By Dick Saunders
 Butch Ballard says he’s “the oldest drummer in the world.” He’ll be 90 the day after Christmas, so who’s to contradict him?
“Gene Krupa, Max Roach, Papa Jo Jones — all gone,” says Ballard, who’s still performing at every opportunity.
George Edward Ballard (nicknamed for Machine Gun Butch, a character in the 1930 movie The Big House) grew up in Philadelphia’s Frankford section. He still lives there, in a house full of memorabilia — most prominently the 2006 Mellon Jazz Community Award. The school he attended (now a child-care center) is nearby. So is his church: Second Baptist.
When George was 7, his father bought him a drum set. Lessons were 75 cents a week — “not jazz, just playing drums.” By 16, Butch was lugging his drums on the Frankford El to gig with the hepcats in South Philly.
“All I’ve ever done is play drums,” he says. “I must have been doing something right, working with people like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong.”
And the singers! Ella Fitzgerald…
Sarah Vaughan… Dinah Washington… Pearl Bailey…
Bailey and Ballard grew up together in Philly. “I’m going to Hollywood to be a star,” she told him. “I thought she was crazy. But she did it,” he recalls. “When she married [drummer] Louie Bellson, I took his place with the Ellington band. When she died, Louie asked me to be a pallbearer.”
Touring the world with big bands, Ballard “wasn’t the kind of guy who made a fuss. Sometimes I thought about throwing my sticks up in the air like Gene Krupa. But that’s not my style. Just sit down and play the drums.”
Drafted in World War II
In the ‘40s, when he was living in New York, a government man paid him a visit backstage at the Savoy in Harlem. “You’ve been ignoring our letters,” he said, and Ballard was on his way back to Philly to be drafted. He was a Seabee on Guam, but after it was learned that he was a drummer, he spent three years in a military band.
“I lost my chops,” Ballard says. “I wasn’t playing jazz. Playing that military music, your foot and hand don’t go that fast. But I kept practicing, practicing. Slowly but surely, I got myself together.
“I got married to my lovely wife and bought her this house in 1950.”
A jazzman could do OK in Philly then: “There was a club called White Zanzibar at 19th St. and Columbia Ave. Café Society was on Columbia Avenue, too. All gone now.”
‘Don’t stop ...’
A widower, Ballard lives alone, but keeps busy. He’s a block captain and Democratic party chairman for the 23d Ward. He teaches drums to youngsters, and he plays in a trio and in the Philadelphia Legends of Jazz.
It’s “a labor of love,” says Ballard, who loves to put on his tux for a gig. “We rehearse all the time, but make no money. If you need a band for a church or fraternal event, give us a try.”
(Go to: www.phillylegendsofjazz.com.)
“To have played all over the world with the greatest bands, that’s a blessing. Still teaching kids? Don’t stop teaching. Still playing in a band? Don’t stop playing.”
Ballard is hard of hearing, but “I hear everything when I play the drums. I have to watch my blood pressure. The doctor says, ‘You’re 89. You’ll never be big no more.’”
Maybe not, Ballard says, but “with that 90th birthday coming up, I have to take care of myself.”
 By Rita Charleston
For 10-year-old Emma “Scotty” Sloss, Girl Scouting provided an outlet that used to be inaccessible to girls.
“In those years,” recalls Sloss, 91, “there were many things girls were not allowed to do — like running around, climbing trees, things like that. It just wasn’t considered dignified. But there was a big sense of freedom in Girl Scouting because we could express ourselves in ways we couldn’t do otherwise.”
Sloss has devoted eight decades of her life to Girl Scouting in Eastern Pennsylvania, and was recently recognized for her volunteering efforts.
Founded Fellowship
She has been a troop leader for more than 50 years, and was a founder of the Philadelphia Adult Scout Fellowship, which has made a significant impact on Scouting around the world.
Sloss was born in Scotland and moved to the Philadelphia area with her family in 1924. Her love of the outdoors was the major impetus for her joining the Scouts, she says, “but over the years, I began to love the whole experience — the sense of camaraderie and the joy of meeting and making new friends.”
Because of her interest in international Girl Scouting, she has traveled to many countries and visited Girl Scout World Centers in England, Switzerland and Mexico.
For many years, Sloss served on Girl Scouting boards of directors and committees. Girl Scouting was “an avocation that got me away from the kind of work I was doing,” she says. That involved eventually serving as assistant vice president of Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company.
Scouts are her children
“Scouting is a wonderful organization for girls,” she says. “The only problem today is finding good leaders because people are so busy they just can’t seem to find the time to get involved in running troops. And often they don’t want to take the time to be trained.”
Sloss never married or had children, explaining that her job, her Scouting responsibilities, and her college evening studies to earn a degree took up most of her time.
“Today, I feel as though I do have children,” she says. “In fact, I count my girls, from all over the country, who were involved with me in Scouting, as my own. Many of them are still in touch with me.”
He’s back at work after heart attack;
Rx: Exercise, diet By John Oliver Mason
It must have been something I had eaten, I assumed, so I asked for some ginger ale.
But the pain in my chest had nothing to do with what I had eaten. I was having a heart attack.
I was at my City of Philadelphia job on Friday, April 18, when it happened.
While a co-worker prayed for me, I sat waiting for the ambulance. En route to Hahnemann University Hospital, the ambulance crew sprayed nitroglycerine under my tongue and gave me aspirin. At Hahnemann, I was x-rayed, a catheter was put in my right leg and a clot was dug out of one of my arteries.
It’s incidents like this when you know you have friends. One of my co-workers visited me in my room in the cardiac unit, as did members of my synagogue.
His own Red Sea
At the time, all I wanted to do was to get out. Still, I’m grateful for the care and friendly service from the Hahnemann staff. On Sunday, a cardiologist discharged me. Later that day, I attended Passover services; the rabbi told me I had gone through my own personal Red Sea.
I spent a little over a month on sick leave, trying to relax and recuperate; but I was nervous, wondering when I could resume a normal life. I’ve been told it’s common for heart attack patients to feel disjointed. My life is disorganized enough, and I wanted to get back to what I’d been used to. But, I was supposed to stay at home and rest.
I always resisted exercise, but I underwent cardio rehab at Methodist Hospital on South Broad Street, and started a program of mild exercise. As a result, I’ve lost weight and gained muscle. “You’re losing weight! You look good,” people (particularly women) have said to me.
No sodium, no lifting
I also was advised about what to eat, to avoid packaged or canned foods that have a lot of sodium.
In mid-May, I was allowed to return to work. I have restrictions on lifting heavy objects, and I pause now if I’m being rushed too much. Many who have had heart attacks do not survive them; for me, my heart attack was a wake-up call to take better care of myself.
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