My Nurse Navigator Recommended Crab Fries

Whether national or local advertising, when the words are examined they often make little sense or provide an example of pure bull crap.

Let us examine just a few nonsensical examples of local advertising.

WPVI-TV declares “Stay tuned for our exclusive Accuweather Forecast.” 
Exclusive? Accuweather supplies forecast for broadcasters and businesses around the nation and world. There’s nothing “exclusive” when the company sends out weather reports to a thousand customers.

Chickie’s and Pete’s World Famous Crab Fries. 
World famous? This means people in Bulgaria and Indonesia know these crab fries. We doubt that nearby residents of Wilkes-Barre or Trenton ever heard of Chickie’s and Pete’s or their “famous” crab fries.

A television ad has an auto dealer proudly declaring “I’ve always been your dealer and you just didn’t know it!” He seems very proud – as if this is the most clever slogan ever uttered.
We know the various car dealerships we have used over 50 years, and this guy was never our dealer.

During its many fund drives, WHYY public radio often declares “By making a donation you become part of a community.”
Really? By giving to the Red Cross, do we become part of the Red Cross community? Community is a word that is so over-used, it has become meaningless.

Public utility ads by PECO proclaim: “The Future is ON!”  
You figure out this nugget of nonsense.

There is a hospital that says in ads that it provides you “A Nurse Navigator.” Sounds good but every hospitalization we experienced came with nurses that told us what to do and not do. What’s so different if you call the nurse a “navigator?”

When P.T. Barnum Bought a 161-Year-Old Woman in Philly

When P.T. Barnum heard of the “amazing exhibit” in Philadelphia, he just had to go see it with his own eyes.

The year was 1835 and the “World’s Greatest Showman” was just starting his quest to present the wonders of the world to a credulous public. What he came to Philadelphia to see with his own eyes was a woman named Joice Heth.

She was a slave captured in Africa, and purchased by the father of George Washington. She was the nurse maid of baby George and now she was 161 years old.

Wow, 161 years old! And she looked it. She was toothless, blind, all skin and bone but she was talkative. And she spoke of rocking the cradle of baby George Washington.

Barnum looked at the old crone and saw gold. He bargained down the price of old Joice to $1,000, including an old bill of sale to the Washington family.

She was first displayed to the public in New York City and then the towns and cities of New England. At one point Barnum planted the story that she was not real but an automaton. This created even more interest in the old woman.

About a year later, Joice died. The canny Barnum concocted a way to make money from the corpse.
A doctor in New York would autopsy Joice. Barnum charged spectators 50 cents to watch the autopsy and 1,500 New Yorkers paid to watch.

We don’t know how the doctor knew, but he announced that the old woman could be no more than 80 years old.

The press declared that the public had been duped. For Barnum, it was the start of a fabulous career of freaks and frauds.

The Rootin’ Tootin’ Life of Rodeo Ben (Cowboy Tailor)

Philadelphia's Cowboy Outfitter, Rodeo Ben

He was Philadelphia’s most unlikely celebrity, whose name popped up for six decades in newspapers around the nation.

His given name, Bernard Lichtenstein, rarely appeared in print. But if you search the national newspaper online archive, “Rodeo Ben” appears countless times.

The Polish-born, Jewish tailor was always known as Rodeo Ben, which was also the name of his business.

As a 1941 Miami newspaper article put it: “Strange that the conservative old Quaker City would be the locale for the most famous cowboy tailor in the world. Rodeo Ben has dressed all the big-time cowboy stars and swank dude ranchers.”

Yes, Rodeo Ben said he made western outfits for Gene Autry, Tom Mix, Roy Rodgers, Dale Evans, Hopalong Cassidy and many other Hollywood cowpokes. And in the late 1940s a clothing firm put out a pair of jeans called Wranglers and bragged in advertising that Wranglers were designed by Rodeo Ben.

The idea that a Jewish tailor in Philly produced the best in fancy Western wear intrigue many newspaper writers. Television’s Charles Kuralt spent two days filming Ben.

Once the Joe Palooka comic strip depicted a character entering a store with a Rodeo Ben sign.

A Polish publication did a piece on Rodeo Ben, who left Poland with his parents at age 14 and soon was working behind a sewing machine.

In his early 20s, Lichtenstein became a traveling salesman selling cloth.

