Lehigh Valley Source

Lehigh Valley Literary: Southern Charm ~ By Keith Gery

Southern Charm
By Keith Gery

    The smell of a burnt muffin permeated the hip and trendy Jacksonville coffee house. I was sitting in a corner on a higher stool than the chairs at the tables scrolling through the job sites. There was nothing of interest and nothing I was qualified to do. I went to the state unemployment site, pulled up my information in English. They had cancelled my claim and I was entitled to nothing. So I started playing on the Internet hoping some suitable position might pop up later.
    A coven of elderly Southern belles swarmed to the table next to me. Their hair and fashion was all elegantly worn, probably like it had been when the Old South was in full swing. And the chatter from them was a cacophony of nasal twang and self-righteous hick. They were the granddaughters of the Confederacy, still flowering in the old age. They clung to the traditions passed down from generations, like gender-based social gatherings and dressing to go out and wearing oversized bonnets. And though they were all obviously longtime friends, they addressed each other as “Miss.”

“Oh, he had a colonoscopy on Friday,” the youngest one replied to another’s question.
“I’m thinking of changing doctors,” said a woman wearing a shawl.
“I wanted to play bridge on Friday,” the younger one said. “But Bobby said he couldn’t sit
comfortably because of the colonoscopy.”
“Does it hurt that much?” asked another with hair dyed tulip red to match her lipstick.
“It sure looks like rain,” said the shorter one of indeterminate age.
“We need rain,” said the younger one. “Bobby said he couldn’t sit because of the
colonoscopy.”
“Did you play any bridge then?” asked yet another woman.
“No, we didn’t even go,” said the younger one. “Bobby said he couldn’t sit because of the
colonoscopy.”
“I hear colonoscopies can cause lingering pain,” said the shawled woman. “I’m thinking of
changing doctors.”
“That’s a shame that you couldn’t play bridge,” said the shorter woman.
“I really wanted to play,” said the younger one. “But Bobby said he couldn’t sit because of
the colonoscopy.”
“I’m not even looking at a clock,” said the oldest one, “but I bet it’s 9:30 right now.”
All the women checked their watches and giggled.
“You’re very good,” said the redhead. “It’s 9:26.”
“I’ve lived so long that I don’t need a watch,” said the oldest one.

    It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn on friends who were not in attendance that
morning. And the meaningless sweet-tea conversations turned to cottonmouth-venom as they
ripped into an absent Judas.

The smell of the burnt muffin was long-gone. But the stench of stagnation had settled in for a long time.

Southern charm
by Keith Gery
The smell of a burnt muffin permeated the hip and trendy Jacksonville coffee house. I was
sitting in a corner on a higher stool than the chairs at the tables scrolling through the job sites.
There was nothing of interest and nothing I was qualified to do. I went to the state unemployment
site, pulled up my information in English. They had cancelled my claim and I was entitled
to nothing. So I started playing on the Internet hoping some suitable position might pop
up later.
A coven of elderly Southern belles swarmed to the table next to me. Their hair and fashion
was all elegantly worn, probably like it had been when the Old South was in full swing. And
the chatter from them was a cacophony of nasal twang and self-righteous hick.
They were the granddaughters of the Confederacy, still flowering in the old age. They
clung to the traditions passed down from generations, like gender-based social gatherings and
dressing to go out and wearing oversized bonnets. And though they were all obviously longtime
friends, they addressed each other as “Miss.”
“Oh, he had a colonoscopy on Friday,” the youngest one replied to another’s question.
“I’m thinking of changing doctors,” said a woman wearing a shawl.
“I wanted to play bridge on Friday,” the younger one said. “But Bobby said he couldn’t sit
comfortably because of the colonoscopy.”
“Does it hurt that much?” asked another with hair dyed tulip red to match her lipstick.
“It sure looks like rain,” said the shorter one of indeterminate age.
“We need rain,” said the younger one. “Bobby said he couldn’t sit because of the
colonoscopy.”
“Did you play any bridge then?” asked yet another woman.
“No, we didn’t even go,” said the younger one. “Bobby said he couldn’t sit because of the
colonoscopy.”
“I hear colonoscopies can cause lingering pain,” said the shawled woman. “I’m thinking of
changing doctors.”
“That’s a shame that you couldn’t play bridge,” said the shorter woman.
“I really wanted to play,” said the younger one. “But Bobby said he couldn’t sit because of
the colonoscopy.”
“I’m not even looking at a clock,” said the oldest one, “but I bet it’s 9:30 right now.”
All the women checked their watches and giggled.
“You’re very good,” said the redhead. “It’s 9:26.”
“I’ve lived so long that I don’t need a watch,” said the oldest one.It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn on friends who were not in attendance that morning. And the meaningless sweet-tea conversations turned to cottonmouth-venom as they ripped into an absent Judas.
The smell of the burnt muffin was long-gone. But the stench of stagnation had settled in for a long time.

