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Too old to play the field?
Say it ain’t so!
Commentary
By John Scanlon
Fifty-three and my life is over. I’m just not the kind of guy that entertainment organizers would recruit to dance and scream when the Rolling Stones perform at next month’s Super Bowl in Detroit.
I’m too old. They think I might keel over.
The media had a lot of fun last week when the National Football League announced that it wanted to give 2,000 people the chance to be on the field, cast as the frenzied audience, when the creaky Stones do their halftime extravaganza at the game on Feb. 5.
There’s just one catch. You can’t be older than 45.
The reason, an NFL spokesman told the press, is that this is physically challenging stuff. There’ll be long rehearsals, five of them, perhaps up to seven hours each day. It requires lots of energetic whooping and dancing.
"And you have to run onto Ford Field with two-thousand other folks," the NFL guy said.
Obviously it doesn’t matter that I’m still plenty younger than Mick Jagger. I also might point out that in the last 22 months, Lipitor has reduced my cholesterol from 221 to 155, aspirin is giving me the arteries of a 25-year-old, popping a Zoloft here and there keeps my head straight . . . I may be getting older but I’m a picture of drug-induced good health.
I can do this thing. With 250 milligrams of ginkgo biloba and a note from my doctor, I’m ready to go, and I just know I wouldn’t be a burden. In fact, if I’m joyously skipping across Ford Field with my audience mates and I suddenly clutch my chest and collapse at the 30-yard line, and 1,999 other people are trampling me, I’ll stoically yell, "Don’t worry about me!! You have a show to do, now go!! I said go!!!!!"
But I’ll never get that chance. Too old.
The reality of it all slapped me the other night as I flipped through my son’s issue of Rolling Stone magazine and my eyes locked onto a big portrait shot of Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. Jagger’s face looked like a craggy Grand Canyon, a face begging for a major Botox injection, and his jet black hair obviously was more the result of a squeeze tube than good genes. Richards’ head was cocked to the right, his arm resting on Mick’s shoulder, and he looked . . . well, what can you say when King Tut’s 3,000-year-old corpse looks better than you do?
The picture was a definite mortality check. Where did the time go? My mind drifted into time-warp mode, recalling those happy days of a Stones concert at the Spectrum in July 1972, when Jagger strutted in his Uncle Sam outfit, doing his Sympathy for the Devil thing, or even nine years later, when I was reviewing a raucous Stones performance at the cavernous, now-deceased JFK Stadium, an occasion still memorable nearly 25 years later because of such a hot and sticky afternoon in late September, an afternoon so oppressive that sweaty fans wedged shoulder to shoulder on the field welcomed the spray of hoses to keep cool.
Good days, they were. Easier days when life was a smoky haze and you got an up-close view of the world with your face pressed against the windshield of a VW Bug, in hindsight a tin-can deathtrap, but an amazing mode of transportation that kept going and going and going, even if you went 35,000 miles between oil changes.
And now, with that magazine portrait before me, Mick and Keith are geezers and I’m too old to dance at the Super Bowl. Just my luck. No, they couldn’t have played the Super Bowl eight years ago, when I was 45, when my kids still didn’t mind being seen with me in the mall. They have to do it now, when the NFL says I’m too old, when those AARP mailings just won’t leave me alone and I’m getting precariously close to receiving the seniors discount at Denny’s.
But as novelist Thomas Wolfe said, it’s true, you can’t go home again. With youth on your side, when you’re in tune with the music scene, you’re convinced that you’ll always be in touch, always know what’s hip, always be in step with the trends. But the years go by and you’re out of touch. Time changes that. So do perspective and yearly prostate checks.
I always realize that whenever my teenage son and I go into Sam Goody’s, and he’s loading up on CDs by Audioslave and System of a Down and I’m poking around the $4.99 rack of greatest hits from the ’60s.
I also tend to notice the cruel reality of time when I do take in a concert here and there. Largely because of $150 tickets, these occasions have become quite rare, but there’s also the glum acceptance that being in the midst of uninhibited twentysomethings, the way you used to be, is not as comfy as being among fellow aging boomers who remain in denial, still convinced that their ’76 concert shirt from a Neil Young tour still fits loosely over their paunchy gut.
I glanced one last time at the picture of the fossilized Mick and Keith and tossed the magazine on the table. It’s probably a good thing, on second thought, that I’m too old for all this Stones hoopla at the Super Bowl.
It would keep me up past my bedtime. ••
John Scanlon is editor of the Northeast Times.
Letters to the editor:
How many more soldiers
must die?
