Rachael can be said about Terry, or Kim….and so on. Let me try to acknowledge professionals such as Lisa, Sheena, I mentioned Mari Pat (who seemed to have the Merck Manual in her brain, who told me plenty about a UTI), there was Tracey who was my RN three days’ straight, also Lidia (as noted above, I think she was third time’s a charm), Theresa Fitz who was my first night nurse, Alex, Janet, Jaime, and when they moved me out of Telemetry there were Peter and Nadia, and yesterday there was Maureen during the day and Jennifer after 3 p.m. Jennifer put up with me enough to arrange for my release from the hospital about 8:30 last night. And Jill. Nurse’s Aide. She is on the verge of passing the tests to be an RN. She worked 16 hours yesterday. She was a prime example of all of them who had to try to endure the urination spots I distributed all over the floor and in the bathroom. And all over my body. And on the bed sheets.

Both in the hospital and at home, my nights were continually disrupted by the problems noted above. I don’t know why but I seemed to pass the idle times overnight in idle singing of songs (just in my head). So, get a load of this for craziness: “Pop Goes The Weasel”, “Don’t Fence Me In”, “One” (from “A Chorus Line” LOL), “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head”, here’s one for your real oldies: “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” !!! Yes, I know: Bizarre !! And how about going to the Brown’s Hotel on the “Atcheson, Topeka and Sante Fe” (“all the way from Philadel-FIGH-A”) and the last one I can remember: “Three Blind Mice”. Amateur psychiatrists, have your field day on this!!!

Speaking of those almost hourly hospital messes, as I was above, there was Janet Deshields (I think that is her name), one of the three housekeepers who had to find the special solution that cleaned up the orange urine, orange due to the medication I was taking. One day, I half-joked a question to Janet: “How does it feel to have the toughest job in the entire hospital?”

What she was going through reminded me of one of the toughest jobs involved with my business: cleaning buses. It can be a demeaning job, disgusting, etc. You know what I mean. To make a bus presentable for the next trip, after the last group unfortunately had practically ruined its interior, the bus cleaner had to dig in with all the methods of trash cleaning. The hospital housekeeper has a daily similar challenge. In fact, Janet faces more trash in the course of a week than a bus cleaner.

After I asked the question, she replied, with a sort of “Thank you”, so to speak, “Nobody’s ever said that to me before!”

She takes pride in her work.

Janet is a hard hospital worker. A hospital is a building we treasure far more than a law office. (I should make clear that those in law offices spend not a small amount of time making life miserable for many in the medical profession. Some cases have justification; many are the result of ambulance chasing.)

Twelve hours after my arrival home from the hospital last night, I was back on the radiation table this morning. And Treatment Number 36 is coming up tomorrow.

And, oh yes, I have to check on that biopsy report, too.

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The next morning, Friday, July 27th, I was feeling dizzy one hour after wake-up. I headed for the Oncology treatment, and was given Number 36.

My blood pressure was 108 over 48. It was going lower again. The woman oncologist suggested that I contact my primary physician so he knows what is happening. I went to the Family Physician office and signed in (I had no appointment). Through a receptionist’s error, I had to wait more than an hour, but I sat in the waiting room allowing the dizziness to ebb.

My doctor listened to my story, and told me he had just spoken with Dr. Sandhu at Frankford Torresdale. My doctor said I needed to go right back to the ER there.

I was taken to Room 16 quickly and an IV was running shortly thereafter. I needed once again to be hydrated. During the afternoon, I also was taken for another chest X-ray of my lungs and heart. This is a good hospital.

After a five-hour stay, the ER doctor, Amy Witkin, told me I had to drink more fluids if I am to avoid the intense pain during urination. Yeah, I know that. I was avoiding the fluids to avoid the pain. But I was on a trip to nowhere good. If I don’t force the fluids, the dehydration and light-headedness return.

Dr. Witkin, who said she once worked at (the now-closed) Graduate Hospital in downtown Philadelphia, gave me a discharge sheet that summed up my situation. It noted that 55% of the human body is water. Here is some of the commentary:

The average healthy adult consumes about two quarts of water a day in the form of milk, juice, soda, etc. Each day, about one quart of water is lost in the urine. About one quart is lost through evaporation. If, for some reason, the amount of water consumed is less than the water lost, the total amount of water in the body will decrease.

This is called dehydration.

It can result from any disease that produces nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or simply a decreased appetite.

It concludes: Diseases that frequently result in dehydration include the common cold, the stomach flu, pneumonia and urinary tract infections.

HOLY BATMAN!! It almost sounded as though the ER doctor had read the above commentaries on this blog! Just kidding, of course. But I was reading about myself.

The statement from Frankford Torresdale also said the most common symptoms of dehydration are a “run down” feeling, a dry mouth, decreased urination and a dizzy feeling when standing up.