 

Lehigh Valley Poetry: Popular War ~ By Keith Gery

Popular War
By Keith Gery

America's current war
is now described
in the media
as unpopular.
On TV newscasts
in my lifetime,
I've witnessed America's
military involvement in
everybody's business
from sea to shining sea.
Never considering warfare
in terms of popularity,
I wonder how
this is measured.
But I have found that
war always finds
greatest favor among those
with the least chance
of doing the fighting.

Meet 'The Boy From Baby House 10' on Dec. 12 in Whitehall

Whitehall Township, Pa., -- Freedom High School student John Lahutsky of Bethlehem, Pa., who co-wrote the recently released book “The Boy From Baby House 10” about his early life in a Russian orphanage, will sign copies of and read from the book at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009, at Borders bookstore, 1937 MacArthur Road, Whitehall Township, Pa., 18052. The public is invited.

Snowbird in Paradise: A Continuing Series Part 7

By Keith Gery
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

In the swamp, everything watches everything else.

Having spent most of my life in Pennsylvania horse-and-buggy country, I spent a lot of time looking down when I walked. There was always something waiting to be stepped in, so good peripheral vision came in very handy. However, it really wasn’t any kind of enhanced vision one developed in cow country, but more of a sense of anticipation for what was lying in wait.

For example, when driving behind a horse-drawn buggy on an early Sunday morning and if lucky enough to get the visual angle on the horse’s tail lifting quickly, one should know not to tailgate that buggy. There are warning signs to natural hazards and one learns to recognize them.

Florida is the same and yet it’s different. There are many more creatures here than in Pennsylvania, most of them suited specifically for the demands of tropical climes, and a good percentage of them can hurt a person … badly.

One quickly learns the difference between a water snake and a water moccasin. “Red to yellow, kill a fellow. Red to black won’t hurt Jack” and other variations of the lyric warn of the resemblance between non-poisonous milksnakes and deadly coral snakes.

Because of the inherent danger surrounding many of the native species, I became aware of my surroundings at all times. Already familiar with many species of reptiles because of my herpetological inclinations, I was on constant lookout for “hiding spots.” Any murky body of water might have a gator down there and out of sight. Any piece of wood might have some sort of venom-toting snake under it. Any little crevice might be harboring an arachnid just waiting for my errant finger to come into its parlor. Florida may be paradise, but it is still a swamp. And in the swamp everything watches everything else … and waits for just the right moment.

It was the uniqueness of the birds and insects that grabbed my attention almost immediately upon arrival. There was something called a lovebug that looked like a two-headed insect joined at the crotch and urban-legended into an academic experiment gone awry. Everybody seemed to know somebody who had been victimized by the bite of a brown recluse spider, whose venom caused the putrefaction of human flesh if not immediately attended. And a northerner really hasn’t lived until he’s encountered a palmetto bug, a euphemism for a large flying cockroach.

One summer morning as I sat on my patio shoeless and barely awake, I noticed a brilliant speck of red just inches away from my toe. On closer examination, I saw the hourglass design of a small black widow spider in her nest by the wall where I was resting my foot. It was a female and deadly, not two inches from my toe.

I moved slowly away from the spider, got a plastic food container and carefully caught the thing. With a quick snap of the lid, she was mine and I watched her scramble around the temporary prison for a little while. After brief observation, I released her into a small patch of palms and brush about a hundred yards from any of the apartments.

Upon relating this tale to neighbors, I was chastised for not having done away with the spider. They were afraid the killer would find its way back to the apartment building and hurt somebody. And that is one of my pet peeves I find in Florida: People forget that man moved into the swamp, the swamp didn’t move in on man.

I also learned quickly to watch my step for the ever-present lizard scampering across the walks, streets, paths … anywhere it can find a spot to wait for food. Geckos like to hang around outside lights when they are brightly attracting moths or whatever comes too close. Some kind of brown scaly thing likes to hang on tree bark where it blends in.

Then there are the anoles, those lovable little lizards sold as chameleons in pet stores up north. Friendly and harmless, anoles are daytime active and are the fastest, most insatiable critters around. What makes them real fun are their antics, which includes changing colors from emerald green to dirty brown. For little delicate-legged animals, they are very territorial and generally don’t back down from anything right away even though their speed is unbelievable. Their bugeyes will twitch and turn as they size up the situation, and they will go into one of their scare-tactic routines to ward off the intruder. If they are startled, they bob their heads in some attempt to frighten. If that doesn’t work, they blow out a bright red flap of skin – a dewlap – to startle. Sometimes they have to do both at the same time in efforts to chase away attackers. When all fails, they run away and will drop off their tails to prevent getting caught from behind. All in all, I cannot imagine how bug-infested this swamp would be without the hard work and voracious appetites of these prolific breeders.