Lichtenstein and his son told somewhat similar stories about how he became a cowboy tailor. They say there was a rodeo in our area and a cowgirl was looking for a certain color cloth to sew her own outfit. Lichtenstein produced the rarely-seen color and offered to make the outfit himself. One thing led to another, and sometime in the early 1930s he became Rodeo Ben employing a bunch of tailors and seamstresses churning out western clothes.

He once said business was good, even during the depression.

His first operation was on Colombia Avenue and later moved to Broad Street in Oak Lane. In the new store he sold everything western – boots, hats, saddles, leather jackets with fringes, clothes with rhinestones and sequins.

He was often asked why he didn’t open stores in Texas or other western states. He said he was doing fine in Philly and didn’t need the aggravation of starting a chain. “I have 10,000 measurements on file,” he declared.

He also put out a mail order catalogue.

Lichtenstein died in 1985 at age 90. His son had already closed the iconic Broad Street store in 1983. Today you’ll most likely to find an original Rodeo Ben outfit at an antiques auction

A House For $8,000 – Dead Cats Included

This is not about a guy who made money flipping houses but the home that C. Jared Ingersoll bought for $8,000 is now worth about $2 million.

A wealthy blue-blood railroad executive, Ingersoll was a pioneer buyer in Society Hill in the 1960s. The Spruce Street dump he made home was built in the 1750s and had an important pedigree.

Recalling the condition of the house he purchased from the Redevelopment Authority, Ingersoll told an interviewer: “It had gone to complete ruin. The filth was beyond belief. The fleas were such and the stench was such that you couldn’t stay in the house over 10 or 15 minutes. There were two dead cats in the bathtub,” he recalled. “The front door was partly opened all the time.”

Needless to say, Ingersoll put many thousands into the old wreck. The three-story Georgian brick townhouse at 217 Spruce contained a lot of Philadelphia history.

It’s known as the Davis-Lenox House and good guides will point it out to tourists.

First, it’s a prime example of good historic restoration.
But it is also important because of who lived there. 

Master builder James Davis built it for his own residence. He was an important officer of the Carpenters Company, the guild that met in Carpenters Hall.

In 1779, the house was purchased by Revolutionary War hero, David Lenox. He became a merchant and banker but for a time he was U.S. Marshal for Pennsylvania and a key actor in the Whiskey Rebellion.

Later, Lenox was ambassador to Great Britain.

Ingersoll had important ancestors in early America. The original Jared Ingersoll probably knew both Davis and Lenox. That Jared Ingersoll was an architect and signer of the U.S. Constitution, Pennsylvania Attorney General and was vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket in 1812.

He knows Pornography When he Sees It – Even if it Takes a Magnifying Glass

Nowadays we have an annual nude bike ride where men and women pedal through the streets of Philadelphia mostly buck naked, but it wasn’t always that way.

Consider 1979 – not exactly the Victorian era – and what happened during art shows hung in the lobby of the federal courthouse at 6th and Market Streets.

There were 80 pieces of art hung that January, including 10 that contained some nudity. Afraid that “children, nuns and priest” would be scandalized, Chief Judge Joseph S. Lord ordered the paintings removed. In fact, Lord told a reporter he “detected a theme of lesbianism” in the art.

The local manager of the GSA, which actually oversees the courthouse, said he approved the show calling it “good art” and never felt it would provoke any controversy.

While this dust-up got plenty of local and national news coverage, six months later, Judge Lord’s war on nudity in the courthouse lobby, made even bigger news. This time the American Civil Liberties Union got involved and it took a magnifying glass to see the alleged smut.

A new art show included a six-foot collage of photocopied government documents. It hung for a while before someone spotted a tiny, postage stamp sized piece of the collage that sparked another brouhaha.

Lord examined the piece with a magnifying glass and declared it obscene. He saw what appeared to be a man’s hand on a woman’s hip and some suggestive words.

Lord ordered the collage removed but this time the artist and a gallery owner got an ACLU lawyer to battle for artistic integrity. The GSA had its own lawyer to fight for artistic freedom. Another federal judge ruled the collage could stay.

Judge Lord did win another battle involving a piece entitled “Secret Agent.” We don’t know exactly what the piece portrayed but it was the titled that bugged the judge. He felt it made fun of agents who might be called to testify in the building.

In a way, Judge Lord won all three battles. In the end, the nudes, the collage and “Secret Agent” were all moved from the lobby to the court’s office building where few members of the public could view them.

The Kooky Katzenjammer Kids’ Philly Connection

They were the worst brats in the Sunday funnies and it was a Philadelphia cartoonist who made the Katzenjammer Kids so naughty and hilarious.

