Heroes The Media Forgot

 
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Words That Inspired My Father

I have mentioned before that I started this blog in honor of my Father's writings. Specifically a leather bound book of poems that is cherished by our family. Some of the poems date back to the 1920's.

Also in the book are quotes and sayings. Some are my Father's. Some are from poets and philosopher's he admired. Some are credited. Some are not.

Here are a few:

"Superstition is the serpent that chokes religion; it is the cruelest enemy of the pure worship due to the Supreme Being." - Voltaire

"I would rather believe all the fables...than to believe that this universal frame is without a mind. A little philosophy brings a man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy brings a man's mind to religion. - Francis Bacon

"He who tries and fails is ultimately better than he who does nothing and succeeds."

"Passions are not vices, but raw material for both vice and virtue." - Aristotle

"Men use thought only authority for their injustice, and empty speech only to conceal their thoughts."- Voltaire

"Silence isn't always golden. Sometimes it's just plain yellow."

"Few things are as safe, as damp, and as horribly uninteresting as silence."

"Most people have an insatiable desire to know everything except that what is worth knowing." - Oscar Wilde

"Hate comes from the fact that we can never stand someone having the same flaws as ourselves." - Oscar Wilde

"He who is placed on a pedestal has no place to step but off."

"Love is the history of a woman's life; it is an episode is a man's." - Madame de Stael

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

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Happy Birthday To The Perfect Mother

Today is my birthday.

It is also my Mother's birthday.

Katherine "Kitty" Mendte died in 2002. I am the youngest of her five children. She also has sixteen grandchildren and twenty eight great-grandchildren.

I have written here about my Mother before and described her as "perfect." I hope you feel the same way about your Mother.

My Mother never wanted to travel or own expensive jewels. She never cared about status or being seen. My Mother woke up everyday and made us breakfast. When I came home for lunch, she had already made it along with all of the beds. At night we had a big dinner made up of a main dish, three sides and a dessert every night.

As my brothers and sisters got married and moved out on their own, she lured them back with a big weekly Sunday dinner of Roast Beef, mashed potatoes, spinach with sliced egg on top, my Dad's homemade cole slaw, green beans, the best gravy in the world, iced tea and two cakes - one vanilla with chocolate icing and one chocolate with vanilla icing - and all homemade.

We had such big crowds, sometimes of aunts, cousins, friends and prospective in-laws, that we would add card tables to the end of our long dining room table and open the french doors to the family room.

It was like Thanksgiving dinner every week.

And at the end of the table my Mother would sit and beam. It was all she ever wanted in life - to have her children all together and with her.

Aside from Sunday dinner, the only other thing I remember my Mother wanting from all of us was to go to Sunday Mass with her. She envied the big families that would show up together. To her - that was status - to appear in church as a family before God.

I think of my Mother every year on this day...my birthday...her birthday. She was in her 40's when she had me, there was a blinding snowstorm and she had just recovered from pneumonia. The odds were against me in 1957, but I had the perfect Mother on my side.

I have had her on my side ever since, only wanting the best for me - and for all of us - never asking anything from any of us - except our love - which was the easiest thing to do.

I was having these thoughts of my Mother when my wife forwarded me a video she got in an email from my niece Tara Elinski, who has four children of her own.

You see, I am lucky that my wife is another perfect Mother. I remember years ago when Dawn was anchoring the news in Philadelphia and traveling to New York to host CBS Saturday Morning, she was asked "What are your ultimate ambitions?" Dawn blew away the reporter by answering, "To be a Philadelphia Mom."

She wasn't kidding.

Dawn believes that being a stay at home Mom is the noblest choice a woman can make. She envies and applauds those who can and do.



Like my Mother, and many other mothers, Dawns ultimate and lasting success is her children.

And so as I remember my perfect Mother on this, our special day. I also acknowledge my children's perfect Mother and the millions of other perfect Moms, those who work in and out of the home. And with all of you I share this video, "The Invisible Woman" featuring Nichole Johnson. You can read and see more of Nichole's work at her Fresh Brewed Life website.

And remember, for those perfect Mothers who may feel invisible now, you will live in the lives and memories of your children who will still pay tribute to you on your birthday years after you are gone.

Phillies Fans - Try and Enjoy This Time

There is only one good thing I can see to come out of the SEPTA strike - it gave a large contingent of disgruntled Phillies fans something else to gripe about.

What a bunch of short memory ingrates!

I am certainly not talking about ALL Phillies fans, just the loud ones who go on talk radio and force themselves in front of the TV cameras to give all of us a bad name.

You know the ones who were complaining about Charlie Manuel, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge and Ryan Howard, aka the 2008 Manager of the Year, The 2008 World Series MVP, the 2008 Closer of The Year and the 2009 NL Championship MVP. The "what have you done for me lately" Phillies fans blamed that group for not winning the World Series - that would be the 2009 World Series, the Phillies first back-to-back appearance in team history, after winning its first World Championship in 2008 after a 28 year drought.

Yep, we sure have a lot to complain about.

This is not a new phenomenon, it is uniquely Philadelphia. I have a friend who was a stand-up comic in Philadelphia. After the 1908 World Series win, he joked tat Phillies fans immediately said, "They suck. They can't do it next year."

Fast forward to 2009 and the joke becomes real.

To the 2009 Phillies I say "Thank You." What a wonderful ride you are taking us on - I know its not over yet. With a front office brilliant at filling holes (Lee, Pedro, Ibanez and Feliz), a core group of great players still coming into their prime (Howard, Rollins, Werth, Utley and Victorino) and some great Rookies ahead of us (Taylor, Drabek and Brown), I know you could return to the World Series again and again.

Thank you for a team of fine men who are wonderful role models for my kids. Thank you for caring enough about the city to get involved in community and charity events. Thank you for this most memorable time in Philadelphia sports history - I know this may never happen again.

And for the Philadelphia sports fans who may still be griping - relax. It is okay to enjoy this. I know we have been burnt before by false prophets like Eric Lindros, Sean Bradley and Von Hayes. I know you have watched Joe Carter, Chicago Fog and Magic Johnson steal your dreams.

Let it go. It's okay.

This team won a World Championship and it may not be the last. This is the like the Eagles teams of the late 40's and the Flyers of the early 70's. This seems to happen once every 30 years, so it may be a long time before this ever happens again.

Enjoy the moment. You'll have plenty of time to gripe in the years ahead, believe me.

Continuing Adventures in Motherhood: The Birthday Princess

by Megan Morris, a writer in Chicago, mother of three and my niece

Once Upon A Time, in a land not so far away, there was a kingdom of unhappy birthday princesses. It seemed no matter what their family and servants did on the all important birthday day… the princesses could not be made to smile. I myself, was one such grumpy princess.

I recall my Mother’s tireless efforts and, I must say, unending enthusiasm to produce the elusive birthday smile. It was as though she forgot every year how fruitless her efforts truly were. “What kind of cake do you want sweetie? What does my little Princess want for her big day?” Ten hours later, regardless of what bobble-headed beast she shelled out for, no matter how many hours the Holly Hobbie cake took to create, no matter how many Barbie cone-hatted kids were paraded before me, I threw some kind of fit at the moment of expected joy. My ever-hopeful mother would shake her head, shrug her shoulders and shoot for next year.

Other Tantrumers In Tiara’s emerged as the years passed… My sister Meredith needed a special nap at just the right moment before her annual party or it was all over… and then Molly…well, Molly’s tantrums are the stuff of legend. No one is sure really, where the horns come from on that special day. They just grow there, perfectly placed on either side of our birthday hats. My mom, in her patient way, would laugh and say “it’s just the excitement of the day getting the best of you girls.”

Well, that was all just fine and dandy for her…. But when my OWN Birthday Princesses were born… well, they were going to be happy dammit!

Now, I am not saying I go overboard for my children’s birthdays, exactly… but I did narrowly escape being the first subject of a new reality show called “Birthday Moms and Dads”.

Nope, not kidding.