Any drive or walk produces sightings of some of the most beautiful and unique birds. Seemingly all long-legs with sharp predatory bills, they can be seen patrolling any body of water. Herons and cranes are dangerously majestic in their hunt. In a state park near Tallahassee, I discovered that baby gators are a tasty treat for bigger herons. And fat lazy pelicans sit on the Jacksonville pier waiting for fisherman to gut their catches and throw the entrails aside. It’s all wonderful and still very wild.

One of the most fascinating water fowl seen with regularity is usually standing statuesque and long-legged near a body of water, wings outstretched like it was being crucified, with beady eyes and a tweezer bill poking off the end of a swan-like neck. A local told me they were “water turkeys” or “snakebirds.” They are scientifically designated as Anhinga anhinga, so the cormorant-like birds are also known as anhingas, less commonly but for obvious reason. These rather drab, yet odd-plumed birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.

Since they do not have the greasy waterproofing capabilities of a duck, anhingas stand there with spread wings actually drying off from their hunts. This dissimilarity with ducks also means anhingas lack the buoyancy of the quacker, which serves them well. When they hunt, they dive in head first to become fully submerged and swim below the surface, with necks extended into a snake-like appearance.

Sometimes they swim with only the necks above the water, also giving off a reptilian impression. After they find a morsel, they’ll gulp it down, climb on a rock or river bank, spread their wings and wait patiently to dry off.

Bird-watching was an activity that never really attracted my attention in the Lehigh Valley, although there were the occasional sightings of hawks spreading out their feeding circles from Hawk Mountain in Kempton. However, here in paradise, many a lazy day has been spent observing some of the winged crazies that touch down here. But there are common backyard birds as well – scolding sky-blue jays, loudmouth mockingbirds and truly magnificently red cardinals.

One thing I can’t figure out: If robins are my relative snowbirds that leave Pennsylvania to fly south for the winter, then why have I never seen a single robin here? Maybe it gets a little too hot for them. Maybe the trip is way too long. Or maybe all those timeshares in Hilton Head are more appealing.
 
Copyright 2009 Keith Gery

Snowbird in Paradise: A Continuing Series Part 6

Gator ChampsThe author displaying his
championship T-shirt found at a discounted price.
Photo provided by Keith Gery

By KEITH GERY
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

It gets a little crazy around here when the season starts.

Jacksonville had waited years for its turn in the national sports spotlight and then worked hard to enhance its reputation as a small market powerhouse. Super Bowl XXXIX was awarded to the city’s Alltel Stadium for Feb. 6, 2005, and it turned out to be the biggest thing that ever happened to marketing the place.

Although I am not a football fan, I follow all the sports from my native Philly area. But the 15-4 National Football Conference champion Philadelphia Eagles were torpedoed by the 17-2 American Football Conference champion New England Patriots by a score of 24-21. It would have been nice to be in Jax for the event, but I arrived a few weeks after the final Eagles fan had flown the coop.

However, like an airborne virus carried by every pigskin launched in every football game throughout the entire state, northeast Florida went into a football frenzy almost immediately upon the final tick on the clock … and the madness continued until the start of the next season ... and the season after that … and the one after that. I learned this was not a recent phenomenon; this lunacy had been going on since the beginning of organized sports and was part of the community fabric.

To put it mildly, football mania in northeast Florida is incurable. Other than the weather, nothing dominates any conversation or causes complete strangers to talk to each other like football does. And absolutely nothing causes more arguments, trash talk, and bandwagon hopping more than college football. The disease affects people of all ages, races, and backgrounds, as well as both men and women. I’ve met a few women who could spout off player statistics as far back as his high school career. Recalling team records, past glories, and previous disappointments present no problem. This is the NCAA Southeastern Conference (SEC), and every person has an opinion based on not-so-simple statistics and armchair equations.

On my first day of work at the new job, my supervisor took me around to the various department heads for whom my efforts would be most utilized. As we walked down the hallway, I was already formulating answers for the stock questions I knew would be coming my way: “So where did you work before you came here?” or “What’s your background?”

Nope, this was April, just weeks after all those nothing-to-do-with-sports-named college bowls had ended and the Super Bowl had dropped the curtain on another year of football altogether. There were more important things to ask a new employee.

“Gator or Nole?” asked the advertising manager after my introduction and handshake.

I had been a designer and a writer. I had been a copywriter and a journalist. There were periods of being a janitor, a bartender, and a retail clerk. There was even time spent as a factory production worker. I wasn’t sure what really qualified me as a “gator” or “nole,” or what he even meant by the question. The confusion must have been evident, because he went on to explain that the University of Florida fielded the Gators, and Florida State University was home of the Seminoles, or Noles, as they were affectionately known to supporters.