I am writing in response to all the columns that have been published lately about the war. I am an American who has lost someone to the war who was very special (Gennaro Pellegrini Jr., died 8-9-05).
I stayed quiet out of respect for his family, but I feel I need to be heard along with others who feel the same about this issue.
As an American I am tired of our president and our government caring more about other countries and their people and trying to change them rather than making changes in America.
We, the people of America, need help. We have many people who are homeless and starving, elderly who cannot afford medicine, and working-class families who cannot afford health care. Maybe our leaders should consider spending our country’s money on helping our own citizens.
We do need to fight terrorism, but do we even know who we are fighting anymore? How many more of our soldiers need to die? Many of them are there because they feel it is their duty, but they don’t know why. Every day, more and more American soldiers are sent, and tragically, some will not return.
Every day we cry and mourn the loss of our loved ones, but it seems to be ignored. I guess you need to be a foreigner to have your voice heard in America.
Kelly Anne Mulligan
Upper Holmesburg
Kicking over plan
to close maternity ward
Where will the Northeast residents have to travel to have a baby? It was recently revealed that Frankford Hospital’s Torresdale Campus will close its entire maternity ward in July 2006. This means that there will be no hospital in the Far Northeast that will be able to deliver babies.
The statement that Frankford Hospital recently released stated that the demographic study revealed that this area no longer warrants the cost of a maternity and neo-natal intensive care unit and that they would be concentrating more on heart care.
It seems to me that the Northeast is starting to have many new buyers that are younger in age and are starting families. This new generation will have to travel to downtown Philadelphia or to Bucks County to have their children delivered, and that could mean life or death of their newborn.
Our son was a 24-week-old premature child that weighed only 1.5 pounds at birth. He was born in Frankford Torresdale Hospital and the neo-natal unit took care of him for 94 days. Today, Michael is 9 years old and has absolutely no side effects from his premature birth. We credit this to the expert care that was given to him while at Frankford Torresdale.
He had coded on that New Year’s Eve, and due to the expertise of the neo-natal staff, he was resuscitated and has survived.
This service is and will always be needed in the Northeast. If we had to travel to any other hospital, Michael would have never survived.
We are only one of many families that have benefited from the talented staff in maternity and NICU at Frankford Torresdale.
Every year Frankford Torresdale Hospital hosts a reunion party for all the neo-natal graduates, and the attendance keeps growing every year.
The Northeast Times usually sends a reporter to cover this affair. That alone, shows how important the maternity needs are in Northeast Philadelphia.
Eight years ago the hospital felt that this was also important, because they constructed a completely new wing strictly for delivery and neo-natal care. They have a capability of taking care of at least 12 premature babies at once, if not more. I believe that the maternity ward always has patients in it.
The maternity staff at the hospital has been informed to look for new jobs, and some of the nurses have already left. If this keeps happening, I feel that the hospital will close the unit even earlier and use the excuse that they don’t have sufficient staff to keep the unit open.
When will the hospitals start to be concerned about the neighborhoods instead of the CEO paychecks? By the way, the total cost that was billed to the insurance company, for our son, was more than $1.1 million.
I would like to ask as many residents as possible to contact the hospital, City Council members and state representatives to help stop the closure of the maternity and NICU at Frankford Hospital!
Kurt Krauss
Parkwood
Bus driver puts
kids at risk
Well, now I’ve seen it all! I’ve been driving tractor-trailers for 28 years, and as you can imagine, I have seen a lot of things on the road — everything from people drinking and driving, to accidents where people have been thrown through a windshield, to dead bodies lying on the highway from people being thrown from a vehicle because they did not have their seat belts on.
I have also seen a lot of sex going on in passing vehicles. Sitting up high in the truck, we like to call that checking out the seat covers. But in all the years I have been driving, I have never seen this: A woman bus driver on I-95 near Cottman Avenue has a busload of children, which is not uncommon, but when I was passing the bus I noticed the driver was wearing a religious type of outfit that is worn by Muslims.
This woman had no peripheral vision whatsoever! This veil covered the side of her head. Now tell me how the school district can allow someone wearing this type of outfit to safely drive this bus. She did not even know I was alongside of her until I was next to her.
She is putting a lot of kids at a tremendous risk by wearing this hood, or whatever it is called. I have no problem with any religion, but I think the school district should not allow this for safety reasons. Religious articles of headgear should not be worn on the job. She was like a race horse going up the highway with those side blinders on so the horse could not see what is alongside of him.
Save your religious stuff for after work and on Sundays. Stop putting other children and the vehicles around you at risk!