It’s the same bastards that produce “Tutus and Tiaras” and “Sports Moms and Dads”… They basically follow around a family preparing an overblown kiddy party, cameras rolling and wait for the mother or Birthday Kid to skitzo-out. I dodged the bullet, thanks to the even-headedness of my husband, but they were very interested in Maddy’s 5th Birthday Party Carnival. The producers very nearly kiss-assed their cameras onto the invite list. “Oh that sounds amazing, what a good idea!” Bastards. Ooh, I still get mad thinking about it, almost five years later.

My kids’ birthday bashes usually entail not the regulation 8 party guests, but closer to 100 kids invading my backyard. I’ve hired ponies, petting zoos, magicians, a creepy Peter Pan in tights and the know infamous “Dirty Pooh Bear” - a filthy creature which was basically some hillbilly in a bobble head costume singing “I ain’t seen a purtier birthday gally” to my one year old daughter while 75 grown ups stared on in transfixed horror.

Now, when I look back at the video, I laugh until I cry… Tim’s co-workers all standing in a circle, watching with pasted on grins, glancing at their watches and wringing their hands as I dance around with a terrified infant and this blackened, filthy, cigarette stinking semblance of Winnie the Pooh. Could I have been that oblivious? Yes. Yes, I could.



There were considerably less co-workers at the second year shindig. Maddy screamed and threw a present at my head that year, by the way.

I’ve had a Lilo and Stitch-themed Luau, transformed my house into a Peter Pan tropical jungle, put on the afore mentioned Carnival, complete with clown, magician, bouncy house, pony rides and not one, but three kindergarten classes full of booger-eating guests. Oh yes, let’s not forget the Princess Tea Party for 50 hysterical three year olds. Brilliant, eh?

Well, in my defense, I am after the big prize - The ever-elusive perfectly Happy, Smiling, Content and THANKFUL Birthday Princess. Maddy is nine… but she still tantrums out every year. On her second birthday, she stripped off her party dress and refused to come out of her room. On her fourth, she refused to thank anyone for her gifts and decided she was NOT turning four… she preferred being three apparently. Number seven, well, I still can’t talk about it, but I will tell you she was grounded for a week.

I thought perhaps my son would be easier. But he full on bawls every single year at the exact instant the birthday song breaks out. He cannot stand to be exalted apparently. I have five pictures of him in complete hysterics with a Spiderman suit on (because to date, he only wants Spiderman-themed Parties). I am pushing Sponge Bob hard this year for number six. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

But I digress. (Birthday Boys are another matter entirely.)

Yesterday, was my littlest Birthday Princess’s Big Day. Katy turned three. I bought pink plates, balloons, tiaras and set out to make her smile. I don’t really have high hopes these days. As a seasoned mother of three, I assume a tantrum is coming. I do force a nap sometime during the birthday party day, in the hopes of possibly producing at least a mildly pleasant birthday child… but I am never surprised when the water works start.

(Now, mind you, the actual KIDDY birthday party is this Saturday… yesterday was the the birthday day FAMILY party… a distinction I hesitate to point out, since I may be jinxing myself by the mere act of writing these events down on paper…but here goes…)

I dressed my Katy Princess in a sparkle white tutu and sparkle Cinderella shoes, draped the kitchen in pink bows and balloons and forged ahead with the desperate hope of “happy princess” dangling out in front of me like a dog race rabbit.
We had just returned the night before from a quick trip to Philadelphia for my parent’s 40th Wedding Anniversary Party… so it was a gargantuan effort on my part just to get the house in order, the trip unpacked, laundry done and the decorations up… but dammit, she’s my baby! She’s turning three, there will be a party, so help me!


In the hour before her birthday dinner, before Grandpa or Aunt Ashley arrived…
I walked into the kitchen. There she stood in all her sparkle bedazzled glory, big giant bow on top of her head… she was staring into the open fridge, one hand on handle, one hand on hip, scrutinizing her giant pink cake. The words “Happy Birthday Katy” were staring back at her hopefully.

I sighed and asked bravely, “Are you happy baby?”

What happened next, may have changed my outlook on life, giving me hope anew for birthdays to come. Don’t roll your eyes. I am NOT being dramatic. That’s simply not my style…

She turned her adorable face towards me and nodded. She was smiling, nay GRINNING ear to ear.

Slamming the refrigerator, she skipped towards me singing the word “happy happy happy happy happy,” over and over.

The little darling leaped into my arms and kissed me on the cheek. I blinked and stared at her sweet face in wonder.

I was witnessing the actual Birthday Princess, at the exact moment of the usual regulation tantrum, being, I am going to say it, “Joyful”.

She said the simple but beautiful words “thank you mama, I wuv my cake.” I sank down on the floor with her and hugged her tight, soaking up my simple, yet so needed reward…

“You are welcome, my happy little Birthday Princess, you are so welcome.”

And we all lived Happily Ever After… (Shut up you skeptics…A mom can dream, can’t she?)

On Loneliness

It was my Father's old leather bound poem book that was the catalyst for this blog. Over the last few months I have posted many of his works, some dating back 80 years.


As I read the poems and writings in his book, I wish so much that he was alive today so that I could ask him questions about his thoughts and feelings.


None of the writings stirred more curiosity in me than the following entry that I transcribe verbatim from the yellowed pages of my father's book.




(The last time I saw Mrs. Campbell was in Washington. She was very weary of life, having carried 76 years of it on here rounded shoulders. Her existence centered upon a lingering hope that someday she might return to her England, land of her birth, her early happiness and later grief. She asked me to write a poem about loneliness, which I did.)

Slowly and softly and silently passing,
Moving the same old way.
Moments are dragging and ceaselessly stacking
And forming another day.
When things are so sad is there wonder I'm glad
To call back days that passed.
In that long, long ago...so far away,
The days that went so fast?

Dusty and gloomy and everything stuffy...
Everything seems to be.
And I remember when people were gentle
And lovely and kind to me.
But it hurts so much when i even touch
Those folded souvenirs,
I want to forget...but if I forget
What is there left...but years.

Time is so awkward and hopelessly clumsy
When such as this must be,
Joy is but bygone, the future is empty
And what is there left for me?
Forbid this despair and let me forebear,
Stifle my anguished cry,
Moments are ages; days are like aeons...
How long, oh Lord, and why?

Robert Mendte.

...oOo...

The best gate of a man is not to be born; the second best is to die early....

Silenus.

Happy Birthday Steven...and Thank You

When I was working at CBS3 I made it a personal mission to make certain that we did not forget the men and women fighting and dieing for this country in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As part of that mission, I interviewed many Mom's and Dad's who lost a son or a daughter to a sniper, IED, an ambush or a fire fight.

Their pain is deep and eternal.

For many it is difficult to go on. Holidays go unrecognized because of the pain. Other dates become monumentally important - the birthday - enlistment day - the day your child died.

One of the women I had the great honor of meeting and befriending is Bobbie McGowan from Newark, Delaware. A school teacher and proud mother of her daughter Michaela. In March of 2005, her only son Steven was taken by an explosive device buried in a dirt road outside of Ramadi, Iraq.

Bobbie's apartment in Newark is now a shrine to Steven. His uniform and boots are encased in an armoire. Pictures of Steven are everywhere.

And then there are the Beanie Babies. Steven handed out so many Beanie Babies to the Iraqi children that he became known as "The Beanie Baby Soldier." To this day, the tiny stuffed animals are distributed in his name in Iraq.

Today is Steven's Birthday.

People who love Bobbie reach out to her on this day. One of those people is Jason Hagan. He served with Steven in Iraq and was there when he died. Jason retrieved the body.

He also made a battlefield promise with Steven that if anything happened to either one of them, the survivor would make certain the other's Mom was being cared for.

For the last four years, Steven has kept that promise. Jason lives in California, but still dotes on Bobbie from afar.

Today Jason sent Bobbie a digital flower. This is the note she wrote:

October 11, 2009

Jason Hagan sent me a beautiful picture of a rose this morning. It looks like a perfect pink rose. I remembered Bette Midler had a song titled “The Rose,” so I looked up the lyrics. Some really touched me again.