I tried to push past what I perceived to be small talk and asked a few questions about what he expected from me in this job.

“You better figure it out real quick,” he said. “It gets a little crazy here when the season starts. Everybody wants to know where everybody stands.”

At this point, it seemed appropriate to move on to the next manager, and I left this guy behind yelling, “Gator or Nole? I want to know next time I see y’all.”

And that same wretched theme dogged me from office to office. Each manager had some advice on who to pick and which colors to wear, usually hinting that the royal blue and orange of the Gators would be the best choice.

Mercifully I ended up back in my own department, where several other employees were working in an adjoining room. Figuring I’d familiarize myself with them and the workflow, I walked in to ask some questions … and instead was asked the inevitable.

“What’s it going to be?” asked one of the guys. “Gators or Seminoles?”

It seemed like all motion ceased and every iota of attention was hanging on my answer. And just as I was about to break down and admit that I didn’t think football was a sport, somebody threw me a curveball.

“Or the Bulldogs?” he asked, proclaiming himself a Georgia boy through and through. “Don’t forget about University of Georgia Bulldogs.”

I felt a slight panic set in as I sized up this no-win situation. Then I remembered the University of Miami. Good grief, am I a Hurricane, if somebody asks? And I remembered driving past the University of North Florida campus near my apartment a couple days prior, but I didn’t see a stadium. Do they have a team? Who are they if they do play football?

So I blurted out my choice--the first thing that came to mind--and the silence was deafening.

“Nittany Lions,” I said with a smirk. “I’m a Nittany Lion from good old Penn State.”

I never went to Penn State and didn’t see anything wrong with establishing my provincialism at this point. After all, I never went to any schools in Florida or Georgia either. For somebody who never set foot in Happy Valley and didn’t think football was a sport anyway, I suddenly became Penn State Proud.

[Years later, I had honed this act to a razor’s edge when I accepted a job in Tallahassee, the home of the FSU Seminoles. Because there was virtually nothing to do in Florida’s capitol city, everything and everyone revolved around the university sports program. In the midst of a coaching duel between Bobby Bowden of FSU and Joe Paterno of PSU, I loudly extolled my Paterno Pride. On more than one occasion, an adversary would redden and that little vein down the middle of the forehead would plump up as he or she stomped away after my mere mention of JoePa. It became a button of last resort for me to push when football loonies wouldn’t back off. And I started finding it fun. In fact, I started initiating the duels.]

But after those inquisitions in 2005, it didn’t take me long to devise a plan for future football encounters requiring a school loyalty oath. I had seen stores dedicated to the sale of football T-shirts, and people gladly paid good money to show their colors. But I went to the nearest superstore and found T-shirts from each school on a cheap rack for discontinued items from the years before. Then when I went someplace wearing one of them, I determined if the choice was the right T-shirt to fit in with the crowd. If not, I had the others in the car and became a quick-change artist who could bandwagon without a lot of questions being asked. Plus, the older shirts gave me an added advantage of appearing to be a long-time fan.

Sitting next to a coworker at lunchtime a couple years later on the eve of the Gators’ BCS National Championship showdown with Ohio State, I casually noticed from a distance the huge newspaper sports section spread out in front of him. Like a ray of divine salvation, a headline grabbed my attention with the words “Stanley Cup” in it. I asked what the headline said about the ice hockey playoffs.

“There ain’t no Southern man alive that gives a damn about ice hockey,” he drawled without looking up from the page or even attempting to decipher the headline.

“Well, the Nittany Lions could beat the Gators,” I said, as he looked up from the newspaper and cleared his throat.

Copyright 2009 Keith Gery

Internationally Acclaimed French Author to Speak at Lafayette Nov. 9

Dominique Lapierre
Photo courtesy of
Lafayette College

Easton, Pa. -- Internationally acclaimed French author and philanthropist Dominique Lapierre, a member of Lafayette’s College’s class of 1952, will discuss his new book, “A Rainbow in the Night: The Tumultuous Birth of South Africa,” at 8 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 9, 2009, in the Wilson Room of Pfenning Alumni Center.

His talk, “From the India of Mother Teresa to the South Africa of Nelson Mandela, Fifty Years of Historical Encounters and Philanthropic Engagement,” is open to the public free of charge. It is Lafayette’s Lives of Liberty Lecture for 2009-10 and will be followed by a public reception and book signing.

Lapierre will discuss his numerous humanitarian efforts in India, Africa, and South America, which are funded mainly through his book sales, and his latest book which traces the history of South Africa from its European colonization to the end of apartheid. His visit to Lafayette kicks off his U.S. book tour. He will continue with appearances in New York City, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. “A Rainbow in the Night” will be released Nov. 3 by DaCapo Press.