What are the risks? the statement asked. Dehydration usually gets better over one to two days and does not ordinarily produce any serious medical problems. There are, however, some risks: Very severe dehydration can damage the kidneys or produce a serious chemical imbalance in the blood, and occasionally dehydration is the result of a serious medical problem such as diabetes or blood poisoning.

The INSTRUCTIONS include the advisory that “as long as you do not have any heart or kidney disease, you should DRINK LOTS OF FLUIDS. Adults should drink at least two to three quarts a day. Avoid diet soda or caffeinated drinks such as coffee, tea or colas”.

The hospital statement also described at length all about dizziness.

The hospital says some of the more common causes include anxiety, hyperventilation, dehydration and minor viral infections. Then, some of the more SERIOUS causes of dizziness include severe dehydration, serious infections, stroke, irregular heart beats, blood clots in the lungs, dangerously low blood pressure or even a heart attack.

Sometimes, the hospital reports, careful examination reveals the cause of the dizziness, but often it does not. In a private office or emergency department, it may not be possible to find the exact cause of a particular episode of dizziness. As for symptoms, there also may be a false sense of motion, as if the room were spinning in circles. This is called “vertigo”, which could mean a loss of balance and occasionally nausea and/or vomiting.

Most cases of dizziness, says the hospital, get better within a few hours and cause no serious medical problems. However, there always is a small chance the dizziness may be an early sign of a potentially serious medical problem, such as a serious infection, blood clots or even a heart attack. Serious problems are more likely to occur in people who have had previous heart or lung problems, smoke, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, or are persons more than 50 years of age.

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An update on a Sunday afternoon in mid-August August 19, 2007 . . . . . . . . . .

The weekend of July 28-29 was unpleasant. There was more of the same: urgencies, then intense pain and often then: a trickle. Nausea. Dizziness. I had two instances of the dry heaves at home that Sunday. Nonetheless, I went in for Treatment Number 37. I know I wasn’t their favorite patient; I was arriving at the Oncology building daily without enthusiasm, even though it was refreshing to see Heidi give me a warm “Good Morning”. During this visit, I threw up in the doctor’s office (the exam room) and on another occasion. You want to know what happened, don’t you, or you wouldn’t have read this far.

Admittedly, it was very discouraging because I had spent a week in the hospital, had been treated for a urinary tract infection and still was feeling the same pain as ever. I didn’t know it that Monday, but some relief, ironically, was a day away, but in bizarre fashion.

During the day Monday, however, I had two more instances of throwing up.

Around midnight Monday (going into Tuesday, July 31), I started getting even more frequent pain, if that were possible. It was worse than any time in the prior two months. There simply was no letup despite my quick pacing in the bedroom.

At 2:00 a.m. I HAD to go to the ER. My wife drove me.

Even though the ER had only two other patients, and I was interviewed by the intake nurse almost immediately, I could not get into an ER bed for nearly two hours, during which the pain had eased.

One of the nurses was Linda, my friend from my first visit July 18th.

One of the doctors concluded the situation called for a catheter. I had had one for a short while after my October, 2004, heart attack, but I could not recall much about that experience. At 7:00 a.m. Tuesday, the catheter was inserted (you know where) and I was discharged from the ER at 7:45 a.m.

But after arriving home, the greater pain returned, and things seemed to be just as they were after midnight prior to the trip to the ER. Agony was thy name. We called the ER because we didn’t know what to do, and were told to either come back to the ER or see my family doctor.

Shortly thereafter, the catheter was getting bloody. We called 911. And the ambulance from the Philadelphia Fire Department “911″ arrived in six or seven minutes and took me back to the ER.

After further examination, I was given pain medication and advised that the catheter, in fact, was my best course to be able to urinate with less discomfort. And actually, that was true. It apparently was that the combination of further pain and blood scared me to Upper Darby.

At times during that second ER visit that day, I could not believe how bad the pain could get right there in the hospital!!!

In late morning, I asked a doctor (nice fellow) if it would be possible to find out about the biopsy report. I said it was supposed to be ready on Friday (July 27) and now it was four days after that. The doctor returned in a half-hour to say that the report was not finished and I could find out the results, when available, by contacting my family doctor.

I was discharged from the ER for the second time that day about 2:20 p.m. The conclusion: the catheter was properly in place, and it would ease the flow during urination, and eliminate the need for frantic dashes to the bathroom, only (often) arriving there 10 seconds too late.

It was decided to postpone radiation treatments until the next week. As it happened, I had three more, ending Wednesday, August 8th. The pain was too much to proceed further. My urologist had given me his home telephone number, which I called that Wednesday night. He agreed the treatments should be stopped at 40. Even after that, of course, I expected no sudden cure.

I continued to pace and pace to walk off the periodic pain. The catheter definitely reduced the times, so despite that call to 911, it proved to be an improvement. But it wasn’t taking care of all the instances. And amongst the new difficulties came the return of diarrhea.