Mike Ansaldo
Holmesburg
Prescription drug plan
needs a new cure
The prescription drug plan is due to take effect this month, and people are being pushed to choose a plan they think is best for them. Many of our leaders, many experts and the citizenry at large fully recognize how complicated and flawed the plan really is.
Briefly, the plan is poorly conceived, confusing and contradictory; imposes penalties on those who make decisions without fully understanding the plan and its ramifications for their needs; will dramatically increase the cost of drugs because it prevents the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies; provides private drug companies and insurance companies with too much control over the policies and programs for prescription drugs; provides them with enormous profits and provides them with financial subsidies from the government for participating in the program; is creating the preconditions for privatizing the Medicare system; and will make the real costs of the plan to the taxpayers much higher than the projected cost made at that time to get it passed in Congress.
When the plan was passed by both parties in Congress and signed by President Bush, it met with considerable criticism, frustration and resentment. Legislators were rushed to vote on it without time to read it, understand it, discuss it or clarify it. We now see how correct the critics were at that time.
It is clear that it is time now to stop this sham of a program from going into effect and to repeal it.
We, the citizenry, together with our leaders, must carefully re-evaluate the situation, and develop a real plan that provides all of the American people with the needed prescription benefits program under Medicare that will protect and maintain their health.
The leadership must show the courage, strength and unity of purpose to stop this plan immediately.
Sy Kornblum
Robert Kleiner
Sholom Aleichem Club
Thank you, thank
you, thank you
In December, I wrote a letter concerning my son’s circumstances, that he was hit by an automobile on his bicycle, incurring many injuries.
He is my one and only adopted son, and he has been diagnosed with cancer. I am quite old and cannot be too supportive of him.
The reason I am sending this letter is to tell you of my gratitude for the extremely generous gift to him from Giorgio’s Meat Market. I cannot begin to thank them or Paul Melino, of Holme Avenue. Bless him and the Northeast Times.
It will brighten his days, when he can have some decent meat products. Bless you all, and thank you so very much.
Bernie Gordon, on behalf of Douglas Gordon
• • •
We would like to take this time to say thank you for all the help when we were in time of need. May God bless you and staff.
Bernadette Pratta and family
• • •
Saying thank you seems such a small way to thank the wonderful family that became my Christmas angel in 2005. With your more-than-generous gift I was able to buy warm, practical clothes for all of my children. Your gift of supermarket gift cards provided us with enough to see us through the new year.
Please know how much your gift meant to us. You, your lovely little girl and your family are in our prayers daily.
Kelly S.
Lawndale
Something fishy about
those housing prices
The homes on the 800 block of Foulkrod St. were built in approximately 1926, priced at $2,000 to $4,000. It was mostly farmland and just Sears (1920).
I lived on the 800 block of Foulkrod from 1974-2000. I broke camp because it turned into a ghetto because of all the Section 8 housing. Now, those same 1926 homes are going from $85,000 to $100,000. I smell a rat.
Anthony "Tony Irish" Porta
Sebring, Fla.
The death penalty
is the proper response
Everyone who read the letter last week from Emilie J. Conroy, against the death penalty and promoting the innocence of the late Stan "Tookie" Williams may wish to save a trip to the video store and instead check out http://racetraitor.org/naindex.html, the Web page of the New Abolitionist Society.
This is the source of the claim of, what else, racist convicting yet another black man by a "nearly" all-white jury. Don’t know actual mix of his peers so I cannot address the term "nearly."
The answer to the question posed is simple. The death penalty was and is the proper response to the cold-blooded killing of at least four people. The victims should have had their sentence commuted to life, but "Tookie" imposed a death sentence of his own.
I continue to praise the governor of California for having the guts, to use Emilie Conroy’s words, to execute — no pun intended — the will of the people in this case and others to come. One can only hope Gov. Rendell and all successors will follow the order of the courts and apply the death penalty when imposed if the murdering low-life scum is white, black or a pretty shade of pink.
Ray Dolan
Morrell Park
For the speaker,
a word to the wise
Gov. Rendell stated that we should not judge our state representatives on just the exorbitant pay raise issue in the 2006 elections. It would be unfair, since many probably got caught up in state House Speaker John Perzel’s scheme to pass that law at 2 a.m. on July 7.
Perzel has given us more reasons to judge him on.
He and his cronies have not increased the minimum wage nor provided a new SEPTA funding stream, and have gotten others, including family members, to name things after him with our tax dollars. The two that come to mind are the fitness center at the Northeast Community Center and the new Mayfair recreation center.
He won’t tell us if he is going to return the raise he collected until that law was rescinded. Why can’t he be open and honest with us?