It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It’s the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It’s the one who won’t be taken,
who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dyin’
that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long...
just remember in the winter
far beneath the winter snows
lies the seed that with the {Son’s} love
in the spring becomes the rose.

Our road has been lonely and long, but as the change in the lyrics I made reflects, I believe God’s love will end our winter and we will have our spring and our roses when we hold our children once again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE!

Love, Da Momma

Please remember Steven McGowan on this day and all of the men and women who have given their lives in service to country.

Remember that there are still men and women serving this country and in harm's way overseas.

And remember the Mothers, Fathers, Wives, Husbands and children who have also sacrificed for this country. They have been wounded by war in a way we can't comprehend.

To learn more about Steven McGowan and his legacy - click here.

To donate Beanie Babies in Steven's name - click here.

If you would like to send a message to Bobbie, either leave a comment here or send me an email at LarryMendte@Gmail.Com. I will make certain she gets it.

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The Cure for All

It matters not the failing or the successes of the day - or a lifetime. It matters not an ailment or affliction to body, mood or spirit. All can and will be cured with four magic words - "I love you Daddy."

- Larry Mendte

Fred Sherman Dies

by Larry Mendte

He was a character. He was a gentleman. And I miss him.

I just got the news today that Fred Sherman died.

Fred used to lift me up and make me smile every Sunday Morning.



I talked WCAU-TV into doing a live interview news program on Sunday Mornings. Live@Issue was born. It was a classic case of "be careful what you wish for." Although I loved the show and still think it is important, it meant I had to work six days a week for no extra money.

I would drag myself in every Sunday morning at 8:30. Producer Catherine Brown would hand me research about the topic and guests and I would start pouring over it as I poured Starbucks into my veins.

Like clockwork, a man with glasses shockingly curly grey hair, a big smile and a big personality would fill the newsroom at 8:45. A thick Brooklyn accent would say "Hi Laaarrry."

My mood would change immediately. Fred Sherman had that effect on people. You just had to smile.

Fred would sit down in the newsroom anchor desk, which was right next to my desk. He would smile big and take viewer questions from anchor John Blunt. He was quick, he was funny, but most of all he was smart. Fred wasn't just a radio and TV personality. He was a banker and longtime financial advisor.

He got his start with KYW radio. On KYW1060.Com, anchor Don Lancer remembers how Fred got his start 30 years ago -

"Fred called and said you know the people you have on the air doing business are terrible, they're dull, and I can do better. I said well prove it! So Fred put together a minute report and from the time I heard it until I retired, Fred was one of my main guys."

KYW fired Fred Sherman in January of this year. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, they told Fred it was because the economy was so bad. Fred replied, "I know I'm a banker." Fred called their bluff by offering to work for free. KYW radio said no. I'm certain they regret that decision today.

Fred and I would chat every Sunday. He was a guest on Live@Issue a couple of times to talk about the economy and I would marvel, not only at his intellect, but at his broadcasting talent.

We promised each other every Sunday to meet for dinner during the week, but it never happened. I regret that now.

We all would have been better with more Fred Sherman in our lives.

He was 85 years old when he died. But I am still shocked. He was so full of life, he was one of those people you just assumed would always be around.

Most people will remember Fred for one thing - his famous sign off. He told me once that he did it, not only to be memorable, but to needle Don Lancer at KYW, who was always cutting him off for time. "So I would take forever to say my name when he ended my report," he told me.

Don Lancer told KYW.Com that was all part of the shtick - "I would tell Fred just keep talking until I cut you off because they used to listen whether they loved or hated it, because they wanted to hear what was going to happen!"

This is what would happen - and one more time - "I'm Fred Sherrrrrmmmannnn."

***More about Fred Sherman at The Broadcast Pioneers, they also have audio of a Fred Sherman speech, there's more at KYW 1060 and you can download podcasts of Fred and his famous sign off by clicking here.***

9/11

a personal memory by Larry Mendte

It was my wife who told me.

I was working at NBC10 in Philadelphia. I anchored the news at 11 and wasn't used to waking up until at least 10.

My wife was anchoring the morning newscast at KYW in Philadelphia. She knew to call before 10 only if it was important. This was important.

"Do you see what's going on?" That's what my wife said to me when I answered the phone seconds after 9AM. She just got off the air.

"No, what?" I said, still half asleep.

"Turn on the TV. A plane flew into one of the World Trade Towers in New York." My wife sounded panicked.

I use to work at WABC in New York and remembered the story of the plane that crashed into the Empire State Building. To me - this was a tragedy - but not out of the realm of possibilities.

I turned on the TV to the Today Show in time to see the replay of the plane flying into the building - or so I thought.

"Oh my God!" my wife said. She started crying.

It all hit me at once. "Wait, is that another plane?"

"Yes," my wife said, "another plane into the other tower."

I understood right away. "We're under attack."

"What?" Dawn was still dealing with the overwhelming human tragedy and hadn't thought through the only logical conclusion.

"It can't be a coincidence..." And then I was silent as I watched NBC replay both crashes. Now it was my turn to say "Oh My God."

"What now?" my wife asked, as if to say "Please, no more."

"They aren't small planes." I said it to myself as much as Dawn. It was all sinking in. "They were airliners."

Both Dawn and I were silent for a minute. We, and millions of Americans, were watching a mass murder in progress. It was revolting.

"I have to go to work, " I finally broke the silence that seemed to stretch on forever.

"I love you," Dawn said through tears. "I love you too."

I called work to say I was on my way. Then I switched on the radio while I got dressed. It was WIP, sports radio, and 76ers' President and friend Pat Croce was on promoting his new book.

I quickly called WIP Morning Team Co-Host Rhea Hughes. "Do you know what's going on?"

Rhea was frustrated, "I know, I know. We need to shut Pat up. Hey, can you go on with us?"

"Sure."

And that was my first report on the the 9/11 attacks.

I as on WIP throughout the day. I called as i got ready to leave. I called on the ride in. I called from the newsroom. I continued to call until we decided to leave national coverage and take over locally. That happened right after NBC showed people jumping from the flames to their death. "We are not showing that on our air." News Director Steve Schwaid announced in the newsroom as he pointed at one of the TV screens that lined the wall.

Immediately after that I was on the air, on and off, mostly on, for three weeks.

I was proud of our coverage. I was proud of everyone's coverage.

There was no hyperbole, no sensationalism, no fluff and no mistakes. The story and the task at hand was too big, too important.

Facts, clarity and calm took their rightful place at the top of the newsroom priority list. No talk of promotion or marketing, all were instinctively deemed frivolous in the face of the biggest story of our lives.

When I think back on September 11, 2001, it always bothers me that I didn't cry.

My wife Dawn cried immediately. Many in the NBC1- newsroom uncontrollably broke into tears.

I remember the line from one of the great movies of all time, Broadcast News, whn the Albert Brooks character says "You have to get out of TV News before you lose the ability to cry."

I remember being concerned that I didn't feel what everyone else was feeling. they were right. I was wrong.

A week later I was reading the names of those from the Delaware Valley who died in the attacks. There were so many names. I read the names and watched the monitor at their photographs to make certain the director and I were in sync.

There was something about that moment. Of reading the names, of seeing the faces, of knowing they were my neighbors, that made me lose it. My voice cracked and I had to take a moment to regain my composure, but I continued on.

On the ride home, late that night, I bawled a weeks worth of tears. I had held back all emotion so I could do my job. It was good to let it out.

I have cried since. When I found out that one of the cancer stricken children I interviewed for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Documentary had died unexpectedly, I closed my office door at CBS3 and cried for 15 minutes. After a month of interviewing children with cancer and parents who would give their own lives to save their child, again it all had to come out.

The next year when the station allowed me to turn the documentary into a day long telethon, I lost it on the air. It was during the report of another child I met - lost to cancer.

These are my thoughts, on this date, 8 years after.

As with all of you, my reflection is very personal. That was the ripple effect of the tragedy. When the planes hit, we were all hit somewhere deep in our very beings.

I was in New York to anchor the news in 2006 from ground zero. I spent time with and reported on the family members of 9/11 victims. I went to the homes of children left fatherless or motherless by the tragedy. Some of them only remember the parent they lost from photographs.