I had an appointment Thursday (August 2) with my family doctor, one arranged in connection with the hospital discharge Wednesday, July 25. I told my doctor what had been going on, etc., and also mentioned, perhaps too casually, that I still did not have the biopsy results from eight days before. My doctor immediately left the exam room and called Frankford Torresdale. He returned and said he had just spoken with the radiologist who had been working on the liver biopsy. The “report” was not yet in written form but it was in shape to be conclusive.

There were cancer cells in my liver …. is how my family doctor advised me: I have liver cancer.

He arranged an appointment with the surgeon at Frankford Torresdale for 1:15 p.m. the next Tuesday (August 7).

(Dr.) Jeffrey Brodsky, M. D. Frankford Hospital-Torresdale Medical Office Building Suite 235 3998 Red Lion Road Philadelphia, PA 19114 phone 215-612-5630 fax 215-632-3544. Surgical Oncology General Surgery Laparosscopic Surgery. Frankford Hospitals Jefferson Health System (he also has an office in Langhorne, PA)

At that office visit, the surgeon explained what was ahead. He would need to remove 4.1 centimeters of a cancer mass from the smaller lobe of my liver.

I am to report to the hospital at 6 a.m. tomorrow (meaning Monday, August 20). The operation is expected to take two to three hours, I may need a blood transfusion in the midst of it and I likely will be hospitalized three to five days.

I haven’t seen a day since early June when I wasn’t pacing back and forth, seeking to ease the pain.

Dr. Brodsky, my life is in your hands.

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After the surgery, I was not in shape to update this summary for a month, either due to further hospitalization or time at home when I was too weak to think about typing on the computer. So ………………………………………..

It is now 31 days after the operation. Tomorrow will be Thursday, September 20th. To recap: it was on the 20th, in August, that I arrived at Frankford Torresdale Hospital at 5:45 a.m. I was due there at the Admissions Department at 6:00 a.m.

The operation, after appropriate check-ins, started shortly after 8:30 a.m., if I remember what the anesthetist told me. In a seeming moment, I was back awake, with somebody knowing I was returning to consciousness: “It’s all over.”

From what I could glean, the operation extended into mid-afternoon.

They say some surgeons are cocky and repulsive in their behavior in the medical field. I suspect, however, all of them are messengers from God. Putting an incision across my belly about 10 inches somehow has to include the deity; a miracle. My stomach resembles a sketch of a mountain, with a tall television antenna at the top.

This was because of one of His miracle workers, Dr. Brodsky. No cocky one, he. All business except that he’s also a big sports fan, as am I.

Thank God for Dr. Brodsky; a cancer mass measuring 4.1 centimeters was removed in the lengthy procedure.

Nearly all my contact with hospital professionals was favorable.

I reported above on the nurses. I regret to say there was a negative day involving a nurse. For this description, call her “Kathleen”. It was the day (Tuesday, August 21) after surgery. The time was seven minutes to 9:00 a.m. I felt a strange pressure in my nose. I pressed the call button, and a nurse who was in training, working with Kathleen, came into my room. She realized she needed to call Kathleen.

Kathleen said a tube in my nose had backed up. She said she would have to call a doctor. It turned out, unknown to me, that a nasogastric intubation tube had been inserted in my nose. It extended into my stomach where it was to perform a draining function. However, it had retracted and formed a coil in my nose. Kathleen casually told me she would have to contact the doctor on duty.

Fifteen minutes later, and the pressure in my nose remaining, I pressed the call button. When Kathleen entered the room, she told me she had not yet reached the doctor, but the main problem of the moment, as far as she was concerned, was that I should be prepared for a trip to Radiology. I needed another chest X-ray.

I told her the chest X-ray could wait; first I had to get the nose pain eased. She was not convincing as she discussed her attempts to reach the doctor. She had explained that, as nurse, she was not able to deal with the faulty tubing. I asked her several times whether she had talked with the doctor. Once, finally, she told me she had been unable to reach him, as all physicians were in the surgery rooms. I asked if the hospital had a fallback position when a problem develops, and there seemingly is no doctor to consult. I have to tell you, as I think about it weeks later, that my greatest concern was the rather casual way Kathleen felt she could deal with the problem. I had to insist that she do something, and more than a half-hour after the tubing retracted into my nose, a woman intern came in and withdrew the coiling.

Because I was not even 24 hours out of surgery, everything that I was feeling seemed to be a bother and an uncertainty, an unknown. It had me in fear, especially because Kathleen was more interested in scheduling my X-ray than in easing my pain.

What the intern was able to do alleviated the problem but I lay there for more than three hours before a doctor (“Chris”) showed up about one o’clock, with Kathleen. Chris reinserted the nasal tube while Kathleen’s nurse-in-training gave me water to drink, and orders to swallow. I tried to get Chris to stop the process momentarily as I could handle the swallowing alot better with cold water than warm water. He seemed unconcerned that cold water would have speeded the process, which he finally completed, I am happy to say. The nasogastric tube ultimately was back in place, ready to perform its function.