Lapierre came to Lafayette in 1951 on a Fulbright grant. He spent a year on campus,  during which he wrote for the student newspaper, The Lafayette. He received a B.A. from Lafayette in 1952.

In 2002, Lapierre traveled to South Africa to meet the founder of the country’s largest social welfare organization, Ikamva Labantu (“The Future of our Nation”). His encounter with 59-year-old Helen Lieberman--a white speech therapist who saved the lives of several thousand black children during the darkest days of the racist regime--set him on a trail that would lead to the publication of  “A Rainbow in the Night.”

Sixty hours of taped interviews were necessary to capture Lieberman’s experiences, which brought Lapierre face to face with a tragedy he compares to what had happened in Nazi Germany. From interviews with figures such as Lieberman, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela, it took Lapierre two years of meticulous research to reconstruct a tale that spanned three-and-a-half centuries—the tumultuous birth of an extraordinary nation.

Lapierre is the author or co-author of the following international bestselling books: “Is Paris Burning?” (1966), “Freedom at Midnight” (1975), “The City of Joy” (1982), “The Fifth Horseman” (1987), and “O Jerusalem” (1988). “Is Paris Burning?”, about the 1944 liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany, was made into an Academy Award-nominated movie starring Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, and Orson Welles. “O Jerusalem” and “The City of Joy” were also made into motion pictures, with Patrick Swayze starring in “The City of Joy.” Lapierre’s books have been translated into 59 languages and read by more than 10 million people worldwide.

While exploring India and its past for his writings, Lapierre founded a humanitarian organization that today, thanks to his books’ royalties and donations from readers, supports medical care, micro-financing, education, and development projects mainly in India but also in Africa and South America. In recognition of his humanitarian work, Lapierre has received numerous honors, including France’s Legion of Honor and, most recently, the Padma Bhushan—the highest civil decoration in India.

“With the resources from one single copy,” says Lapierre, “I can feed 10 destitute children for an entire week.”

Lafayette’s Lives of Liberty Lecture Series was inaugurated in 2007-08 during the college’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Marquis de Lafayette. Previous speakers were Charles Darwin biographer David Quammen; award-winning novelist Salman Rushdie; author and feminist activist Gloria Steinem; art critic, historian, and award-winning author Simon Schama; author and journalist Ron Chernow; and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough.

Snowbird in Paradise: A Continuing Series Part 5

The author at a fish-camp-turned-restaurant in
Jacksonville, Fla.
Photo courtesy of Keith Gery

By Keith Gery
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

The Quest for a Philly Cheesesteak
 
At the publishing company that hired me was a woman with whom I had worked in Pennsylvania about 15 years prior. She was the reason I ended up in Jacksonville, having told me to apply for this job while I was still in Pennsylvania. So she took it upon herself to show me around and introduce me to some of the Southern Delights.

After years of seeing cows walk in the back door of butcher shops and then carrying them out the front door wrapped in brown butcher paper, I was ready to try native cuisine. We left my apartment in Jacksonville’s southside, picked up 295 around the city and exited on one of the busiest thoroughfares I’d ever seen. With a few quick turns, we were suddenly on a parking lot surrounded by tall trees, the sound of water and a line waiting to get inside the former fish-camp-on-the-river-now-turned-public-restaurant. I paused to admire a fake alligator lying outside the door, while my friend went inside to reserve a table.

As we waited outside for our turn to be seated, we stood on a dock with pellet-filled vending machines. As I tried to figure out the pellets, huge black and orange turtles swam up to the dock area and begged for food. And a bigger-than-I’d-ever-imagined softshell turtle joined the crowd. Fish swarmed around the turtles, darting over and under the floating reptiles, wherever there was water to sustain them. It was Herpetology Heaven as I coaxed the turtles closer and watched them stretch their necks to grab the pellets before they sank down to the fish.

After reviewing the menu inside, I decided to chance fried catfish, gator tail, and a deep fried pickle, accompanied by the liquid sugar known as sweet tea. Although the deep-fried gator tail was nondescript in taste, the dipping sauce applied to it added a tangy flavor. I was hesitant about eating the catfish because I know what they eat. But after assurances that the menued catfish were farm-raised, I bit into the bony fillet and found a new fishy delight. I tasted the pickle, but I based my judgment on my mother’s canned pickles we always had in our basement. All in all, it was a superb dining experience.

After a couple days of experimenting with local dishes and relying on more familiar fast-food fare, my taste buds lit up for the familiarity of a cheesesteak. But I had no idea where to get one or if they were even available on this side of the Line. I began to panic, and my addiction to the hefty messy sandwich intensified as I began the quest for a real Philly cheesesteak. Little did I know at the time, but this adventure would continue for years in various corners of the state.