None of us can feel the loss they feel.

But we all still feel a loss and, like them, we hold on to memories.

I am homored when people tell me that they first heard about 9/11 from my report on WIP. I am still proud of television news on that day - and the days after. Sadly, TV news has retreated once again from that feeling of awesome responsibility to a quest for ratings at all costs. But it is still comforting to know what it can be when we need it.

Most of all, I am relieved that I did not lose the ability to cry.

***Please leave your personal memories of 9/11 in the comment section.***

THE REMORSEFUL MAN

by John Robert Mendte - September 1931

A horrid thing it is to be
Alone, with just a memory;
To watch the lazy shadows fall
Quite aimlessly across the wall;
To sit thruout the lonely night
And see it flee the morning light;

To watch the yellow sunbeams glide
Across the rugged mountainside;
To see the stone that marks the spot,
And flowers growing on the plot.
I waited all the years; you came,
And Life was naught, but just the same.

It was not half so hard to wait,
For waiting is uncertain fate.
I never thought I'd miss you so
Until I calmly saw you go.
In that forsaken yesterday
I saw them carry you away.

And you seemed gone for quite a while
Before I even missed your smile.
The smile--and then I missed the touch--
And then the voice I loved so much.
It was not long before I knew
The thing I missed was really you.

The happiness I thought for me
Was crowded from the years to be.

II

Is Love but Moment's idle art
That finds a workshop in the heart?
To learn to love is easy, yet
Who shall teach me to forget?
Does silence mock this agony
And laugh to jeer my humble plea?

If Moment's art does seem unjust
Then Time shall heed her sacred trust.
And summon, Time, your mystic haze
To cloud the thoughts of bygone days.

III

Here let me speak the awful truth
That I was happy in my youth.
And youth had lasted on and on
Until I knew that she was gone.
If it were not her right to live
Then fate had not the right to give.

Was it the dust that gave her birth
That would return into its earth?
Perhaps her soul was dust--and she
The thing who wanted to be free?
No oracle there is who knows
For Fate shall guess, and Time suppose.

'Twas they who have me misery
And snatched my happiness from me.
Who seeks for equal scoops and fails
Can hardly call it balanced scales.
When Fate--in that most ghastly mask
Performed with glee that morbid task,
I saw his bony fingers clutch
The very thing I loved so much.

The world had seen a lady die;
A lady's coffin had passed by.
They saw a coffin draped in black,
They did not know the thief came back
To steal my sentiment and tears
And hold them prisoner with the years.

For, as I longed thruout the day
He came and stole my heart away.
I hoped some scrap might fall behind:
I sought, to see what I could find,
And all that there was left for me
Was just a gentle memory.

..oOo..

The following is the note my Father wrote in his poem book after this poem:

NOTE: In the very odd poem above the divisions are made thus: in I the remorseful man speaks to a departed loved one, in II he meditates and seeks into the cause of his unhappiness, in III he accuses abstract elements of stealing his happiness, gives a faint outline of a ballad and ends his soliloquy with his questions unanswered and with himself apparently none the better for his thinking.

He was trying to drown a sorrow that had learned to swim.


..oOo..

The Ghost At The General Wayne Inn

by Larry Mendte

My father ran an advertising and public relations business in Philadelphia called John Robert Mendte, Inc. He helped to write the Chiquita Banana song and was the creative force behind the famous television ad of Santa Claus sledding down a hill on a Norelco razor.

That ad started running in the late 1950's and has been updated and re-used for fifty years. Here is a version from 1960:



My father did so many things in his life. He painted beautiful art work. He wrote stories, plays and poems for radio, magazines and for his grandchildren. And he was a self-taught historian who went on to become President of the American Catholic Historical Society. He was in short, the smartest and most creative man I ever met.

But maybe his greatest accomplishment has been a secret for 35 years, until now. My father is responsible for the story of the Ghost of the General Wayne Inn.

The General Wayne is located at 625 Lancaster Avenue in Merion, Pennsylvania. It was originally land owned by William Penn. When it opened it was called The Wayside Inn and was popular with prominent colonists, who would stop on the well traveled Old Lancaster Roadway from Philadelphia to Radnor. It was the place to see celebrities and be seen outside of busy Philadelphia. The Inn was a hotel, a restaurant, a post office and a stable; perfect for stage coaches, merchants taking their wares to the city, dignitaries riding horseback and military brass. General George Washington and General Lafayette both frequented the Inn. Benjamin Franklin was the Inn’s postmaster for a time.

The Inn became know as The General Wayne Inn when General “Mad” Anthony Wayne had a three day long celebration at the establishment after signing a treaty ending years of war with American Indians in the Ohio Valley.

Edgar Allen Poe wrote part of his famous poem “The Raven” at the Inn, which was at one time the longest continually running restaurant in the country. But the Inn was forced to close because of a string of bad luck that very well could be blamed on the ghost, or ghosts, if you believe in such things.

The legend of the ghost dates back to a time during the Revolutionary War when Hessian soldiers occupied the Inn for a short time. Hessians were mercenary soldiers from Germany hired by the English to help in the fight against the Continental Army. The Hessians knew how to fight, but they didn’t know that the General Wayne Inn had a secret tunnel built by the Americans, in case they needed a quick escape. The secret tunnel led from the basement of the Inn to a nearby field.

Revolutionary soldiers used the tunnel to sneak into the Inn. When one poor Hessian was sent down to the cellar to get some wine for a victory celebration, he never made it back upstairs to the party. The colonists ambushed and killed the Hessian. They then dragged his body into the secret tunnel and buried him there.

That is the story my father liked to tell. You may also read that a spy killed the Hessian soldier and buried him in the wall; that a widow killed the Hessian soldier to avenge her husband; or that the Hessian was hiding from Colonial troops in the cellar and died of starvation after being locked in there.

It is not so important which story is true, but which story you choose to believe or retell. You see, these are not stories that were passed through the ages, but appeared 200 years after the incident.

The important point to remember for the legend is that a Hessian died in the cellar somewhere between 1776 and 1780. Got it?

For years, the General Wayne Inn served as a polling place. On Election Day 1848, a woman allegedly went down to the cellar to collect more ballots. When she returned, she told her supervisor that she saw a soldier in a green coat. It has been reported a number of times that the sighting was recorded in the official report to the Board of Elections.

That written record was found by my father, known to everyone as Bob Mendte. Bart Johnson owned the General Wayne Inn from 1970 until 1996. He hired my Dad to get some publicity for the Inn. As an historian and wonderful storyteller, my father was an ingenious choice. He quickly grabbed onto the ghost story and, pardon the pun, brought it back to life.

Hundreds of strange happenings were reported in the 1970’s and 80’s. A valet reports that a car mysteriously starts in the parking lot with the doors locked, windows up and no keys inside. A cash register drawer is found opened one morning filled with water, even though there was no rain and no leak. Doors would open, glasses would break, towels were tossed, tables and chairs would move, footsteps were heard and women sitting at the bar would report someone blowing on their necks.

Alice Gormley, an employee at the Inn, heard the ghost. She was walking through the lobby before opening when she heard a man say, “Alice, Alice.” She looked towards the voice and there standing on the stairs to the rooms upstairs was a soldier. Alice reports that the soldier seemed startled that Alice looked at him. When Alice asked, “Can I help you?” the ghost disappeared.

There have been other reported sightings, but the strangest comes from maitre d’ Dave Rogers, who was doing a routine check of the kitchen one night in 1972. Here is what Rogers told paranormal investigator Michaeleen Maer for her “Quantitative Investigation of The General Wayne Inn:”

“…as I was coming through to come out one of the exit doors . . . I . . . looked up and sitting on a chest of drawers that we have to . . . keep the bread warm, I saw—just for a split second . . . a head, just sitting there right on top of the [bread warmer]. And it was a very smoky color, as if it was a projection onto a screen or something. . . . I only saw it for a second, but I . . . I’ll never forget it. It . . . had a very painful expression . . . thin, black, slicked-back hair. His ears stuck out a little bit. He had pencil thin eyebrows and pencil thin mustache. And no neck or anything, just—just a head. That’s all I saw. . . .He was just sitting there, looking at me.”