I suppose I was more bothered by the day’s events due to the apparent lack of a little Hippocrates on the part of both Kathleen and Chris. As I look back on it, it seems to me all they would have had to do was EXPLAIN what the hell was going on, and what they were doing and what they had to do.

I didn’t have a clue. They should have informed me.

Since surgery day, Monday, August 20th, I continued to face a battle. I was discharged from the hospital on the eighth day (Monday, August 27th). But I knew I wasn’t a well person. Four days later, I was back in the hospital for a four-day stay. This was on the afternoon when my surgery “staples” were removed (31 of them !). In Dr. Brodsky’s office, I was again dizzy and exhausted, and Dr. Brodsky’s office quickly arranged for my re-admission. During the four days, the hospital concluded I once more was hit with a urinary tract infection. When I was discharged this time, I was of the same mind as my situation a week after liver cancer surgery. I walked out of the hospital partly based on hope.

So, as mentioned above, I was discharged on Labor Day, September 3.

The next week at home was frustrating. I still had the catheter and I still had the periodic pacings to ease pain, especially in the midst of normal sleep time. What was happening, I believe, is that I was avoiding the hospital/doctor/nurse entreaties to drink plenty of fluids because the more I drank, the more urination pain I encountered.

I was scheduled to have the catheter removed on Friday, September 7th, in Dr. Handler’s office. I showed up that day dizzy and still feeling sickly, and Dr. Handler told me he could not remove the catheter when I was still in sorry shape. So I went home with the catheter that day, Day Number 39 with it.

On Wednesday, September 12, my family doctor phoned to say that the most recent blood tests had revealed more kidney problems. Or to put it bluntly, as Dr. Miller did that morning, “Your kidneys have just about shut down.” He said I had no choice except to return to the hospital for further treatment. This was done in concert with Kidney and Hypertension Associates: One Woodhaven Mall (Andalusia ??? PA). Main office: Suite 152 825 Town Center Drive Langhorne, PA 19047 phone 215-741-3510 fax 215-741-3517.

A nephrologist by the name of Dr. Michael D. Shulman, M.D., visited me several times during my hospital stay.

During this period, I was facing an eight-day stay. Toward the weekend, it appeared I might be able to be discharged, although I know I had little strength and not much enthusiasm for anything, including the Phillies and Eagles. An associate of Dr. Handler’s, that Friday (September 14th), Dr. Coll, told me he felt the catheter had run its course; it was time to remove it. It was scheduled for Tuesday, September 18th. I must admit I was scared because I wondered if I would go back to the intense pain during the frequent urinations.

The weekend, however, turned things momentarily upside down. Saturday morning, the catheter bag showed red fluid. Blood. Blood in the urine. No doctor or nurse could provide a good guess as to what had happened to me between Friday night and Saturday morning. Blood in the urine. The red fluid continued throughout the weekend. I was scared.

On Monday morning, the bag was virtually clear. No blood in the urine. What happened? I happily asked. But no doctor or nurse had an answer. The only conclusion: be happy that the urine is clear again.

A hospital mystery, left virtually unsolved. And the plan to remove the catheter was still “on” for the next day.

And, removing the catheter (at 6:05 a.m. that Tuesday morning !!!) was a positive step. My body had to start working on its own, and did so. Although the first 24 hours were scary, I realized I had to keep at it, and lo and behold, the hospital doctor agreed to discharge me the next day, Wednesday.

Recovery was surprisingly and refreshingly rapid. I did have a hard time trying to eat the lunch that day. But within an hour, I was being discharged from the hospital, and I was feeling strengthened and wondering whether it was a cruel hoax being played on me.

At 2 p.m., I was heading out the front door of the hospital.

As I had vowed to myself to do, shortly after arriving home, I was in the backyard pitching to Kevin, my three-year-old great grandson. It had been more than three months since we last played together back there. In short order, Kevin smashed one of my pitches to beyond the doghouse and hollered “HOME RUN”. It was. Bases were loaded. Grand slam.

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During the three weeks since my last hospital stay, I was visited at home by a Visiting Nurse, first Kathy and then Heather. They also are experts in the field, and are able to give you extensive answers to your questions. I was fascinated by their knowledge. A Visiting Nurse definitely is an asset as part of the hospital discharge procedure.

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And now, on the second day of October, more than four months after I started the radiation, I have had two weeks of increasing recovery. I have my voice back, I am drinking the fluids and day by day my appetite is increasing. I am having three meals a day. I had worked from home during the last two weeks of September, and yesterday and today, I went into the office for a few hours.

I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Brodsky this afternoon. Where liver cancer is concerned, nothing is for certain. He said he was able to remove all of the cancer August 20th, but there are no surgery guarantees. He wants to check me again the first week of January. My situation will continue to require watching.

Thank you for traveling these hectic weeks and months with me.