Throughout the Pennsylvania years at Brandywine Heights High School, Kutztown University, and my downtown Kutztown apartment, cheesesteaks were an all-inclusive food group. One cheesesteak accounted for grains and starch in the roll, meat group in the beef, dairy products in the cheese, and vegetables in the onions and peppers. There was even lycopene in the sauce for my prostate. And of course, the fifth food group of fats and sugars was always evident in the food remnants on the plate.

Mark’s Sandwich Shop in Kutztown was the main source of cheesesteaks for decades because of the quality and convenience. My frequent visits resulted in friendships with several owners over the years, but the excellence of the sandwiches remained constant. Of course, on weekends there were roadtrips to the Brass Rail locations throughout the Lehigh Valley for their legendary fare. As time went on and friends and I became more adventurous, trips to see the Flyers or Phillies always resulted in an actual PHILLY cheesesteak somewhere in South Philly near the stadiums.

Jacksonville, however, was sorely lacking in cheesesteak quality. Over the ensuing weeks and years, I searched for a true Philly cheesesteak throughout Florida, but everything paled to the memory of the real thing. Oh, one could find cheesesteaks on menus all over town. But they weren’t Philly cheesesteaks. They lacked the tasty sauce or the fried onions. Most of the time, the meat was not chipped, but was a patty on a bed of goop in a hard roll. Once I even got one with the liquid spray cheese all over it.

The closest one I found was on a trip to meet some Pennsylvania friends on the other side of the state in Clearwater, the spring training grounds of the Phillies. I missed my friends as they ventured someplace else to take in a game, so I went on a search as I had become prone to do. I found this hole-in-the-wall steak shop with a flashing red sign advertising Philly Cheesesteaks. It was near the home of the Phillies, so I ordered one and was pleasantly surprised at how near it came to the real thing, but it really only made me homesick for the real thing. Close, but no cigar.

With all the northerners coming to Florida for games, vacations, and retirements, one would expect to find an exact version of a Philly cheesesteak. I couldn’t find one anywhere, but I never gave up. Every diner, restaurant, deli, and bar I visited became a stop in my search for the real cheesesteak. Sometimes I’d finish the sandwich, many times I couldn’t. My expectations far outweighed my hunger.
There was a chicken place I frequented in Jacksonville because it had a vast assortment of flavors and temperatures in the wings. Also, it was kind of a Hooters rip-off, so the scantily-clad female servers did provide a nice distraction.

Many times I had looked at the menu, but on one particular occasion I noticed the addition of Philly cheesesteaks. With a sigh, I mentioned to my server that I’d like to try it, but I expected total disappointment, like in every other eating establishment I’d visited in Florida. She questioned my negative attitude, and I explained I was hard to please on the cheesesteaks because I was from “north of Philly.” (I had already given up saying I was from Topton, Kutztown, Reading, or Allentown. “North of Philly” was something that seemed to give these folks some sort of geographical reference.)

She smiled, said the new chef was from the Philadelphia area, and yanked him out of the kitchen. I explained my dilemma, and he peacocked his chest with a great smile.

“I can make you the perfect cheesesteak,” he pontificated. “I’m from West Chester, P – A. Went to college in West Chester, P – A.”

The very act of using the Pennsylvanian term for Pennsylvania excited me. I was ecstatic, virtually orgasmic. My cheesesteak quest appeared to be over, and the answer was within two miles of my apartment.

“I’ll take a cheesesteak . . . the biggest one you have,” I drooled. “No, no . . . I’ll take two. Wrap one to go. The biggest you have. Everything on them.”

“Onions?” asked the chef.

I nodded.

“Peppers?” asked the chef.

“The hottest you have!” I screamed, already sweating in anticipation.

“Cheese?” he asked.

Bells started going off in my head. I ordered a CHEESE steak, so of course I wanted cheese. And then it happened.

“Did you want mayo?” he asked.

“Mayo?  On a cheesesteak?” I asked. “Did you say mayo?”

He nodded, and I realized how close I had come to being hoodwinked again, suckered in by the delirium of my hunt.

“Give me a basket of wings,” I said, as I turned my back on the grease-covered charlatan in white and looked out the window at the huge lake in back of the restaurant.

Somewhere, out there, was a real Philly cheesesteak, and I would find it. For the sake of every snowbird down here, I would not rest until I found a real Philly cheesesteak.

I grabbed my basket of wings and watched the waitress wiggle away from the table.

Copyright 2009 Keith Gery

Public Invited to Free Author Talk, Mini Tour of Bethlehem's Flat Iron Building

The Flat Iron Building was designed by A.W. Leh.
Photo by John Kish IV

Bethlehem, Pa. -- The public is invited to a free talk by author Ken Raniere and a mini tour of Bethlehem's Flat Iron Building from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009, at Stone Soup Studio, 301 Broadway, South Bethlehem.