Rogers said the head didn’t register at first. But when he left the kitchen he stopped as if hitting a brick wall. “I saw a head, I saw a head,” is what he yelled to other employees. When the group ran back in to the kitchen, the head was gone.

These stories were retold on local television news programs and in local and national newspapers and magazine. Teams of paranormal investigators and psychics came to the Inn from around the country.

One investigative team from Loyola University told my father that there were actually two Hessian soldiers in the basemen, brothers who killed each other in a suicide pact. Psychic Michael Benio claims to have talked with the ghost, who identified himself as Ludwig. Ludwig appeared to in Benio’s bedroom and told him that he was killed by a spy in the cellar and buried by his comrades in the wall. Ludwig was upset because he was Roman Catholic and never had a proper burial. Bart Johnson refused to allow Benio to dig up the cellar wall looking for Ludwig. Finally, medium Jean Quinn held a séance and found that the Hessian soldier’s name was Wilhelm, but he wasn’t alone. Jean Quinn claimed that the Inn was haunted by 17 ghosts.

I remember my father getting a big kick out of that. “Guess what,” he said at Sunday dinner, “a psychic found 17 ghosts at the General Wayne Inn. They’re going to need a bigger cellar.”

In the 1980’s, the NBC show “Unsolved Mysteries” contacted my father. They wanted to interview him for a show they were doing on “The Ghost of The General Wayne Inn.” You can watch the episode on YouTube. It is titled “Unsolved Mysteries General Waynes Inn Ghost.” Bart Johnson and my father were both prominently featured. Both loved the ghost or ghosts.

Bart Johnson died in May of 1996. My father died on November 29 of that same year.

Immediately after those deaths, horrific things started happening at the General Wayne Inn. On December 27, 1996, Jim Webb, new co-owner of the Inn, was found dead on the floor of his office with a single gun shot wound to the head. In February of 1997, Felicia Moyse, a 20 year old assistant chef at the Inn. committed suicide after having to admit to police that she was having an affair with Webb’s business partner and head chef, Guy Sileo. Sileo, after trying to blame Moyse for the murder, was later convicted and sentenced to life for shooting Webb for the insurance money on the Inn.

The Inn was never the same, after closing and reopening a few times under new ownership. A group bought the Inn in 2003 for Rabbi Shraga Sherman, the charismatic leader of an Orthodox Jewish organization on the Main Line. After a 1.5 million dollar renovation, the General Wayne Inn is a synagogue and community center. Rabbi Sherman promises to preserve the history of the Inn.

The local historical society is happy with the plans. My father would have been happy too. I guess we’ll wait and see if Ludwig or Wilhelm is happy. So much for the Roman Catholic burial.

I guess the question you have about now is “Does a ghost really haunt The General Wayne Inn or did your father make it all up?”

I will tell you this, my father was fascinated with the role of the Hessian soldiers during the Revolutionary War long before he took the General Wayne account. He wrote papers and gave speeches about the mistake King George made in hiring the mercenaries. There were almost as many Germans in America as Englishmen in 1776. The Germans, many living in Central Pennsylvania, had no interest in the war. To them, it was a fight between the English over taxes. But when the Hessian joined the fight, tens of thousands of German joined the Continental Army, doubling its size. Many of the Germans were chased out of their homeland by the Hessians and this was their chance for revenge. My father argued that as much as the French sending ships and money, the Germans of the New World with their axes and pitch forks helped the Americans win the Revolutionary War in one of the greatest upsets in history.

It was my father who brought illustrations of the Hessian soldiers in their bright green and yellow uniforms to the General Wayne Inn and asked the employees if that is the uniform they saw. All of the employees answered yes.

When I told my brother, named John Robert Mendte after my Dad, that I was going to write about the ghost, he said, “You’re not going to tell the real story are you?”

I told him that I didn’t know the real story.

Bobby then told me, “Dad was very proud of the fact that he never lied. He only repeated the stories of others.”

So, the truth is that I don’t know if there is really a ghost at the General Wayne Inn. I do know that he had the best PR man of any ghost in history.

***Here is the video of the Unsolved Mysteries report on the ghost at the General Wayne Inn featuring my father:

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The Philadelphia Experiment

by Larry Mendte



It is one of the most stubborn and talked about conspiracy theories in U.S. History, although in recent years it has taken a back seat to the alien remains being held at “Area 51” in Nevada.

“The Philadelphia Experiment” was the subject of a #1 bestselling book in 1979 and a Hollywood Movie in 1984. There are still those who believe it happened. There are people who swear they witnessed the U.S.S. Elridge disappear at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.

It is October 28, 1943, the day of the experiment. The Navy had been secretly planning for this day for sometime. Albert Einstein himself was helping formulate the experiment dubbed “Project Rainbow.” Dr. Franklin Reno was the man in charge. The Navy was interested in the possible military implications of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory, which attempts to define the relationship between gravity and electromagnetic forces. The Navy believe, according to the story, that Einstein’s theory could be used to bend light and cloak a ship from U-Boats. The German submarines had already torpedoes and sunk a thousand allied ships in 1943. The Elridge was a new class of ship called Destroyer Escorts, specifically designed to seek out and defend fleets from the U-Boats. They were smaller, quicker and easier to maneuver than a regular Destroyer and, if the experiment was successful, they would have the added ability to disappear.

A skeleton crew was placed on the Elridge for that fall day in 1943. Navy Brass and scientists, including Einstein and Reno, were a safe distance away to observe. The experiment began and electromagnetic waves could be seen sparking like electricity around the ship. Suddenly the ship was engulfed in a greenish, fiery fog, not unlike St. Elmo’s fire.

After a few seconds, the ship vanished. And there was an unexpected side effect, the ship was transported. It reappeared inside that same green fog over 200 miles away to the Navy Base in Norfolk, Virginia. The fog lifted, the ship and crew were visible to all. And in a flash of light, it was gone and reappeared back where it started in dock at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The observers were overjoyed. The ship had disappeared and reappeared completely intact. But upon closer inspection something went terribly wrong. Horrific things had happened to the crew. Some of them never reappeared. Some of them had become molecularly connected to the ship, they appeared as if they were buried in steel. Many died. Those that survived had to be committed because of sever mental problems.

Loved ones were told the men were lost at sea. The ships logs were fixed to make certain there was no evidence that the Elridge was ever in Philadelphia. The project was scrubbed and witnesses were bound by a secret legal bond that promised severe punishment if broken. The file on the Project Rainbow was labeled something beyond Top Secret.

But one of the witnesses, a sailor named Carlos Miguel Allende, broke the code of silence. In 1957, the office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C. received a package with a paperback book inside. The book was entitled “The Case for the UFO” by Morris K. Jessup. Written in hand on the borders of the pages were details about “The Rainbow Project.” Specific dates and names were given along with an eyewitness account. It got the attention of the U.S. Navy and the called Jessup, who told them he had cordoned with the former sailor and identified him as Allende. Carlos Allende was later discovered to be crewman Carl Allen

A nationwide search by the Navy, Jessup and an army of conspiracy theorists ensued, but no one could find Allen. In 1959, after a bitter divorce and a bad car accident, Jessup committed suicide. But conspiracy theorists claimed he was killed by the government. The search for Carl Allen intensified as did the story of the secret project.

In 1966, Allen was finally found and admitted the whole thing was a hoax. But it was too late, the story had already taken root in the fertile imagination of a cult of believers. The Navy investigated the claim and released a report debunking the story. The investigation was met with skepticism and only made the conspiracy seem real.

Several books either were written about or mentioned the experiment on the USS Elridge as fact. The most famous, “The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility” by Charles Berlitz was a bestseller. The Experiment was now in the national limelight and getting main stream scrutiny. Historian and Author Robert Goerman wrote this about the claim in the book, “If we are to believe Carl Allen, our naval hierarchy abandoned sanity and historical precedent by conducting an experiment of enormous importance in broad daylight using a badly needed destroyer escort vessel. If someone were to write a book telling the real story, its title might be “The Philadelphia Hoax: Project Gullibility.”