A SAD POST SCRIPT: There was reference in the above account to Gary Papa, sports director of 6ABC Philadelphia (Channel 6 in Philadelphia, formerly WPVI). Mr. Papa died of prostate cancer Friday, June 19, 2009. He had battled the cancer for nearly six years. He was 54. His last day on the air was May 13th.

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Middle School Career Day May, 2007

Ennis Manns, Principal of the Edwn H. Vare Middle School, Philadelphia, PA … asked me to talk to some of his seventh, eighth and ninth grade (middle school) students Thursday, May 10, 2007. It was Career Day at Vare. Allow me a bit of humor in the following remarks when I refer to the school as Ennis Manns Middle School.

Here is what I said to the young people of Vare Middle School:

Thursday, May 10, 2007
Edwin H. Vare Middle School
24th Street and Snyder Avenue
Philadelphia, PA

Last September, most…. if not all of you ……….. made a decision. You decided you should go back to school. You might have thought ……….. “I have to go back to school.” ………………. (You might not have been happy about it. Or you MIGHT HAVE BEEN.) ………….. The situation this morning is….. YOU’RE STILL HERE.

And whether you LIKE SCHOOL or don’t like school…. down deep…. inside… when you think about it…. you most likely realize: YOU BELONG IN SCHOOL.

Is school tough? Yes. Sometimes. If you wish to excel in life, you must confront school head-on. It is a grind. School was a grind when I attended. It is a grind today. School always has been a grind.

You NEED to go to school. And…. you need to STAY IN SCHOOL.

So it is a pleasure to be with you this morning at Ennis Manns Middle School!

Now, as part of Career Day here at Ennis Manns Middle School, I will tell you about myself. You will hear that I have had three jobs in my life (three “careers”), each fun….and rewarding. What you may find surprising is that ……..at AGE 73…. I am still working and also launching my fourth career. I don’t HAVE to work… but it’s just continued to work out that way.

(Don’t think that you may have to work until you’re 73…but also know… if you do …. it will be because you LIKE the job.)

However, while I will talk about myself, I first need to talk about YOU.

YOU ….. as an INDIVIDUAL. One person in this classroom.

YOU are the important consideration today. And YOU are the one who needs to make an important decision today . . . . . . even though you don’t have to DO ANYTHING about it right today.

I want to show you the photograph of a little boy. His name is Kevin Pierron.
(Photo)

He is my GREAT GRANDSON. He is a very nice boy.

He lives with me. Yes, he lives in my home in Philadelphia.

His lives with me….because his Daddy…. my grandson…. decided when he was in the ninth grade…. that he didn’t like school. Not only did he not like school…. he started SKIPPING SCHOOL. He started neglecting his homework. He fell behind. He got disgusted about himself. And about life.

And then……….. SURPRISE !!! He quit school.

In the ninth grade.

Over the next few years, my grandson tried to learn about computers ………………… how they work and …………. how you can put a series of them into a network. And he has made some progress. But he is still looking for his first good job. And he has to continue to look ……… and look…. because employers at all levels of work are seeking EDUCATED job candidates. Whatever it is you do, you need to do … and be …… YOUR BEST. You need to be educated.

DO YOUR BEST at WHATEVER JOB you get.

So, about my grandson ……. In the midst of this period after he quit school, he had a girl friend. And nearly three years ago, they became the parents of Kevin.

Neither my grandson nor his girlfriend was able to SUPPORT Kevin. It takes MONEY. They were teenagers who thought everything would just be so easy, so “duckey”, and they would have so much fun being parents. ………….. (They would not listen to others who told them how important it is to get a good education. And to finish school.)

No, it just didn’t turn out so easy. It doesn’t turn out that way.

If you quit on your education, and become a Mommy or a Daddy at a young age, you are suddenly trying to lift a TRAIN LOCOMOTIVE to get through life. It doesn’t matter how strong you think you are: you cannot lift a train locomotive.
My grandson was trying to do that.

And then he and his girlfriend broke up . . . . . . after they had pledged themselves to each other ……….. FOREVER. ……… They no longer are a couple. ………. They had no means and no money to take care of Kevin.

This happens all over Philadelphia. All over America. All over the world.

WHY? It is relatively SIMPLE. Mommy and Daddy thought it would be DIFFERENT in their case. They could DO IT…….IT WOULD BE SO WONDERFUL to be parents….. to have a child. They knew more about it than the older folks in their families.

Teenage Mommies and Daddies (such as has been Kevin’s parental situation) ……. are going to fumble every single time.

Not almost always. Every single time.

And what did my grandson and his girlfriend do ???

Well, the question REALLY is: WHAT DIDN’T THEY DO ???

They did NOT STAY IN SCHOOL.

So, now, at age 73, I ………. Kevin’s GREAT GRANDFATHER…. am the one who plays basketball, and baseball, and football and golf …. with Kevin.

