By Don Harrison
On the streets of Center City, I often passed people who were talking to themselves.
Some of those bedeviled people are still out there, I’m sure, but today, many who seem to be talking to themselves are actually talking to someone else — on the cell phone (or whatever the cell phone has morphed into; the letter “i” usually precedes it).
In only a few years, the cell phone has revolutionized our lifestyles. When I go where I might want to be reached — or to reach others — I take the cell phone. I don’t know how to take advantage of all that it offers, but it’s invaluable for calling home to say you’re stuck in traffic.
Now, if only there were some way to avoid having to listen to other people’s personal conversations.
Erin’s ‘hero:’ Pop-Pop
If you’re a regular reader of Milestones, you know that Joe Clark is a terrific writer.
His granddaughter’s pretty good, too.
Erin Fox, 15, wrote a tribute to “Pop-Pop” (her “inspiration and hero”) that was published in the Daily News, where Joe and I were co-workers before we took buyouts a few years ago.
It was a touching and charming tribute to Joe on turning 70.
Congratulating Joe on his birthday, I e-mailed: “I can’t imagine where she got it, but Erin’s a pretty good writer. Don’t worry, though, she may outgrow it, which is more than Pop-Pop did.
“If she persists,” I added, “in a half-century or so, I may be able to use her for Milestones.”
The voice was familiar
“Don’t you say hello any more?”
The soft voice was familiar, but it took me a few seconds to recognize my old friend, Edie Huggins. Standing in the Lankenau Hospital lobby, her head covered, she seemed shrunken and frail.
“I’m being treated for cancer,” said the longtime Philadelphia TV news personality.
She probably wouldn’t survive, she added — a prediction that came true a month or two later.
I didn’t know what to say, but Edie did.
“Pray for me,” she whispered.
World War II had just ended, and the veterans were coming home. Thanks to the GI Bill, there was a surge of new students, many of them the first members of their family to go to college. Kids like me, right out of high school, were in class with much older guys who had just been through experiences beyond our imaginations.
As a venerable Ivy League institution, Penn is awash in tradition, but most of those veterans were indifferent to it, at best. Some had families, and were eager to get their degrees, enter the job market and get on with their lives.
Tradition required that freshmen wear little beanies on their heads — they were called “dinks.” But try telling a 30-year-old veteran of the Battle of the Bulge to accept hazing from a 19-year-old sophomore.
Since so many freshmen wouldn’t comply, the upperclassmen had to give up on all of us.
Overnight, generations of tradition fizzled.
The ivy continues to grow at Penn, and traditions survive. But the dink, I assume, is one that didn’t.
Re Cathy Green’s article (November, 2007), “Winter can be a dangerous season, especially for those who are elderly”:
I have experienced and observed another danger that continues unnoticed by law enforcement and younger healthy persons. Bicyclists are allowed to ride very fast on our sidewalks, even though the city has provided bike lanes on the streets. Broad Street sidewalks are most treacherous.
They sweep down the sidewalk inclines that were provided for wheelchair accessibility, startling any unsuspecting elderly walker who may not hear them approaching. I, at age 74, or some other elderly person could be struck down and suffer unthinkable injuries while on a doctor-recommended “exercise walk.”
I suspect that with the price of gasoline escalating, we elderly walkers will be forced to give up our right to a safe sidewalk as more bikes speed into and out of Center City.
I live 12 blocks from Philadelphia Senior Center, at Broad and Lombard Sts. I used to enjoy my walk to and from the center, but I am seriously afraid to walk anymore.
RAMONA G. MAPP
Philadelphia