Well, when you put it that way, it does seem kind of silly. And yet so many believe.

In 1984, Hollywood released a movie called “The Philadelphia Experiment” and claimed it was “based on a true story.” In 1990, Alfred Bielek, who claimed to be a member of the Elridge, proclaimed publicly that the movie was %100 percent accurate. Bielek was interviewed by magazines and TV shows and the story got new life.

In 2004 a small team of investigators debunked Bielek’s story and it is now believed that he was nowhere near the ship in 1943.

In fact, the ship was nowhere near Philadelphia in 1943. It was in New York Harbor on the day of the alleged “Philadelphia Experiment.” It did arrive in Norfolk, Virginia on November 2nd of 1943 and left Norfolk the following day for Casablanca, but it arrived and left the old fashioned way. The Elridge was never in Philadelphia.

But, if the Navy fixed the logs, that may not be true.

Except over a hundred crew members have been interviewed and they all say the same thing, “It never happened.”

But, if the Government bought them all off or brain washed them, of course that’s what they’ll say.

Then how about the fact that Einstein never completed his Unified Field Theory. You know, the theory that the entire experiment was based on. Oh, and most importantly, how about the fact that Carl Allen admitted he made the whole thing up!

Like many conspiracy theories, this one is rooted in a mistrust of the government. It is true that the U.S, military conducts secret experiments. It is true that Albert Einstein was working with the U.S. Navy on weaponry in 1943.

The Navy thinks the root of the story is based on a real experiment on electrical degaussing that was taking place at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Degaussing is when electrical cables are installed all around the ship’s hull and cancels out the ship’s magnetic field. The process makes the ship “invisible” to the magnetic mines that are used by the enemy in the shallow waters near combat zones. But you can still see the ship and it can still be picked up on sonar.

Many independent research teams, authors and the staff of the Navy’s Operational Archives have come to the same conclusion. There is just no evidence that the “Philadelphia Experiment” ever happened.

But just wait. It is too good of a story and it’s been around too long to go away that easily. There are undoubtedly some conspiracy theorists who still believe. All the story needs is a spark of life from a new witness or a grain of circumstantial evidence and the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment will live again.

The History Channel Report on The Philadelphia Experiment - Part One:



The Philadelphia Experiment - Pat Two:



The Philadelphia Experiment - Part Three:



The Philadelphia Experiment - Part Four:



The Philadelphia Experiment - Part Five:

Thank You to the Five Points

The Five Points is a famous neighborhood bar in the Aston neighborhood (also known as Astenville or five Points neighborhood) of Philadelphia, on Ford road just off of Monument avenue.

I had a business meeting in the area and stopped at the Five Points with a friend afterwards. What a friendly, vibrant place!

I wanted to just post a quick thank you for all of the kind words from the people I met at the Five Points. (Also for all of the drinks that were sent over - sorry I couldn't accept them all. I was driving.)

Since Bennie from the bar (my new friend) reads this blog, I thought this was a good place to pass on my appreciation to everyone at the establishment.

Neighborhood bars like the Five Points have a proud tradition in Philadelphia. It has been said that most of the debate over the Declaration of Independence did not happen at the Pennsylvania State House (now called Independence Hall), but at the bar down the street. In fact, the delegates for the Continental Congress gathered for the first time at the City Tavern to talk strategy. So the first ever meeting of the soon to be formed federal government of the United States of America - was in a neighborhood bar.

So a toast to neighborhood "tap rooms" (as my Dad called them). You have a proud place in American history.

And to my new friends at The Five Points - thank you for your overwhelming kindness.

***The Five Points is also a school in New York that played an important role in African American history. To learn more click here. The Five Points neighborhood in New York also played an important role in Latin American and Irish American history - it is the setting for much of the Scorsese film "The Gangs of New York." So the "Five Points" has a pretty deep meaning in America

The Youngest Critic

It was one of those idyllic scenes, like the ones to see in movies - right before something bad happens.

My wife Dawn and I were on the deck talking about life and taking in the summer sky. My two youngest children Michael, 5, and David, 2, were in the yard spraying away the heat and humidity with a garden hose.

It was a perfect Sunday afternoon.

And then Michael screamed.

He came running up on the deck. "A bee stinged me!" He was panicked.

"Where did he sting you?" I said. "Here and here an here," Michael pointed to his hand, his leg and his foot. It didn't make sense that a bee would sting that many times. I picked him up to run to the sink when I noticed Dawn running through the yard to get David.

As I was pouring cold water on the stings, Michael explained to me that there were a lot of bees and that he ran away. That's when Dawn came running into the house carrying David, "Oh my God, Larry, David was covered with bees." David was screaming.

"Get him up the bathtub," I said. Dawn ran upstairs with David and I followed carrying Michael. We took their clothes off and filled the tub. Dead bees were everywhere. One flew out of Dawn's shirt and Michael flipped out, waving his hands in the air to make certain more bees weren't after them.

We gave the kids children's benadryl. Michael and his three stings seemed fine after a few minutes. David had over twenty stings. Dawn, who saved David, had about ten.

Michael explained to me that he shot the hose into a tree stump and hundreds of angry bees filled the air; a bee posse looking for the shooter.

Michael ran. David stood in one place and covered his face.

Dawn told me that "it was like a scene out of a movie (refer to first sentence of post). You couldn't see David's head for the bees." Dawn picked him up and the bees started stinging her. She dropped on the ground and rolled. Who knew "Stop, Drop and Roll" was a multi-purpose tragedy technique?

We called the pediatrician who said that if the kids were allergic we probably would have found out immediately. She suggested we take them to the ER anyway to be checked out. We did.

That night I lit the tree stump on fire. As the fire reflected in my eyes, I reflected on the day. I thought how lucky the children were to have a mother like Dawn, who ran into a swarm of bees to pick up her child and then instinctively knew what to do. We were also lucky that our children did not have bee allergies.

Or so we thought.

Two nights later I heard David screaming. I ran into his room and he was gasping for air. Dawn was still dressed from work, so she rushed him once again to the Chestnut Hill ER. They took David in the back immediately and gave him a shot of adrenaline.

A child who is gasping for air doesn't have to wait and gets a lot of attention.

Six people gathered around David. A male nurse was having a difficult time finding David's vain to insert a intravenous needle. Everything was silent on the third try and David was screaming. "Darn. Nope. One more time."

The fourth try - everyone was standing back watching - "I just can't find a vein."

And with that my little boy sat up. He stopped crying. Pointed at the nurse - and as clear as a bell yelled - "Idiot!"

Everyone in the ER laughed. Dawn laughed too but was mortified and said the same thing that every parent says in that situation - "I don't know where he heard that."

The male nurse was laughing too. Dawn said, "I'm sorry." The nurse responded, "No, I don't blame him and I have been called worse - just never by a two year old before."

The important thing is that David laughed too. Of course, he said it again - and again - and again. But he also relaxed - and the nurse was able to insert the needle and tape it up.

David was transported to Children's Hospital for observation. The best mother in the world held him in her arms and slept in the ER.

The doctors think David's immune system was down and he was either allergic to something else or caught croup. They aren't really sure, but he is fine now.

The "idiot" story will be told in my home for eternity - and in the nurse's home - and in his colleagues' homes. It was one of those priceless moments that cut through tension and signaled that everything was going to be okay.

People look down on cliches - I don't. They become cliches for two reasons - they are clever and they are true. And so I end this story with one - laughter really is the best medicine.

For more information on bee stings - click here for webMD and click here for the pediatrics section of About.com

In Defense Of Scrapple

Sunday mornings were one of the best parts of my childhood. After mass at Saint Philomena’s, my Mom and Dad made a big breakfast. No one was in a hurry to get to school or work so there was time to do something special. My father loved to slow cook the fried potatoes with onions. Before cracking the eggs, my Mom would fry thin slices of scrapple to a brown crisp. We would split up the Sunday papers and sit and enjoy breakfast together. It seemed back then that everyone ate scrapple and loved it. It was part of a perfect Sunday morning.