My greatest peeve is those $100 camera traffic lights on the Boulevard at Cottman Avenue, Grant Avenue and Red Lion Road that are nothing more than fund-raisers for the Republican patronage haven Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA). We were duped into thinking that there were so many accidents caused by people running the red lights.
According to another newspaper’s Dec. 29 article, PennDOT’s statistics for 1997-2001 show that there were 459 total accidents for the three intersections and only 103 were due to "red light running." That means that over three-fourths of them were not "red light running accidents." Over those four years, millions of cars have passed through these intersections.
When Perzel took over, it was stated that $45 million annually was to go to the School District of Philadelphia. The district only received $4 million in the 2004 election year and would have had a few more hundreds of millions of dollars to better educate our children.
The PPA is so bogged down with patronage it doesn’t even come up with the $25 million a year for the city, which aids in the city’s decision to close fire stations.
Perzel better brush up on his previous employment job skills after November 2006:
"John, a table for two, non-smoking."
Mayer Krain
Modena Park
Editor’s note: Speaker Perzel is a former maitre d’ at Pavio’s Restaurant.
Mariano’s staff
is doing a good job
With all the discussion about Councilman Rick Mariano’s problem, I am amazed that so few have noticed that the councilman’s staff is still providing service to anyone who needs assistance.
Oxford Circle Civic Association (OCCA) wants to extend our sincere thanks to Councilman Mariano’s staff. We appreciate their past and present service. OCCA has had the pleasure of working with staff members Lisa Borine and Carman Sousa, who are always willing to research community concerns. We do not want the staff to be forgotten, as they are still working hard on behalf of our community, and we appreciate the service that we receive. With all the negative news, we feel the staff has been forgotten.
Nancy Hampson
President, OCCA
SEPTA police is not
a security agency
Regarding the article by staff writer Diane Villano (When is a police officer not a police officer?) in the Dec. 8 edition:
Even though the story was very informative, a statement made by Doreen Tucker of the Burlews Detective Agency and reported by Ms. Villano as fact was where Ms. Tucker said that a lot of security agencies have uniforms similar to those of the Philadelphia Police Department, such as SEPTA police officers.
Well, let me enlighten Ms. Tucker, Ms. Villano and your readership. The SEPTA Transit Police Department is NOT a security agency.
The SEPTA Transit Police Department is fully accredited by the Pennsylvania State Police as a law enforcement agency with jurisdiction and police powers in the five-county area in Pennsylvania, parts of Delaware and New Jersey.
The department’s responsibilities are to provide a safe haven for passengers and employees who use the transportation system, enforce federal, state, regional, local laws and ordinances on and around all SEPTA property, bus, trolley, train routes and rights of way.
Members of the department are state commissioned and their police powers are given to them by the governor. Officers receive their police training (known as ACT 120 — MOPEC) at police academies where ALL police are trained and are required to attend yearly state-required training to keep their qualifications current — the same as ALL Pennsylvania police. They are probably the fifth largest police department in the state and one of many police departments that have received state accreditation. Hardly a security agency, I must say!
As far as these security agencies, such as Burlews Detective Agency, and Mr. Howard Rubin — who calls himself a commonwealth patrolman, law enforcement officer — they should be arrested for impersonating a police officer because their patches, parts of their uniforms and badges give the public the perception that they are police, which they are not. They are nothing but private security guards/officers and they do not have any police powers whatsoever.
And why would you as an employee of these security agencies want to have the words "police" or "law enforcement officer" plastered on your back or shoulder patch? That makes you a target for any criminal, and you have no way to call for the police to come to your aid.
Believe me, security is a good thing to have for your business. It does deter some criminals and it is a help to police departments, but you shouldn’t pretend to be or display something that you are not.
Oh, by the way, the Temple Police Department, University of Pennsylvania Police Department, Philadelphia Housing Police Department, U.S. Postal Service Police Department, Federal Police Department, Amtrak Police Department, Delaware Port Authority Police Department, and others I didn’t mention are not security agencies either.
David J. Armitage
Publisher/editor, The Police Shield
Our rep’s a radical
The following is a little reminder to the voters of the 13th Congressional District as to just how radical the incumbent, Allyson Schwartz, really is.
She was one of only three area representatives (the others were Robert Brady and Chaka Fattah) to vote against the Private Property Rights Protection Act, a bill designed to prevent governments from seizing private property for public or other use.
Her (and their) view on the relationship between government and private property is that the ownership of property is conditional and not absolute.
This belief is a variant of an earlier one, put succinctly in the following phrase:
All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions. The author? Karl Marx.
George Tomezsko
Editor, Voices for the Unborn
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