Raniere, who lives in Coopersburg, is author of “A Living Legacy: Architecture of A.W. Leh,” (Moon Trail Books, 2009). The Flat Iron Building was designed by A.W. Leh (1848-1918) during the turn of the century Industrial Era.

“A.W. Leh created a good part of the architectural backdrop against which the dramas of people’s daily lives here in Bethlehem were played out,” says Raniere.

Raniere has spent nearly two years researching Leh, who designed more than 250 buildings across the Lehigh Valley, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. Buildings designed by Leh within the city of Bethlehem are numerous and include Ambre’ Studio, Broughal Middle School, Moravian College’s Comenius Hall, Landmark Commons, the New Reformed Church, and Main Street Commons, formerly Orr’s Department Store.

The book’s photographer is John Kish IV.

For more information, call Stone Soup Studio at 610-867-4626.

Snowbird in Paradise: A Continuing Series Part 4

By Keith Gery
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

“Wherever he laid his hat was his home.” – The Temptations

Jacksonville, Fla., is the largest city in the 48 contiguous states in terms of geographic area. If Alaska is removed from the mix, Jacksonville would be the largest city in the country. Back in 1968, the city and Duval County consolidated governmental functions. According to the U.S. Census in 2000, more than 1 million people inhabited the Jacksonville MSA, while more than 735,000 called the city proper home. That number had probably swollen by my arrival in 2005.

After a few nights in the hotel and accepting a job offer at the publishing company, it was time to find a real place to live. Someone at the publishing company referred me to an apartment search agency that helped people relocate. The business was like an employment agency, but found apartments instead of jobs. I’m sure the placement agents received a commission for their efforts, so it seemed obvious they would find me a place rather quickly, and at a price that suited them more than me.

Searching for the office, I awoke to the nightmare known as “driving in Jacksonville.”  It didn’t take long to discover that one can find a road to anywhere except where one is going, traffic patterns were foreign to me and drivers did everything they could to make other drivers another endangered species in the state.

Coming from the north with its older established highway systems that didn’t have to account for the constant land development or presence of water in one form or another, I bemoaned the absence of the “city block.” No longer could I get lost in traffic and just keep making three turns to end up exactly where I’d started before I got lost and re-think where I was going.

Designed to keep traffic on the main roads moving while vehicles make turns, service roads are passages off of – but parallel to – the main roads, presenting entry into shopping centers, developments and apartment complexes. These tricky right lanes and corresponding exits kept snaring me into watching the main road lead out of sight while I drove into places I didn’t want to be.

And then there were the street-naming road signs at intersections which presented a peculiar difficulty. The road on one side of the intersection bore a name different from the same road on the other side of the intersection; in the north, roads intersected, but generally kept the same name on both sides of the cross. This double naming meant reading two road signs instead of one, which caused me to slow down and receive a blaring horn from everybody except the Riverboat Captain.

However, the rental folks gave me decent directions and mid-morning traffic was considerate of my ignorance, so I arrived at the office in decent time.

“What kind of residence are you looking to rent?” was the obvious first question posed by the rental agent. I hadn’t really given prior thought to it because my time was preoccupied with nailing down the job.

In Kutztown, Pennsylvania, I had rented a small two-story brick house for about seven years and the rent never went up during my tenure. It was a comfortable place located in the middle of town. The landlady was terrific, her husband could fix anything, and heat and water were included in the $375 per month rent on a month-to-month lease. The only drawbacks were the continuous noise of the main drag nearby and the malicious hijinks of academic-year neighbors belonging to the local university. Other than that, it had been perfect for me.

As I explained my northern living situation to the agent in front of me, I began to notice other rental agents leaning over their desks and out of their cubicles to give a listen. My ego told me I must be pretty interesting so I went into infinitesimal details about the wonderful place I left behind.
That house being my frame of reference for so many years prior, I asked the rental people to help me find something similar in a like price range.

The chorus of chuckles was overshadowed by the silence of rolling eyes and open-mouthed vacant stares. Then I was reminded I was in Florida, and the rental agent started rattling off apartment rents per month to the tune of $1100, $1350 and $1400. The higher-priced ones included a washer and dryer setup. An even more expensive apartment had a fireplace, the agent gushed.

I started wondering where I’d chop wood for the fireplace even if I was able to afford that apartment. And what’s up with a fireplace in Florida anyway? Then I calculated a trip to the laundromat costing $12, maybe $15, on a weekly basis and whether the washer-dryer apartment was cost-effective or not. I couldn’t do the math on that one.

After explaining that I wanted to rent and not take out a mortgage at those prices, I blurted out what I was willing to spend. I was sent to a complex toward the bottom of the availability list.