That is not the case today.

Nowadays there are people who love scrapple and there are people who hate scrapple. It is the Terrell Owens of breakfast foods. In the Philadelphia family of foods, the cheesesteak is the youngest child who gets all the attention and everyone brags about; scrapple is the child that no one talks about.

The name doesn’t help. It has the word “crap” right there in the middle.

The more definitive word is “scrap,” as in the sc raps that are used to make the pork concoction. There are worse names. In some places down South they call it “liver mush.”

You have to admit, “Scrapple” is a marketing gem compared to “Liver Mush”.

What we know as scrapple was brought here by the Pennsylvania Dutch from Germany. They called it Panhas, which seems to come from the Celtic word Pannas. Linguists believe that pannas was probably the name of the pan that the earliest forms of scrapple were served in. When the Celts ruled the land we now know as Germany in 2 B.C., they had a late Fall festival where hogs, pigs and wild boars were slaughtered in preparation for the winter months. William Woys Weaver writes about this in his book “Country Scrapple.” (Yes, there is an entire book written about scrapple!) Weaver writes, “Among the ancient Gauls (Celts), the meat was ritually divided according to social hierarchy, the best cuts going to the most powerful individuals. Meat-flavored gruel was distributed to the masses.”

Again - scrapple is also a much better name for a product than “meat flavored gruel.”

The word scrapple seems to be a combination of the German words Panhas and Kroppel, which means a small slice. So, Panhaskroppel would be a slice of Panhas. All the English heard was “skroppel.” That sounded a lot like a word they already knew and the translation became scrapple. So, the name actually has little to do with actual scraps and a lot to do with the same British arrogance (or ignorance) that led to the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania becoming the Pennsylvania Dutch because they said they came from “Deutschland.”

Scrapple is a pork product. It is made from the stuff that is left in the slaughterhouse after they have made the pork loin, the pork chops, the ribs, the sausage, the lard, the pig’s feet and the head cheese. Scrapple was invented by the original “Waste not, want not” people. It became popular with farmers and the common folk because it was inexpensive and it would keep longer than most meat products.

There are many descriptions of how scrapple is made. Not one of them is appealing. One that was particularly disturbing came from a cookbook of Southern Delicacies that started with this -

The feature attraction is the head. Remove the eyeballs (the brains were removed on the killing day and scrambled with eggs the next morning), break the head into manageable pieces with a cleaver, and cook them in a kettle of boiling water until the meat is easily pulled. Chop up the meat from the head and cook with the liver and heart and whatever else wasn’t used in other delicacies and grind them up.”

I almost became a vegetarian after reading those instructions.

The head, heart, liver and skin are all key components in scrapple. In Europe, the blood was a big part of the “liver pudding” or “panhas.” In America, the blood is not used. After the meat is cooked, it is removed and replaced with cornmeal. The cornmeal is boiled with the broth until it makes a thick mush. The meat is minced and added back into the mush. Then sage, salt, thyme, savory, nutmeg, allspice, cloves and other seasonings are added in various combinations. The meat cuts, proportions and seasonings vary to the tastes of a region or an individual. The mush is then put in a pan and cooled until it gels and forms a speckled, gray loaf.

Mmmm, mmm, who wants scrapple?

“A lot of people order scrapple,” according to Ken Williams, a shift manager at the famous Melrose Diner in South Philadelphia, “It is an old school Philadelphia dish. The people who eat it, love it.” Ken says that when people order scrapple they are asked how they would like it cooked. “Well done, medium or rare, just like steak.” That is just a polite way of saying do you want it crispy or mushy in the middle. “We don’t serve it with the traditional apple butter.”

Apple butter? I never heard of that.

"Oh sure, some people can’t eat scrapple without apple butter,” agreed John Curtis, a sales manager at Habbersett Scrapple. “When I was a kid, we put ketchup on it, some people use mustard or jelly, down South they use syrup.”

Habbersett sells more scrapple in Philadelphia than any other company. Habbersett and Rappa are the two brands of scrapple owned by Jones Dairy Farm in Wisconsin. Habbersett is in Media, Delaware County and has been around since 1863, right around the time that scrapple went from Pennsylvania Dutch farms to the mainstream. The Rappa Scrapple factory is in Bridgeville, Delaware. Rappa is the #1 selling brand in the country and is especially big in the Baltimore/Washington area.

“The Baltimore/Washington area and the Philadelphia area eat more scrapple than the rest of the country combined,” John explained. “But there is a scrapple resurgence in the South, especially in Virginia and Florida.” John told me that Habbersett makes “Philadelphia style” scrapple. It is a little milder than what they serve down I-95. “They like a little stronger liver taste in the Rappa brand.”

One more reason to be glad you live in Philadelphia – less liver.

But alas, John admits that the sale of scrapple is down year to year because of a couple of factors. “People don’t like to take the time to cook anymore. Scrapple takes at least twenty minutes to make properly.” That’s why Habbersett is working on a pre-cooked scrapple that the MTV generation can just pop in the microwave.

Then there is the other problem – scrapple has been getting a bad rap. “There is a lot of misinformation out there,” is the way John Curtis put it. But just like his scrapple, he is putting it mildly. In truth, scrapple is the object of a vicious smear campaign carried out by the stand up comics and the Internet. If you ask me, I think bacon is working behind the scenes in some bizarre breakfast meat competition.

On MoreIntelligentLife.Com Jon Fasman writes of scrapple, “I worry that there will come a day when I cut a thick slice for Sunday breakfast and find an angry embedded eyeball staring back at me from the frying pan.”

Here is a posting on a message board: “As I’ve said elsewhere, scrapple is made from things that, by law, aren’t allowed to be put in dog food. BTW, the “s” is silent in scrapple.

John Curtis laughs. He has heard it all. “It’s just not true. If anything, we have stricter government standards than other meat products. And scrapple is healthier than you think. Scrapple has no artificial preservatives, no MSG, it is low in fat and high in protein.”

How about a name change then? Does scrapple have to be so literal? John Fasman put it best, “We refer to ‘blue’ cheese not ‘moldy’ cheese; prosciutto is ‘aged’, not ‘allowed to rot in a controlled manner’; yogurt cultures are ‘living’ not ‘teeming and swarming’.”

I say when in doubt go French.

Everything sounds better when it is said in French. Doesn’t “Petits Morceaux de Cochon” sound good? It translates to scraps of pig. Sales might go down in part of Canada, but in America scrapple could find a new market among the aristocrats that go to fine French restaurants like Le Bec Fin where foie gras is a popular appetizer. Do you think it would sell if they called it goose liver? Just think how much Habbersett could charge for “Petits Morceaux de Cochon.”

“No thanks,” laughed John Curtis, “that’s not who we are.”

And that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? Scrapple is a big part of who we are. We should embrace the scrapple in us, like the forty thousand people who go to the Apple Scrapple Festival in Bridgeville, Delaware every fall. They have a scrapple toss, a scrapple carving competition and a scrapple cook-off. In short, they celebrate all things scrapple. They celebrate who they are. There is no pretense in scrapple.

Country singer Robbie Fulk wrote an outrageous and fun song about it. Here are some of the lyrics:

“The Mom-n-Pop diners ‘round Allentown
Don’t really have much that a fella can hold down
And the folks up ‘round Philly and Bethlehem
Ain’t gourmet types, really, or chefly men
Now, they’re God-fearin’ folk in that Keystone State
But their food ain’t fit for a collection plate
There’s things for all kinds of people to hate
But there’s one that everybody loves!
And they call it scrapple, scrapple
Cornmeal steamed and hogmeat dappled
Set by the window till it’s cold and hard
Sliced up thick and fried in lard
Say, what’s that swimmin’ in the big bread pan?
That’s kickin’ up all this mania?
It’s scrapple, scrapple
The pride of Pennsylvania.”