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When he was a young teenager, I tried to tell my grandson how important it was to go to school. I told him how I had made up my mind….at a very young age….that I was going to try to get the best grades. I told him how I NEVER cut a class……. I NEVER skipped school. Some of my classmates over the years thought cutting classes and skipping school was COOL.

I just did not agree. What I said (to my grandson) went in one ear and out the other. Ask yourself: is that happening to you this morning? You are listening to me with deaf ears?

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Before I finished college, I got a job…. at age 19…. at a small radio station in Missouri. In four years, I was the station’s manager.

During that period, I was graduated from the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. The school was the FIRST JOURNALISM school in the nation…. it was started 99 years ago.

It was a terrific school. And I got high grades. Unlike some of the other students, you wouldn’t find me drinking beer at two o’clock in the morning. And I never cut a class in college, either.

After graduation, I went to a radio and television station in Des Moines (????? what state ?????)….and after five years, my work there led to my move to Philadelphia. Channel 3 and what eventually became “Eyewitness News” ….. where I worked eight years. I was a street reporter ….. newscaster …….. investigative reporter.

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I had great teachers…. both in college …. and in radio and television.

I learned how important it is to speak well…. to speak clearly. And I learned the tricks of speech. For example, I was taught not to say the word PARTICIPATE; instead, TAKE PART.

I was taught not to try to say PAR TIC U LAR LY.

It is much easier to say ESPECIALLY.

I was taught the difference between the word LIE and the word LAY. You lay a book on a table. You LIE DOWN AND REST. It has been my experience that perhaps 90% of the doctors and nurses I have met…. have asked me to LAY down….. so they could examine me.

I am a public annoyance, frankly. I usually tell the nurses and doctors that they have used the wrong word. They should have asked me to LIE DOWN.

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I was taught the difference between FARTHER and FURTHER.

To win the NFL’s Punt, Pass and Kick Contest, you have to throw the football FARTHER than anybody else.

If you want to know more about the football contest, you can look into the matter FURTHER.

Said simply: FARTHER means distance; FURTHER means EXTENT.

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When you answer the phone, do you, as a boy, when somebody asks for you….. do you say “This is him” ………. or …. if you are a girl…. do you say “This is her”. To be grammatically correct….you say: “This is he” or “This is she”.

And what about the difference between “I” and “me”? You boys who watch football on TV might have heard John Madden describe a pass: “The quarterback threw that right between he and the defender.” (The “he” in the sentence referred to, most likely, is a receiver on the quarterback’s team.)

John Madden is wrong every time he says it. He should say “between the defender and him.”

How do you know what is correct? (STAY IN SCHOOL…and you’ll find out.)

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I was taught proper grammar. And spelling. I was taught so well that I now know how badly many of today’s speakers SPEAK, especially those on the air….on your TV screen. And too often, I see where television people behind the scenes do not know how to spell.

And they don’t know their history…… the history of this country, and the history of the world. This is very important to be able to handle all kinds of life issues as you become an adult.

It is so important that you learn how to speak. And how to spell. Your ability to speak well….. and to spell words…. demonstrates not only for others….. but for YOURSELF….. that it is SO IMPORTANT TO BE EDUCATED.

TO BE EDUCATED….. YOU MUST STAY IN SCHOOL.

You must pay attention to your teachers. Get to school on time. Attend all your classes. Attend school every day the school is open for you.

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I was very busy during my 18 years in broadcasting. Perhaps my most significant TV work here in Philadelphia came more than 40 years ago… during one two-month period. I appeared three times on the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC. In those days, the newscast was watched by 36-million people, so that’s a big audience to speak to.

(Ironically, there were more viewers for that newscast than …. today …. for ALL of the viewers for NBC, CBS and ABC combined for their 6:30 national newscasts …..).

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A reporter experiences a thousand stories, a thousand incidents. I once attended a news conference with former President Harry Truman.

I shook hands with former President Dwight Eisenhower on his 73rd birthday and (for NBC) I covered the speech he made that night.

I was assigned by Channel 3 to President John Kennedy’s Philadelphia appearance just one month before Dallas.

In 1964 …….. yes….. this was 43 years ago!!!! ………… I interviewed Richard Nixon, then the former Vice President, a year after he lost the 1962 race for Governor of California.

And in 1975, after I had left Channel 3, for the only time in my life, I shook hands with a sitting President, Gerald Ford, who died four months ago at the age of 93.

My work at Channel 3 led to an invitation from the incoming Mayor of Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo, to be the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Civic Center. At the Civic Center, I was the boss of 200 employees. I was in that job for eight years …. all the time Frank Rizzo was Mayor.

That was a great job. Being the boss of 200 employees is not unlike being the boss of 20 or 2,000. You must have leadership qualities. You must be able to “lead” people ….. to manage them…….. to direct them. If you cannot do it, your shortcomings will reveal themselves quickly. You won’t stay in the job very long.