Again fortune smiled upon me and a one-bedroom first-floor apartment had immediate occupancy. Everything I owned was still in the car, so I unloaded the trunk as soon as I was given a key.

After one more night in the hotel, I spent the next two days furnishing the place. But having paid out a small fortune for furniture deliveries, I truly missed all those pickup trucks most of my back-home friends drove. I vowed never again to tell my Pennsylvania buddies that a pickup should be used only to haul downer cattle to the veterinarian and not to transport their families to dinner.

The publishing company had not yet heard from my background check, but I had filled a urine bottle previously and passed that with flying colors. So we agreed on a start date for the following week pending receipt of the necessary information under wait.

The cat had already explored every corner of his new home, located his litter box and found his food dish. I followed suit and did the same.

In the span of four days, I had made the trip from Pennsylvania to Florida, secured a job and found a place to live – with a few days off to spare. Life was good for the first time since my last Pennsylvania unemployment check.

Little did I know what was in store for me.

Copyright 2009 Keith Gery

Phillipsburg Native Reads from His New Book at Borders in Whitehall

Author David Hajdu, a native of Phillipsburg, N.J.,
and music critic for The New Republic magazine,
read excerpts from his latest book, "Heroes and
Villains," at Borders bookstore, Whitehall Township.
Author of three previous books on music, Hajdu is
on the firstleg of a book tour that will criss-cross the
country.
Photo by Steve Andres

By STEVE ANDRES
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

Author David Hajdu didn’t need a guidance counselor to steer him toward a career path. He saw the light at an early age. His moment of clarity came courtesy of his father, Charlie, who tinkered with the wiring in the family home, providing the Hajdu household with a unique amenity.

“My father had rigged the wiring in the house so that when you turned on the light switch, the radio went on,” said Hajdu. “There was always music on.”

From that marriage of amps and arias, Hajdu found himself hurtling toward a life of commenting on popular culture, a journey that’s had a number of stops, including editorial stints at Entertainment Weekly and Video Review magazines. He is also the author of four books; his latest--“Heroes and Villains”--brought him to Borders bookstore in Whitehall Township for an admission-free discussion and signing on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009.

“Heroes and Villains” is a collection of essays that examines the lives and contributions of famous as well as forgotten figures that inhabit the pop culture landscape.

As a scion of 1960s pop culture, Hajdu remembers being immersed in music, comic books, and film while growing up in Phillipsburg, N.J. He didn’t dismiss it as a fly-by-night fascination. Hajdu felt that popular culture is subject matter worth exploring and writing about, giving it the same gravitas as politics or science. However, he knew that it also carried a stigma.

“Popular culture too often is mistaken for being mere entertainment,” said Hajdu. “It has a deep influence in the way we think and act.”

Hajdu referenced the ascendancy of Barack Obama as evidence of that influence, noting his coronation as both president and pop star. 

“The fact that he’s a pop star is part of the reason he became president,” said Hajdu. “We shouldn’t laugh at that or deny it.”

Because Hajdu is a long-time critic for The New Republic, many of the essays he penned for that publication appear in “Heroes and Villains.” The exception is the lead article about Billy Eckstine, which Hajdu wrote exclusively for the book. 

And it’s in this essay that Hajdu examines the reason that such a legendary talent like Eckstine has been relegated to obscurity. The author believes that Eckstine--a person once more popular than Frank Sinatra--was both blessed and cursed. He was blessed with a world of talent, but cursed by a world that didn’t accept him, largely because of a photo that appeared in Life magazine during the 1950s.

“Life ran a picture [of Eckstine] surrounded by his fans, who were young, white women,” said Hajdu. “And that one image virtually ended his career.”

That image, said Hajdu, effectively consigned Eckstine to smaller gigs because his unabashed machismo was deemed threatening.

Hajdu also spoke about Col. Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager--who was neither a colonel nor southern--and who ensured his profits by selling both “I love Elvis” and “I hate Elvis” buttons at venues where “The King” was performing.

For Hajdu, life and music are inextricably intertwined. He’s devoted his life to writing about the heroes and villains that have crossed his critical eye. And with many of the essays devoted to musicians, Hajdu and his wife, singer Karen Oberlin, brought the songs mentioned in his writings to life. Oberlin sang three songs as Hajdu accompanied her on guitar, leading off the set with “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” which is featured in a story about jazz singer Susannah McCorkle.

Hajdu will continue to criss-cross the country in support of the book.

Steve Andres is a freelance writer, who lives in Whitehall Township.

Singer Karen Oberlin performs songs connected to David Hajdu's "Heroes and Villains" book. She began with "Dream a Little Dream of Me," which is featured in Hajdu’s essay about Susannah McCorkle. Accompanying Oberlin on guitar is Hajdu, who is also her husband.
Photo by Steve Andres