Said to be the nation’s longest running comic strip, the devilish duo of Hans and Fritz were born in 1897 and were laid to rest 109 years later in 2006.

Five artists, starting with creator, Rudolph Dirks, drew the two masters of mischief over those decades but the cartoonist often considered the best was Harold Knerr of Philly. Knerr drew the Katzenjammer panel longer than any others – for 35 years from 1914 until his death in 1949.

Born in Bryn Mawr, Knerr was an alumnus of Episcopal Academy and Philadelphia University of the Arts. In the years prior to the Katzenjammers, he drew cartoons for Philly’s three largest newspapers: The Record, Inquirer and Public Ledger.

When Dirks got into a battle with the Hearst news group, Knerr was offered the comic strip and gladly accepted.

Maybe one reason the Kazenjammers are gone is political correctness. The Kids and other characters all spoke with a comical German accent. A fat, bearded character call “der Captain” might say, Vos dot yer read’ink (What is that you are reading.) The word 'just' comes out 'chust' and 'giant' is 'chiant'. Every character in the comic strip spoke mit un hacksent.

The strip was all about Fritz and Hans pulling pranks on the adults. One writer called the pair, “the world’s most durable delinquents.”

The Sunday comic strip was done in pen and ink and the color happened in the printing plant.

The Katzenjammer cast appeared in film cartoons, comic books and a 1995 United States Postage stamp. Original artist drawings of the strip from the early days sell for several hundred dollars.

He Won The Bet But Couldn’t Spend His Winnings

The Colonial Drinking Scene

Cyder Royal was a popular drink in Philadelphia colonial era taverns, writes Joseph J. Kelley in his excellent book, Life and Times in Colonial Philadelphia.

It was way more potent than normal hard cider because it was mixed with 80 proof applejack liquor.

Kelley writes: “In 1737, Thomas Apty walked into the Red Lion Inn in Elbow Lane and laid a wager of Half a Crown that he would drink within one hour and a half, a gallon of cyder royal; which he had no sooner accomplished and said ‘I have finished’ but he fell down and there expired.”

Kelley tells us that Apty was a plasterer by trade.

As Freddy Mercury Once Said: We Are the Champions

Chaka Fatah

About a year ago the VICE Website ran an article with the headline:  Is Philadelphia the Most Corrupt City in America?

The answer to this question was a resounding yes!

Here’s what VICE said: “Move over Chicago. Back off of the Line Detroit. Be easy Big Easy. This is Philly: machine politics, pay to play, and blatant nepotism is the norm in this jawn.”

The article is not long, but it backs up its claims to Philadelphia infamy, citing such names as Seth Williams, Chaka Fattah, corrupt traffic court judges, nepotism in the parking authority, city commissioners office etc.

On a more encouraging note – no major politician has been charged with crime since the VICE article appeared.

When It Was Time for Battle He Chose The Boudoir

Howe and Loring

Ever wonder why Great Britain – the most powerful nation in the world – lost the American Revolution?

Here’s one big factor that you won’t find in most history books: 
The British commander General Sir William Howe’s sex life was more fun than pursuing and finishing off the rag-tag Americans.

Both the Patriots and the Tories believed that Howe’ love-life with his blonde, blue-eyed mistress, Elizabeth Loring, was causing him to dilly-dally when he should be leading the troops in battle.

Howe’s paramour was always referred to as “Mrs. Loring” because she was married to a Tory, Joshua Loring Jr., who traded his wife for a lucrative post with the British.

Howe met the couple in Boston. When the British troops left to fight the Americans, Mrs. Loring left with the general. Howe gave her husband the job of buying food and supplies for captured American soldiers – a great opportunity for graft.

The British occupied Philadelphia in the winter of 1777-78 thus providing Howe and Mrs. Loring a pleasant love-nest while Washington and his troops shivered at Valley Forge.

One anonymous Tory wrote a little ditty:

Awake arouse Sir Billy
There forage in the plain
Ah, leave your little filly
And open the campaign.
Heed not a woman’s prattle
Which tickles in the ear
But give the word for battle
And grasp the warlike spear

However, the very witty patriot Francis Hopkinson wrote a little song, which starts:

Sir William he, as snug as a flea
Lay all night a snoring
Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm
In bed with Mrs. Loring

Thus, a very good general was mocked by friend and foe alike for spending too much time making whoopee when he should be whooping the American rebels.