At the end of the two terms of Mayor Rizzo, I helped to start a business that is still operating 27 years later. Included in this operation is a travel agency which also conducts day trip and overnight tours. During those 27 years, we acquired five motorcoaches. We had to hire travel agents for the travel agency, drivers for the motorcoaches.

I’ll tell you a little secret. Don’t let this get around. One of our travel agents was a young fellow by the name of Ennis Manns.

Your Principal. This was before he became famous.

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Whether at the Civic Center or at the travel agency, the challenges are the same: you must lead, you must perform, you must be ready at all times to handle problems and emergencies. You must be able to “think” on the spot and act accordingly.

Only experience in life …………. and a proper education….. will enable you to make the correct decisions.

And yes, the way you speak…and the way you WRITE …. in your job ….. and in your life ……… is critical to your success. Whether you are one of the employees….or the boss…. you must be able to present yourself effectively. Said another way: YOU HAVE TO BE “ON THE BALL”.

You can demonstrate “leadership qualities” even if you are not the boss. The boss is looking for people who can produce work, who are reliable …. who are intelligent …. who show up for work on time….. do not call in sick every time they get a sniffle …. and who are on the ball….. and who are “educated”.

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Let me speak for just a moment about “MISTAKES”.

When you do not get an “A” grade, implicit is the likelihood that you were not perfect; you made a mistake or two in completing your assignment. A “mistake” never should be so great a problem for you that you lose confidence in yourself. You try to do better…and work harder…. the next time.

Because “MISTAKES” are part of life. I see “mistakes” every day. Sad to say, many I see are due to a person’s lack of education. What I see clearly allows me to tell you: there is great opportunity for YOU after you complete school. So many employers are looking for EDUCATED employees. And I assure you…. once you have that nice job you want…. you can…. from time to time…. make mistakes.

(Just don’t make too many of them, and don’t make the same mistakes over and over.)

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I am sorry to have to tell you but some of you are not going to make it. It is not because you are stupid. But it IS BECAUSE you are not smart. You did not pay attention in school. You did not get to school on time. You missed homework assignments. You stayed up so late at night, you were too sleepy the next day to pay attention. You let your friends drag you down. You did not have the “guts” to tell your friends you had to get home and get to sleep…because you had school the next day. And school is more important than your friends.

Wait a minute: Did I just say that ? Yes you heard right. School is more important than your friends! And more important than TV shows.

Oh, please forgive me. I should not have said that! At your age now, there is no way you will agree with me: School is more important than your friends. But do me a favor and write that down. School is more important than your friends.
And then put the piece of paper you wrote that on….. someplace where you know where it is. Because…. 10 years from now… I want you to re-read the statement and see if you have a different opinion of my statement….than you do today.
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If you cannot dig it, you will fail. Failure never pays off. Failure becomes a statistic. Failure becomes a life sickness. Do you want to just become another of the thousands of statistics in Philadelphia?

Why do I say that some of you in this class won’t make it in life??? Because that’s what the percentages say. I hope you prove me wrong. ……….. The news is filled today… with losers. Guys and gals who could not dig it. Who did not show up on time. Who let their friends dictate their lives. Who showed up late or cut their classes in school.

The losers are weak. They are weak people. They did not grab their lives in their hands and decide to succeed.

Because y’see, success is easily within reach …. if you have a plan for your life. At your age right now, you can make that decision I told you about. You can decide to stay in school.

Yes, I know you won’t remember much of what’s being said here at the Ennis Manns Middle School Career Day. That is understandable and normal. (Your teachers may give you a quiz on what you heard today from the various speakers so pay attention to today’s speakers!)

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But you will make me very happy….. if you walk out of school today and remember ONE THING YOU HEARD FROM ME. It is so important; at your young age, it just may not be sinking in. But I hope so.

I hope you will show up every day …….. on time ….. And I hope you….get a great education and become a leader. The world is waiting for leaders. The world is waiting for YOU.

How do you do it ? Throughout MIDDLE school……….. HIGH school…. college……….. you stick with it. You do your homework. You don’t just dig it. You dig in.

You stay in school. Thank you for your kind attention. ####

The above remarks were made before four of the Vare Middle School classes. You might have seen a reference above to my “fourth” career. As an unexpected feature at the close of each talk, I looked to the hallway and welcomed into the classroom ONE MASTER KEVIN PIERRON. Each time, on cue, Kevin ran to my arms and said “Hi” to the school children (on one occasion, he was bashful and said nothing). I admit to considerable bias, but he was terrific.

Santa Claus and the Philadelphia Eagles

One of the legends of the Philadelphia Eagles football team is when fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus. Its origin, however, has been roundly misreported. I have thought about this frequently, as the story recurs every year. At age 73, I think it is past time for me to clarify the errors attached to the legend. I had an accidental but not insignifant part in the origin.

So here goes.