Robbie Fulk has captured the essence of scrapple. Make fun of the name and the
ingredients if you want, but it is ours. Habbersett likes to point out that scrapple is the original "brown n serve" food and arguably the first pork food invented in America. Sure the Celts had their festival in Germany, but the name and the process used for he past 200 years originated in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Scrapple came from a time when no food could be wasted. It was too valuable of a commodity. It existed out of necessity. In a way the Pennsylvania Dutch were ahead of their time in their ability to recycle and create a valuable and palatable food source from what could have been discarded as garbage. It was quick energy for a hungry farmer in the winter. It was an important source of protein for an immigrant in the city.

If your family is from the Philadelphia area, chances are you ate scrapple or your grandparents or great grandparents did as they struggled to make it in a new country; as they struggled to feed a family; as they struggled to make a better life for those yet to come, a better life for you. Scrapple is part of us. Love it or hate it, understand it is important. Someone had to eat the scraps so that future generations wouldn't have to.

As I wrote this essay my wife Dawn was taken by the fact that my family sat together every Sunday and we ate the same special breakfast that my Grandmother fed my Mother when she was a child. Now Dawn wants to do something similar in our home; church, then a slow cooked breakfast served to our family around the kitchen table sharing stories from the Sunday paper.

Scrapple is a metaphor for something we might be missing, a simpler time when time together mattered more than what we ate or how fast it took to prepare.

In truth I have not had scrapple in a very long time. I think that is going to change.

Walter Cronkite

He was known as “The Most Trusted Man In America.” Indeed, America proved that trust by making Walter Cronkite the most watched newsman in America. That was when CBS news had no equal.

With Walter Cronkite's passing, so dies an era when news was autonomous from the news department; when the power of the news was respected for its influence and not abused for its ability to bring in a buck.

I have often quoted Walter Cronkite in speeches, for he once said, "The worst thing to happen to television news is the ratings system." Truer words were never spoken.

A true newsman, Walter Cronkite will not be remembered for the ratings he got, but the stories he covered and the way he covered them.

And that is how I will remember him here - not with words - but with moments - lasting moments from the 19 years that Cronkite was at the helm of the CBS Evening News (1962 -1981).

His history is television's history. His history is our history.

Whether the news be bad or good, you wanted Uncle Walter to deliver it.

On November 22, 1963, it was Walter Cronkite who told America that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.



Four an a half years later, on April 4, 1968, here is Walter Cronkite reporting on the assassination of "the apostle of non-violence," Reverend Martin Luther King.



Here is Walter Cronkite remembering what he called "the highlight of my career." July 20, 1969 - man lands on the moon.



And now back to September 2, 1963 and the first ever half hour network newscast anchored by the father of network news, Walter Cronkite:



And here is a wonderful clip of Walter Cronkite remembering how he came up with his famous sign off "that's the way it is." Anyone who has ever worked in a news department will relate to the fact that management hated the sign off.



And that's the way it was...and will never be again. Walter Cronkite is dead at the age of 92.

Blame Drew's Cancer

Cancer.

It just might be the scariest word in the English language.

For years, the diagnosis was a death sentence. Now, thanks to the miracle workers who toil tirelessly in anonymity doing research, that is no longer the case.

Still, the word is terrifying.

There was a time when no one would even talk about it, as if the word itself could cause the disease. Not much was known about the cruel affliction and the fear of the unknown begets irrationality.

But conversation is important.

It is impossible to even begin to find a cure if no one even has the nerve to bring up the topic.

That is why people like Alex Scott and Drew Olanoff bring hope to millions just like them.

Alex Scott you may know. Drew Olanoff you probably don't know - yet.

Alex is the little girl who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer before her first birthday. She spent the next seven years of her life in and out of hospitals fighting for life's most precious commodity - time.

And she didn't waste the time that she was given.

Alex held a lemonade stand to raise money - not for herself - but for other children with cancer. The story of this adorable little girl selling lemonade to fight childhood cancer swept the country and other children followed her lead.



Alex Scott died on August 1, 2004. But her story inspired a movement. The Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, run by Alex's parents Liz and Jay, has now raised over 25 million dollars for childhood cancer research and care.

Just as important, a beautiful child with a big heart, an old soul and a lemonade stand made it easier to talk about an awful topic - childhood cancer. The innocent bravery of a four year old girl fighting for others like her warmed our hearts and melted our fears.

Which brings us to Drew Olanoff.

Drew was born to be a success. Smart, driven and funny, he left Philadelphia to find his fortunes. A self-proclaimed geek, job offers were plentiful in the world of new Internet technology. Drew stopped home to visit his folks in Philly in between dream jobs, when he noticed a lump on his neck.

Cancer.

The terrifying word no one wants to hear.

It was Hodgkin's Lymphoma, 90 percent curable when caught early. Still, who wants a one in ten chance you might die after some hair erasing, strength sapping chemotherapy.

Alex Scott made it easy to talk about cancer because she was innocent and adorable.

Drew Olanoff is using humor to keep the conversation going.

In his own words - "I’ve been blaming my cancer for everything; lost keys, wallet, Phillies losing; Sixers picking a bad coach; Twitter going down and/or being slow."


Blaming the cancer aloud made it easier to deal with - it made him feel better. Drew wanted to share that gift with the world. So, through the magic of the Internet, Drew gave everyone the opportunity to blame his cancer for their problems.

On Twitter and through his blogs, people have used Drew's cancer as the cause of a panoply of misfortunes.

So far people have Blamed Drew's Cancer for not sleeping well; for Sarah Palin resigning and for Punky Brewster being cancelled - to name but a few.

And as they Blame Drew's Cancer, they laugh and feel a little better. Suddenly, cancer is not such a scary thing at all. Go ahead - blame Drew's cancer for that.

The simple act of blaming Drew's cancer has started to spread - Lance Armstrong's charity LiveStrong took notice and are now sponsoring Drew. And the people at NBC.Com recently put an interview with Drew on it's homepage:



I blame Drew's cancer for Nickleback. My daughter Stacia said, "I don't know why that is funny, but it is."

It is.

As I talked about Drew and his weird but wonderful cancer movement with my family, my five year old son Michael inserted himself in the conversation. My two year old David had a wee setback in his potty training and Michael exclaimed, "I blame Drew's cancer for David peeing his pants."

We all laughed.

I don't know why it is funny - but it is.

And Blaming Drew's Cancer is spreading across the country. So far 8244 people in all 50 states have blamed 14674 bad things on Drew's cancer and that number is going up like a gas pump meter.

Just like Alex Scott, Drew Olanoff is raising awareness. And just like Alex Scott, Drew Olanoff wants to raise a million dollars. He is hoping that from now on, whenever somebody blames his cancer for their problems, they donate a dollar to either LiveStrong or the American Cancer Society.

I spoke with Drew on the phone today. The signal cut out before I could suggest that he give some of that money to the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation as a nod to another person who watched a small gesture grow into a movement. Drew sent out a message on Twitter about losing the connection - he blamed it on his cancer.

On 9/9/09 Drew will be holding a 24 hour Blame-A-Thon on the Internet to raise money to cure cancer. The Blame-A-Thon will originate from Independents Hall (not to be confused with Independence Hall), at 20 North 3rd St on the 2nd floor. It is a cool working space for all creative types in Philly. There will also be bands performing at the legendary North Star Bar at 27th and Poplar.

On the surface my comparison of Alex and Drew might seem like a stretch. One is a sweet little girl who fought cancer her whole short life and used her sweet innocence to create a movement of childhood philanthropy that exists five years after her death. The other is a 29 year old Internet geek with 19 tattoos who has fought cancer since May of this year and should live a long life. He used his whacked sense of humor to create a movement on Twitter that has an unknown expiration date.

But I am looking much deeper. I am looking at the heart and the soul. There you will find deep and lasting similarities.

Both took something bad and made it good. Both used their tragedies to help others. Both are driven - not by fear - but by love.

Alex was inspired by the children she befriended at the pediatric oncology ward at the hospitals she frequented. Drew was inspired by his father and other friends and relatives who survived cancer and some who did not.

And they are connected another way - Drew admits that he was inspired by the story of Alex. He just would have looked silly at a lemonade stand so he spread awareness his own way.

They are different on the surface but connected by a selfless spirit to help others who are just like them.

***Update*** AOL has a story on drew - click here to read it.


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