It was December, 1968. It was the last Eagles home game of a (for them) dismal season. I was working as substitute Sunday night newscaster for KYW-TV, Channel 3, Philadelphia. The well-known and highly popular weekend newscaster until that summer, Harry K. Smith, had retired and given me as his legacy a very high Sunday night audience. It was my job to handle the last four months or so of the year and not mess things up until a replacement for Harry was free of his contract in Atlanta.

The Eagles were not popular in our newsroom that year. The assignment editor, Bill Dean, would give me a 100-foot film can each Friday when the Eagles had a home game. Bill would instruct me: “Give this to (the film cameraman of the weekend) and tell him to just shoot the touchdowns.” Everybody would laugh. But the mission statement was clear: don’t waste film on the Eagles.

One can of film, 100 feet, was fewer than three minutes worth of run time. But we just needed a good 20 or 30 seconds for the 11 p.m. newscast. And not very much was expected of the Eagles that year. That was the final year of Joe Kuharich as coach. That summer, on the shore beaches, the small plane streamers had proclaimed “Joe Must Go.”

I do not remember the name of the cameraman. In those days, it was normal to hire a free-lancer for the weekends, which served low budget newscasts. The cameraman would work eight hours Saturday and eight hours Sunday, and you would hope there would be some news worth airing. It was silent film only; no sound. The cameraman probably was Denny Bossone but I do not remember. I asked his son, Larry, another Channel 3 news cameraman, if his Dad ever had mentioned taking pictures of Santa Claus at an Eagles game. Larry said he could not recall, but that his Dad kept a library in his garage of discarded film, and the Santa Claus clips could have been there. However, he said the whole garage load of Denny Bossone film work subsequently was sold to a New York film company. And Larry added that he thought his Dad was full-time in 1968.

In the late afternoon that Sunday, I went to the editing room with the film editor to review the film shot that day. When it came to the Eagles 100 feet of film, we did a double-take. We saw Santa Claus walking down the track at Franklin Field waving energetically to the fans in the stands. He was a jolly old soul but could not have expected what he suddenly was confronting, made possible by the snowstorm the day before.

In those days, the film came in “negative” form; the reverse polarity occurred when the film was projected for the TV screen. This was film of yesteryear: black and white, not color. But the scene was unmistakable. Those were snowballs flying past Santa Claus.

There weren’t that many but Santa went into double trot and quickly finished his on-field season’s greetings. So much for the cheerful half-time show. By checking the rest of the film with the brief play action we had, we could tell this occurred at half-time. I don’t recall if the cameraman captured any touchdowns, but the Eagles lost.

In those days, the newscast at 11 p.m. ran a half-hour. I was alone in the newsroom all evening except for the copy boy, who would continually check the news wires. Sundays are slow news days generally; we relied on national and international news and the newsmaker from “Meet The Press”. We covered the complete weather in not more than two minutes on Sundays, unlike the obsesssion with the subject the rest of the week, continuing even to today.

When the NBC-TV show ended at 10:59 p.m., I came on and gave a few headlines as was routine, and ended with: “AND TODAY SOME EAGLES FANS THREW SNOWBALLS AT SANTA CLAUS. Details with film coming up next.”

When it came time for the sports news, I gave the Eagles story straight but then went to the snowballs film. I could tell from the reaction of the studio crew that this was a grabber. It was a rather bizarre incident, and when you saw Santa Claus vigorously waving and then being forced to duck, you had immediately sympathy for Old St. Nick.

The next day, at the station, especially in the newsroom, snowballs and Santa Claus were about the only discussion. Vince Leonard, the regular Number One newscaster, made sure the Santa film was re-run during the Monday evening casts. And later in the week, Jim Leaming, sportscaster, ran it as a rueful analysis of the Eagles sorry season.

I know it ran at least four times that week. It was only maybe 20 seconds long so it was easy to repeat.

When you do an unusual news story, it is common to check other media to see how they handled it (if they did). We knew Monday that nobody but KYW-TV had film of the snowballs and Santa Claus. I was a bit puzzled to read only one mention of the incident in the Monday newspapers. Frank Dolson, Inquirer columnist, made reference to it in about the seventh paragraph of his sad treatise on the windup home game.

I really thought we had a bit of a scoop, especially with the film. I believe my fellow newsmen in the Channel 3 newsroom agreed, based on their replays of the yarn during the week. For the most part, the incident otherwise was viewed as a non-story.

I should point out that Harry K. Smith had a huge ratings advantage on his weekend newscasts, and for as much as we could compare, the ratings for the four months I did the newscast sustained their weekly lead. During the week, Channel 3 had a decided ratings lead in news. In the late 1960’s, before “Action News” at Channel 6 surpassed us in the early 1970’s, the City Hall reporter from Channel 6 would say: “We (Channel 6) clean the transmitter when you come on at six o’clock.” Regretfully, it did not continue that way for a period of years in the 1970’s. Action News became Number One in the ratings.

But this was long after the Eagles fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus.