tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52956037755038615612024-03-13T13:26:16.297-04:00On Second ThoughtRuminations from the mind of Glenn B. Knight including some of his more interesting newspaper columns and travels.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-53669501829781415332015-07-03T14:05:00.000-04:002015-07-03T14:07:28.405-04:00Biblical Marriage: One man and one thousand women<div class="MsoNormal">
If you give me a debate topic and 25 minutes to research and
find snippets (verses) of the Bible I can successfully defend either side of
the argument.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If, as we are told by religious “experts” that Biblical
marriage is only between one man and one woman then can you please explain to
me King Solomon’s 300 wives and 700 concubines.
God wasn’t bothered enough by that arrangement to keep Solomon from
building the temple at Jerusalem as he had done to his father David for his
transgressions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And speaking of King David, what about his adultery with
Bathsheba the wife of General Uriah?
When David got her pregnant he had Uriah killed so that he could add her
to his stable of at least six wives.
According to the Bible, God was upset only that he had killed another
Jew—an out-of-wedlock child and adultery were not even mentioned.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughters was never
punished by a God who had just wiped out two major cities and turned his wife
into a pillar of salt. In fact, it is
from Lot’s blood line that Jesus Christ was born. It is often incorrectly said that Sodom was
destroyed because of homosexuality. In
the book of Ezekiel is this explanation:
“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were
arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Genesis we find that both Esau and Lamech took multiple
wives. And among the laws given in
Exodus for the treatment of slaves is the admonition that if a man takes a
second wife the two wives are to be treated equally. Not surprisingly that same law appears in the
Quran.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One man, one woman was most assuredly an option in the
Bible, but it was in no way the only option.
If we are discussing the same sex implications of marriage some people
point out that among all the forms of acceptable marriage, homosexual unions
were never mentioned. Of course not
because in Biblical times there was no word for homosexual in Greek, Hebrew or
Aramaic—it is a modern word suggesting that in those days it was not a
noteworthy concept. We know that
homosexuality existed and without a specific word for it the concept was just a
regular part of life.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am no fan of same sex marriage. But I don’t think that I should judge the
choices of others. In Hebrews we find
specifically that “God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral.” Jesus told us not to judge lest we also be
judged by the same rules and given the same punishments as those we judge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am absolutely certain that when it comes to someone else’s
bedroom God wants me to mind my own business and Jesus wants me to love them
unconditionally. God will do the judging
and until then lets just get along.</div>
Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-27082166996548229812015-04-09T11:37:00.000-04:002015-04-09T11:37:21.476-04:00The Alleys of Lititz<i>This was originally published in the Lititz Record-Express in my column named "On Second Thought." Hope you enjoy the reprise.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">What happened to the
Alleys? Not the bowling alley (it was
torn down to make more parking space for the Warwick House—now the Tin
Soldier—that’s another column), but the street wannabes that ran between the streets? I grew up in an alley.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The alley between Lincoln
Ave. and Market Street was my domain. I
prowled it like a tiger cub learning the predatory ways. What, at the time, were my best friends were
on the other side of the alley. Mike
Long, Yvonne Yeagley, Marcia Male (and her brothers) and Ed Wiker (who lived in
the converted warehouse along Liberty St) were the main contributors to
youthful crime and childhood warfare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It was this alley where I was
first shot in the head. Explains a lot,
doesn’t it? I was shot by a BB gun and
it did, “almost put my eye out”. I never
did find out who fired the shot [<i>UPDATE: After this appeared in the local newspaper the perp confessed but I choose not to make this information public</i>.], I just know I was hurt and bleeding and my
mother was going to pour hydrogen peroxide into the gaping wound (slight
exaggeration for effect). The scar
eventually joined the one I got while living at Poplar Grove when “Timmy Tokes
hit me with a wock”. Jim Stokes is all
grown up now and doesn’t even remember inflicting the pain—but he sure does
know how to split wood (and the price is pretty good).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Go west on this alley and you
eventually end up on Broad St. But
before you get there, there is another small alley that runs north and along it
was my first Disneyland. Snavely’s
Auction was a barn along Market St. and a covered area in which items to be sold
at the next weekly auction would be stacked.
I believe that it was at Snavely’s auction that my grandmother got me my
hobby horse which passed down to my son Christopher and is now in the
possession of Cole Aspen Knight, who enters his second year in March [<i>UPDATE: He's a teenager now and will probably be angry with me if he reads this</i>]. It’s still in Lititz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It was also at Snavely’s that
I picked up (for $2.50) a cordless record player. It stood four feet high and had to be carted
home on my red Radio Flyer</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">Ô</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> wagon. It required no
electricity and all you had to do was crank it up to play a record. I loved the auctions, partly because I could
get a complete meal for 15 cents (a 10 cent half pint glass bottle of chocolate
milk and a 5 cent bag of Burkholder’s Potato Chips).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Bruce Smith was the bully of
Lincoln and Liberty and was the reason I would cut through the Klopp walkway
(across Lincoln) and into the alleys behind, on my way to school. Passing Lincoln and Liberty would get me beat
up (I never was beat up but I sure was intimidated).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The alleys south of Lincoln
Ave. were fantastic. Coming out the back
gate at the Klopp house you entered onto an alley that curved south to butt up
against another alley and intersect with yet another that heads toward Five
Points (and Clair’s Store), but curves west again at the church (now an
apartment building) to meet up with Liberty.
It was my own personal labyrinth but contrary to the myth, my Minotaur
was at Lincoln and Liberty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">One of the alleys in this
maze was named Rodney and would get you to Annie Hershey’s Store on New (or
Apple or New whichever it was that year) St.
Along the way you would pass one of Lititz’ nascent industries,
operating out of a garage. Oehme Bros.
began baking pies and inventing pie-baking equipment in a garage that was just
down the alley from their home, which was sort of the center of my meandering
alleys. There were days that on my way
to school I would pass by the bakery and smell apple pie in the offing while at
the same time get a whiff of chocolate from the Wilbur-Suchard plant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Alleys conjure up many scenes
of youthful days in Lititz. Lanes? Well, lanes just sort of sit there keeping
streets from banging into one another.
This, apparently, is progress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0Middle Lane, Lititz, PA 17543, USA40.1612859 -76.30599540000002940.1552184 -76.316080400000033 40.1673534 -76.295910400000025tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-15142978663836170672015-04-07T20:11:00.000-04:002015-04-07T20:11:04.887-04:00Obama the lawless President<div class="MsoNormal">
“I wish Obama would obey the Constitution.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A good friend who is intelligent, level headed and fair in
his dealings made that comment over breakfast this morning. It is a very prevalent thought and it highlights
just how little the great mass of U. S. citizens knows about their form of
government.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are a representative democracy guided by the outline of
the Constitution and under those constraints President Obama is well within the
parameters of his office. There has
never been a government like this in the history of the world and after two and
a half centuries we are still trying to figure it out and make it continue to
work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the President,
as the chief executive, “. . .shall take care that the laws be faithfully
executed. . .” Another way of saying
that is he shall “prosecute” the laws.
That means he must do what he feels must be done to make the laws
work. Congress is notoriously vague when
it writes laws and when they don’t do it right there are two avenues to correct
a law and make it work. The first is for
the executive to interpret the law and issue orders on how it is to be
implemented and the second is for the Supreme Court to order how the law is to
be implemented.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The courts have called the executive’s prerogatives “prosecutorial
discretion” and absent laws or court rulings that specifically prohibit an
action the President has unlimited prosecutorial discretion. President Obama has used Executive Orders to
explain his decisions. Yes, in the past
Barack Obama has said that some of what he has done, he thought, would be in
violation of the Constitution. After
all, he is a Constitutional scholar.
Theoretically that is correct but in reality, there is no law or court
opinion prohibiting what he has done, lacking action by the Congress, so he has
not violated the Constitution even though he once thought that it might, and in
fact still might feel that way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If, for instance, President Obama has stretched beyond his
prosecutorial discretion in stopping some actions on immigrants, there are two
ways to turn it around. One is for
someone—with standing--to bring suit in a federal court which may eventually
end up being decided by the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court declines to take up the case it is declaring that the
President’s actions fall within the Constitution. If they take up the case they will decide
either way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A much easier and quicker solution is for the Congress of
the United States to pass a law on the subject.
The law may well be vetoed by the President but the veto can be
overridden by a two thirds vote and it becomes law without the President’s
signature. That law would have
precedence over prosecutorial discretion and the Executive Orders become null
and void. The only thing that could
change it is a Supreme Court decision.
President Obama cannot be criminally charged for those excesses but a
future President who did the same would then be in violation of the
Constitution. Prosecutorial discretion
does not apply to settled law.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our Constitution of the United States of America is a
living, breathing document. It can
change from day to day but so far everyone in our current government is
operating well within the parameters of their offices. President Obama is out on a Constitutional
limb because Congress will not act. He
may well be proven wrong but for now he is simply doing his job. It is up to Congress to do its job and if it
doesn’t like the President’s perfectly legal Executive Orders, change them with
a law that defines the parameters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
My advice to everyone calling President Obama a lawless
executive is to shut up until Congress does its job. But lately it has been a lot easier for
Congress to lie and stir up discontent than it is for them to actually do the
job we elected them to do—govern.</div>
Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0Lititz, PA 17543, USA40.1573169 -76.30690140000001540.108770899999996 -76.387582400000014 40.2058629 -76.226220400000017tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-88922819636462570452015-03-31T11:42:00.000-04:002015-03-31T11:42:05.053-04:00Telephones in Lititz<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Mr. Watson,
come here. I want you,” were the first
words spoken into a device that has become the telephone. That was in 1876 and inventor Alexander
Graham Bell gave birth to an industry and launched the communication
revolution. Telephones of one
description or another popped up around the world and networks were the vogue
at the start of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Lititz,
phone wires were strung between buildings or on farms connecting two
devices. </span><span style="line-height: 18.8181819915772px;">Nascent</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> networks popped up in
Ephrata, Brunnerville, Denver, Earl and eventually Lititz until the borough was
served by Bell Telephone Company and the Penn State Network. Early proponents of telephony locally
included Martin & Muth, coal and lumber, whose telephone number, Independent
Phone No. 184, was one of the first to be published in an advertisement
locally. Their advertisement in John G.
Zook’s “Historical and Pictorial Lititz”, published in 1905 used the
“Independent” label while others would refer to “Enterprise” numbers indicating
the two competing exchanges. Some
businessmen eventually went so far as to advertise phone numbers on each
system. And at this time the
installation of a telephone machine was front page news in the Lititz </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Record-Express</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lititz
Lithographing Company’s full page advertisement in the same book just stated at
the very bottom, “INDEPENDENT TELEPHONE.”
At that time it really wasn’t necessary to know the telephone number as
a caller would lift the receiver and turn a crank that would ring a bell to get
the attendant’s (about this time attendants—mostly boys—were becoming operators—mostly
women) attention. He, or she would
physically connect the two phones by plugging one line into the other. But you had to be on the correct network—there
was no option to cross networks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the
first advertisements in the Lititz <i>Record-Express</i>
to include a phone number was R. N. Wolle, dry goods, his business was known as
the Bee Hive Store and he had telephone number 58 in 1907.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Over in Red
Run, a hamlet in Brecknock Township, farmer William F. Brossman stood at his
telephone device spinning and spinning the dial without success and with every
turn his frustration grew. It was 4
o’clock in the morning and his wife Jemima was in the kitchen preparing
breakfast for the Brossman brood in advance of the up-coming day of farm
work. In addition to the 100 acre farm,
Brossman sold fertilizer to his neighbors.
The fertilizer had been delivered on one of the overnight trains of the
Reading and Columbia Railroad to the Denver station and needed to be picked up
by its new owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One morning
it is reported that Mrs. Brossman said to her husband, “William Brossman, you
are going to give that poor woman a heart attack! Come eat your breakfast. Land sakes, you start bothering that operator
before the sun comes up!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Now Mima,”
responded William, “if I can’t get hold of my fertilizer customers before they
get busy milking the cows and working the fields, I’ll never be able to tell
them that their shipments of fertilizer are down at the Denver railroad
station. I have half a mind to start my
own phone company!” And the rest is, as
they say, history. That history is well
recorded in John Ward Willson Loose’s book “The Denver and Ephrata Telephone
and Telegraph Company.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In addition
to multiple telephone companies there was also no standard for telephone
numbers. A review of advertisements up
until 1949 produce a gross diversity of number sets. In 1910 Wilson Hacker, grocer, had the number
Ind. Phone 72X. Even after 1926 when the
growing Denver and Ephrata Telephone and Telegraph Company purchase both
exchanges in Lititz (Penn State and Bell) the numbering system remained
random. Grocer Ed Heidrick advertised
his phone as 321-R-3. The 1929 purchase
of the Brunnerville Rural Telephone Company was also not cause to organize the
numbering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As late as
November 27, 1946 the newspaper announcement for the grand opening of Koehler’s
Grocery Store at 26 S. Spruce St. advertised free delivery on orders of one
dollar or more, prizes and the phone number 439-J. Christ Koehler learned quickly that he
couldn’t run a grocery and respond to fire calls without the full support of a
partner or cooperative spouse (he had neither—Grandma Koehler didn’t want the
store and let him know) the store closed the following January. But he always told people he was in the
grocery business for two years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With the
purchase of the two local exchanges by Denver & Ephrata Tel. and Tel. the
company purchased property at 104 E. Main Street and installed a state-of-the-art
“common battery switchboard” which they connected to the Ephrata switchboard
with underground conduits. Dial service
was established in Adamstown and spread throughout the D & E system
starting in 1934, eliminating forever the operator connected telephone
call. While operators continued in the
system they were there to resolve problems, respond to emergencies and handle
long distance—new technology that was just then beginning to emerge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">World War II
and the death of the D & E founder William Brossman kept the enhancements
from reaching Lititz until 1949 when dial service required the numbering system
to be standardized. Lititz subscribers
were assigned 4-digit numbers for their telephone and the exchange was assigned
the prefix 6. So while the phone number
was for instance 6-2249 the phone could be reached from within the Lititz
exchange by dialing only the last four numbers.
At the same time the Manheim exchange was assigned the 5 prefix.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Starting in
1949 you could reach Leed’s Locker Service at 6-9287 by dialing from any
telephone in Lititz. You could also
purchase a dedicated line freeing yourself or your company from the problems
associated with a party line. It was
expensive but most businesses found it worth the cost and eventually individual
subscribers paid the surcharge for the privacy.
With a party line each subscriber had a specific ring consisting of long
and short bells. If the longest ring on
your party line was four long rings you had to give the phone time to ring four
times before you answered your phone even if your ring was only one long
ring. Picking up the phone to dial out
you first listened to make sure no one was on the line before dialing. In urgent or emergency situations you
politely asked whoever was talking to please relinquish the line. Party lines in Lititz are reported to have
continued to exist into the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Calling
someone on your own line required you to pick up, listen to see if the line was
in use, dial a special number, hang up, let it ring and try to guess when or if
the other party answered. Then, and only
then, could you pick up your receiver and begin your conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By 1950
Christian Eaby was running D & E and the company boasted 10,000 subscribers. Eaby had married the boss’ daughter
Bertha. When he died in 1956 there were
15,000 telephones and Bertha took over the company.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That same
year all of the D & E exchanges were merged into the nationwide toll
dialing network. This necessitated
adding two letters in front of each exchange number—Lititz became MA6- with the
last four numbers identifying the specific telephone. MA was written as MAdison. Other exchange names were ULysses for Akron;
HUxley for Adamstown; ANdrew for Denver; REpublic for Ephrata and MOhawk for
Manheim. Lancaster was large enough for
two exchanges EXpress and LOwell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Starting in
the 1940s collaboration between American Telephone and Telegraph Company and
Bell Labs created the North American Numbering Plan that went into effect in
1947. It was better known as the Area
Code. Most of us knew nothing about it
because if we needed to call outside our area it would be handled by a human
operator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The original
Area Code system gave three digit numbers to areas. If an entire state was covered by one area code
the middle digit was a 0. In states with
multiple area codes the middle number was 1.
Since the touch tone had yet to be invented consideration was given to
how far the dial had to travel in certain areas so the first and third digits
were assigned based on population density.
Lititz was in a state with multiple area codes and was rural in nature,
thus the area was assigned 717 while Philadelphia was given 215. Connecticut was 203. New York City was 212 while its suburbs
received 914.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Starting in 1963
exchange names were being dropped in favor of a 3-digit exchange number. Lititz’ MA6 became 626. You were now able to make some long-distance
calls by appending the number 1 to the number you were calling all without
operator assistance. Within area code
717 you called a long distance number by dialing 1 followed by the 7-digit
exchange plus phone number. Outside the
local area code you dialed 1 followed by the area code and the 7-digit number.
And yes, you were dialing those numbers because touch tone™ was not even
available until 1966 and was not available throughout the whole D & E
system until 1978. With touch tone™ in
1966 came toll-free calls to Lancaster, mobile telephone services (about the
size of a small suitcase) and cable television.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A good
example of the telephone numbering system is my grandfather, Christ Koehler who
had the same telephone his whole life but his number kept changing. In 1946 his phone number was 439-J but in
1949 it was changed to 6-2249. In 1957
it became MA6-2249 and in 1963 626-2249.
About ten years later it became 717 626-2249. That’s a far cry from “Mr. Watson, come
here. I want you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com4Lititz, PA 17543, USA40.1573169 -76.30690140000001540.108770899999996 -76.387582400000014 40.2058629 -76.226220400000017tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-56568301988567212022015-02-20T11:59:00.001-05:002015-02-20T11:59:11.210-05:00A Lancaster County Winter Scene<div class="MsoNormal">
Today I watched an Amishman in a straw hat and a short coat
shoveling snow from the end of his driveway in a wind chill of about -17°. He was shoveling the snow into a wheelbarrow
and moving it to the side of the driveway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Apparently the township plow came through, broke through the
drifts and deposited snow at close to 4 feet high across the entrance to his
farm drive. I would guess that today is
milk pick up day and the milk truck drivers will not cross large piles of snow
to get to the milk house. If the pile is
still there when the milk truck driver arrives he will just drive on to his
next stop. The farmer will then be left
with but one option for the milk that does not fit in the storage tank—dump it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s just one of the many cruel points at which Amish
farmers and the English world come together. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the uninitiated, to an Amishman, anyone who is not Amish
is English.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A non-Amish farmer would simply slip the shovel on the front
of a tractor and widen the drive in about four swipes from inside a heated
cab. A non-Amish farmer would also have
some help to get the job done while on the Amish farm everyone else was
probably engaged in a time-sensitive chore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had the briefest of urges to stop and help until reality
hit me. Had I stopped I would have been
in his way, I would have had no shovel and I would have slowed down his
progress. In very many ways the Amish
are to be admired for their “simple life” and their industry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now I am wondering why the township snow plow driver couldn't
have taken five minutes and pushed that pile out of the way?</div>
Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-56094506915110253352015-02-15T19:50:00.000-05:002015-03-31T23:53:11.412-04:00Silk Stocking Murder<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Nearly
every boy or girl Scout who sat around a campfire at one of the camps along the
Horseshoe Trail in the Furnace Hills above Lititz, Pennsylvania has heard the tales of murder
and of bodies dumped along the Seglock Creek. One of them was a real story that, for a time, captured national attention for our little community.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Lucille
Smith was a Virginia girl who married a night foreman in the mould department
of the Wilbur-Suchard plant, and moved to Lititz. The mother of two was
considered attractive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On
Thursday, Aug. 31, 1939 her husband, Elwood Smith, arrived home from work to
find their children alone and his wife nowhere to be found. All of her clothes
and her purse were left undisturbed. She had told her
husband that she planned to take in the late movie. The children were left
playing on the porch and when they went inside their mother was missing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Elwood
Smith was convinced that his wife had been captured by "white
slavers" but Lititz Police Chief Clarence "Bosh" Kreider had
another theory. He was aware of the rumor that Mrs. Smith and her husband's
best friend, Earl Steely, had been carrying on an affair while her husband was
at work. Steely and Smith had grown up
together and remained friends even after both had married and started families.
Steely worked in Ralph Binkley's quarry, about two miles out of town and lived
in a small shack on the rim of the quarry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">By
Labor Day, Kreider had called in the Pennsylvania Motor Police and about the
only person in town not convinced of Steely's guilt was his long-time friend,
the husband of the missing woman. "I don't think Earl had anything to do
with Lucille's going away," Smith reportedly told Chief Kreider.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Kreider
had been to the Steely house a number of times in the preceding days and each
trip left him a little more convinced of his theory--but what was lacking was
evidence. Even the fact that Steely had missed work on Thursday with the alibi
that he was "just driving around," was insufficient. Steely's note to his boss that morning that
he won't be in to work and that his "happy days" were over, wasn't
enough to hold him on suspicion. When Steely returned home late Thursday nigh</span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">t, the idea that he and Mrs.
Smith had run off together was put to rest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On
one trip to the Steely home Kreider learned from the suspect's wife that he was
carrying dynamite and a detonator battery in his car, that the car had been
giving him trouble and, according to his wife, "He had a mind to blow it
up." He had also been drinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Labor
Day started early for Chief Kreider as he drove to Brickerville to interview a
witness in a recent tire theft. By noon he was having lunch and smoking a cigar
at Jim Enck's filling station in the crossroad village when a white-suited ice
cream truck driver arrived with startling news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That
morning (Labor Day, 1939) Paul Nessinger had been out training his hunting dogs
in the hills above Hopeland when he stumbled upon what he thought was a dead
fox about a hundred yards up the Horseshoe Trail off of Seglock Road (which
runs along Seglock Creek). On
recognizing it as a badly decomposed human body he walked to the home of Deputy
Sheriff Abe Lane to report his discovery. Lane called Cpl. Styles Smith at the
Ephrata State Police Sub-Station who joined the investigation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">From
Brickerville, Chief Kreider, on learning of the find from an ice-cream truck
driver, first called State Police investigators Thomas Lawson and Roy Radcliffe
who had originally been brought into the investigation just two days earlier</span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">. Then he called Spacht's
Funeral Home in Lititz where the body had been taken. The undertaker was able
to identify the badly decomposed body, which was first thought to have been a
man. Harold Cootes, brother of the missing lady, had recognized the clothing
and a ring that was on a finger.</span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> When asked how long she had
been dead the undertaker estimated about a week but went on to state flatly
that it was a murder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At
the funeral home, Lititz Burgess Victor Wagner joined the investigative team
and they were briefed by Deputy County Coroner Dr. Mahlon H. Yoder. It was
Yoder, who had a family practice on Main Street, who pointed out that the left
stocking had been rolled down to her ankle and the right had been ripped off
and tied in a knot around her neck, where it remained.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
investigators gathered a plaster casting of a tire track, which turned out to
be a Goodrich tread and pieces of enamel paint that broke off when the driver
backed into a tree chipping paint from the right rear fender</span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Nessinger
had seen the tracks leading off the road to the trail and knowing that a couple
of hundred yards up the trail were large boulders placed there to restrict use
of the trail to hikers and horses. On finding the body he was first concerned
that it might be one of the gangster murders that were then prevalent around
Reading (as Reading had become a vacation haven for the mobsters getting away
from both Chicago and New York).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Also
found at the scene, about 15 feet from
the body and hidden in the undergrowth, was a burlap bag containing five
woodsman's hand saws that had been stolen from Eberly's grist mill on Aug. 25.
Investigator Lowson noted, "If we can tie these saws in with the
case we'll have a first degree murder." Cpl. Smith also held a chip of rubber
from a tire that had struck a rock as the driver backed down the trail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
crime team returned to Lititz about 5 p.m. and concluded that Steely was most
probably the culprit and that an investigation of his automobile would prove
his guilt. They decided to go home for supper and meet at the fire house at 8
p.m. to stake-out the Steely homestead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div>
<!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Four
investigators, Lititz Police Chief Kreider, State Police investigators Lowson
and Radcliffe and Lititz Burgess Wagner huddled in a ramshackle shed on the
edge of the quarry to watch for Steely's return. They had become concerned when
they realized that the newspapers had reported the finding of the body, that
Steely had been drinking a lot lately and that his wife's report of dynamite in
his car had yet to be challenged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
moonless night was lit only by flashes of distant lightning and the rumbles of
thunder were becoming louder by the moment. At about midnight the storm had
reached the quarry and the shack in which they were hiding did little to keep
out the downpour--they were soaked to the skin. The chill was only made more
difficult by a second storm an hour later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"It's
3:30 a.m.," announced Lowson, "I feel like I have been here for a
month." A quick confab brought them to the agreement that Steely probably
saw the papers and skipped out. Lowson, an acknowledged sharpshooter, drew his
gun and inspected it for moisture before suggesting that they check the house
before leaving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On
approaching the Steely cabin they spied his car under a lean-to attached to
a small barn. They gathered cautiously
around the car to find a damaged rear right fender and the back seat torn up.
The battery was visible but the dynamite couldn't be seen. "Steely's our
man," proclaimed the Chief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Sending
the burgess and the chief to watch the back of the house, the two State Police
investigators knocked loudly on the front door, alarming Steely's 19 year-old
wife and elderly mother. They professed
no knowledge of the wanted man's whereabouts and were soon joined by the other
tenants of the building, Steely's younger brother and sisters and his four
year-old daughter. A search of the house revealed that they were telling the
truth and, in fact, were surprised to know that the car was on the property.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Outside
the house the posse determined to check the shed behind the house before
leaving the premises. Entering the shed they found it deserted and Radcliffe
mounted a rickety ladder to a trap door. Gun drawn he stuck his head above the
floor and Kreider asked if he found anything.
The response, "Not yet. Wait a minute until I. . .throw up your
hands or I'll shoot!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Steely
was found sitting on a cot across the room with his hands up. Lowson gingerly
kicked a small metal tank away from the cot as Kreider cuffed the up-stretched
hands. The tank contained "condensed gas."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After
two hours of interrogation at the fire house, Steely admitted the crime saying
that he and Lucille had been out on their third date, driving around in his car
and then parking. He was drunk and
wanted sex. She was not in the mood. At
one point she got out of the car and ran down the trail. Steely caught up with
her and talked her back into the car. After about an hour of talking and
arguing he grabbed her around the throat and strangled her. He then tore off
her right stocking and tied it around her neck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After
tossing the body out of the car he drove down the road about a quarter of a
mile and slept until morning. He then drove to the quarry and stole some
dynamite, intent upon blowing himself up. It was then that he wrote the note to
his boss and drove away. He couldn't convince himself to go through with the
suicide and a couple of days later, returned the explosives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Kreider
felt the story a bit suspicious as there was no mention of Mrs. Smith's glasses
or girdle, both of which are missing. He deduced that the murder happened
somewhere else and that the culprit drove the body to the place where it was
found. Kreider also asked about the saws and Steely swore that he knew nothing
about them. The chief's theory may well have been correct but it didn't matter,
Steely had admitted to the murder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
saws, it turned out, were most likely just a strange coincidence where two
crimes came together at the same scene. The bottle of "condensed gas"
was another botched attempt at suicide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On
the advice of his attorneys Steely entered a plea of guilty and a two-judge
panel, Oliver S. Sheaffer and C. V. Hardy, determined that it was, indeed,
first degree murder. The fact that he removed the stocking and tied it around
her neck was a premeditated act. Earl Steely was committed to Eastern State
Penitentiary in Philadelphia for the remainder of his life. He was twenty four
years old.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
crime made Lititz infamous as it was covered by most of the dime detective
magazines of the day. Chief Kreider remained head of the one-man police
department for decades, finally handing off the mantle of leadership to Officer
Lloyd Hoffman. But during his last years on the force, Kreider became famous
locally for giving up his driver's license and administering police justice
standing on the square stopping speeders with a thrill from his police whistle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h2>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hikers
and campers, including Scouts at nearby reservations, are often regaled by
stories of murder so foul by silk stockings within these very Furnace Hills.
There is a large nugget of truth to the campfire tales. So, beware…………</span></h2>
</div>
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Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com4Lititz, PA 17543, USA40.1573169 -76.30690140000001540.108770899999996 -76.387582400000014 40.2058629 -76.226220400000017tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-86116034647404068642013-08-08T11:54:00.003-04:002013-08-10T08:53:49.789-04:00Lititz Was Cool Even in 1959<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><i>This originally ran in the Lititz Record-Express in 2005. It has been updated and where known, [the current, 2013 occupants of buildings or businesses are shown in brackets]</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It’s
the summer of 1959. Take a walk with me from my home at 111 E. Lincoln Ave.,
west toward Broad Street and the Lincoln Avenue Garage [Lincoln Avenue Garage].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The International trucks parked on either
side of the ramp leading up into the garage are for sale and in a few years
they would be Scouts, the first vehicle to compete with the storied Jeep.
Further down the avenue at the corner with Broad Street we find Bart Sharp,
just returning from a birdwatching trip to White Oak, and his wife opening the
photo shop [For Lease] for the day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Further
west on Lincoln Avenue would take us past one of the five shoe companies [Outback Toys] then
operating in town (I never could remember if it was Badorf,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>B-G,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lititz,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alsam or A. J. Beford Shoe Company), and
Travis Mills [Cargill (Wilbur)] before getting to the brand new Lambert-Hudnut [Johnson & Johnson] Pharmaceutical
plant. But we are not going that way today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Turning
left we pass the American Legion [American Legion] and their brand new “air conditioned bar” and
at Front Street we encounter Zartman’s Dry Goods and Grocery Store [Shear Sensations]. They had a
novelty selection that rivaled<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Gearhardt’s 5 cent to $1 store [Hess Clothing] further south on Broad at Juniper Alley,
or the Jos. Harris Variety store [Cherry Acres] on East Main Street. Behind Zartman’s, in the
alley, is Flory Distributing [Apartments] where you can pick up your “Beer, Ale, Porter,
Soft Drinks” by the case. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Directly
across Broad Street are the Lititz Lanes [GONE} and all eight lanes now, in 1959, have
new A.M.F. automatic pin spotters. The bowling alleys sit back off Broad Street
and just to the south of the Warwick House [Toy Soldier], which has been there as long as the
town of Warwick has been part of Lititz. South of the Lititz Lanes is another
one of the shoe factories [Subway].</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
pug-nosed delivery truck for Cream Top Dairy drives by just having finished
morning deliveries to its home clients in Lititz. Penn Dairies and Queen Dairy
were the other Lancaster dairies that delivered locally. Graybill’s Dairy in
Halfville and Spruce Villa Dairy on Brunnerville Road at Newport Road rounded
out the options for home delivery of milk and other dairy products. At the time
most homes also had bread delivered by Manbeck’s, Holsum, Wright’s or Harting’s
bakery.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Crossing
Front Street and continuing south we stop and peer into the window of Vernon
Ranck’s meat market [Savory Gourmet]. The meat was fresh since Vernon butchered in the building
behind the shop a couple of times a week. But then so did the other butchers in
the area:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lutz at the Farmer’s Market on
Main Street; Emerson Knight in Penryn; Markley’s in Lexington; and Greenawalt
& Keck at Stauffer’s on Kissel Hill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Adjacent
to Ranck’s is Leaman’s Grocery Store [Uncle Funky's], one of perhaps a dozen neighborhood
groceries in town. Acme Market [Tiger's Eye], next to the LITITZ Theater [Teddy Bear Imporium] on Main Street is
now closed but Hiestand’s [ELA Group] has just opened a gigantic super market on the south
end of town at the foot of Kissel Hill (eventually selling out to Weis [Weis] who then
built an even bigger store across the street).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After
picking up a bologna sample from Vernon we continue south toward the creek
where we pause to take in the “air pollution” from the Wilbur Chocolate [Wilbur Division of Cargill International]
factory. They had just recently dropped the Suchard from their name.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Now we will cross the Reading Railroad [Norfolk Southern] tracks and
the creek and pause for a soft drink at Weaver’s Restaurant [GONE}.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Finding
a place to eat in Lititz is not a great challenge in 1959. Irvin’s Restaurant [Sturgis Haus]
is just next to the LITITZ Theater on Main Street in the Sturgis Hotel. The
Warwick House and the General Sutter [General Sutter] both offer lunch and dinner. Die
Brickerville Scheier is one of our favorite restaurants along US Route 322 in
Brickerville and there was the new Brickerville Snackette directly across the
road. For fast food there is Twin Kiss (better known as the TK) [GONE] on the north
edge of town and the Dairy Queen [Lititz Service Center] near the southern border of the borough. The
DQ didn’t last long and was soon replaced by a gas station.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">You
can also get a meal at Al Weber’s White Swan Hotel [White Swan] in Rothsville as well as the
Brunnerville Hotel [Brunnerville Hotel]. Another favorite eatery is Gert’s Place [Private Residence] in Rothsville.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Weaver’s
will eventually become famous as Bingeman’s Restaurant, another favorite haunt
for the mysterious writer of “Mid the Turmoil” in the Lititz Record-Express. In 1959 Les and Mary Bingeman
are still honing their skills as restaurateurs at the Penn Dairies Restaurant
in Neffsville—known by most as “the purple wall.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On
the wall inside Weaver’s is a clock advertising Rosey’s Ice Cream. The treats
were made in a garage behind the Front Street home (near Oak Street) of the
Rosenberg family. They had been selling ice cream treats street-by-street from
a big ice chest mounted on the back of a yellow Jeep. Earlier it had been a
full sized truck with the sides cut out to serve the neighborhood denizens.
This is the same Rosey who would get up early and park his truck near the
square on North Broad Street each Saturday and sell Roseyburgers—one of the
longest standing traditions in Lititz.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Next
to Weaver’s cum Bingeman’s was an empty storefront that had recently housed the
Western Auto Store and before that one of the two movie theaters in Lititz. The
restaurant and empty store will eventually be torn down leaving the side of the
Park View Hotel exposed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Floyd
Hagy moved the Western Auto into a new brick building [Days Gone By] on Main Street between
Benner’s Pharmacy [Cafe' Chocolate] and Sturgis Alley, next to Doster’s Grocery Store [Matthew 25] which was
across the street from the LITITZ Theater. Doster’s is unique in that it has
doors that open automatically when you step on the rubber mat, freeing your
hands to carry the bags of groceries. Downtown Lititz was a flourishing center
of trade and innovation in 1959.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Park View Hotel wins the all time award for appropriately named buildings in
Lititz as sitting on the full front porch or balcony you had a perfect view of Lititz
Springs Park. The view wasn’t really all that great until 1957 as the park entry was pretty well grown over with aging trees and vines and the two large columns
that held the wrought-iron gates in place were cracked and crumbling. In 1956, the fellow who brought the Lambert-Hudnut pharmaceutical factory to
Lititz would give the park board the money to completely rebuild the entry,
adding the large pool, and spruce up most of the park, opening the Elmer Holmes
Brobst era of Lititz history. By 1959 the park is beautiful and inviting.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In 1959 we are looking into Lititz Springs
Park and down a narrow lane next to the park. On the left is the Lititz Springs
Pretzel Factory [GONE]. The smell of baking pretzels (the old-timers still call them
bretzels) competes with the odor of coca beans roasting at the Wilbur Chocolate
Company which is on the north side of the park.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Having
been baked commercially in Lititz before anywhere else, the pretzel had become
an established snack food by the end of the decade of the 1950s. Lititz was
still a major manufacturer of pretzels with the original Sturgis Pretzel Bakery [Sturgis Pretzel Bakery]
cranking out bags of pretzels on East Main Street across from Linden Hall. In
these days the girls attending Linden Hall all had their “pretzel boxes” which
they would take to the factory and get free or very inexpensive broken pretzels
to keep as snacks in their rooms.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">P.
L. Kofroth, operating as “Old-Tyme, Hand-Made Lititz Pretzels” [GONE} had his bakery a
block east of Sturgis’ on Main Street.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Major
manufacturing and distribution of pretzels had shifted to Reading and in these
days before the mechanical twisters have taken over, most pretzels were still
twisted by hand. The story is told that it was one of the Sturgis brothers who
moved to Reading and founded the industry there. The unique part is that this
brother was left-handed and taught the people in Reading to twist pretzels left
handed. People in the pretzel business can actually tell a left-handed pretzel
from a right-handed pretzel. Machines would eventually make this little quirk
disappear.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Next
to the pretzel factory near the park is the warehouse building that the Spacht
family has given to the community to serve as a “community center.” It sits at
the end of North Spruce Street and directly up against the Lititz Springs Park.
Inside is a ballroom, a soda fountain (that was seldom used) and meeting rooms
for clubs and groups. “The Rec” is THE place to be on Saturday nights in the
summer time if you are a teenager. This is the place that I took my first date,
Yvonne Yeagley, for an evening of dancing and socializing.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Rec and the pretzel factory will soon be torn town and the Rev. I. Walton
Brobst Recreation Center will be built in their place. It would be the virtual
end to the pretzel industry in Lititz and would change the nature of the Rec
Center forever. The new building with it’s linoleum dance floor will never
replace the wooden plank floor of the old rec and it would never be as
inviting. Eventually, it too, will be replaced by a more modern facility and renamed Lititz Community Center. Many locals took the letters LCC and started calling it the Lititz Country Club. In 2013 it is the Lititz Rec and if affiliated with other similar operations in this part of the county.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Rock
and Roll is in the main stream by 1959, Elvis is still king but he is serving
in the Army leaving people like Bobby Darin and Paul Anka along with Bobby
Rydell and the media concoction called Fabian to fill the void. We spent our
allowances or earnings at Reedy’s Philco [Candy Ology or Glitz, I can't remember] across from the Post Office buying 45
rpm records and our week-ends going from community to community in search of
dances and midnight drags and submarine races.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So now, lets walk
south past Glassmyer's into the Lititz financial district.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Glassmyer's [Tomato Pie Cafe]
in 1959 is a drug store and soda fountain, one of three in town at the time. I
seldom went to Glassmyer’s, preferring instead McElroy’s [McElroy's], with it’s door
directly on the corner of Main and Cedar Streets. The high backed, dark wooden
booths and the long fountain with its round stools on pedestals is still my
prototype of a soda fountain all the way into the next century. Some of my
friends worked for Glenn McElroy as soda jerks dispensing, among other
concoctions, my favorite, the cherry phosphate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But
it was the bank of green-headed Hamilton-Beach mixers that made the best
milkshake in the universe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
third soda fountain was at Benners Pharmacy [Cafe' Chocolat] in the first block of Main St. but
it catered to an older crowd and I don’t remember even entering the place until
much later to get a, then famous, nickel cup of coffee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Going
south across North Alley (that was before Alleys were banned from Lititz and
they were all made into “Lanes.”) we come upon the imposing architecture of the
Lititz Springs National<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bank.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Lititz
Springs Bank [Citizen's Bank] was celebrating 50 years of service to the community having
started in 1909 with $7,494 in deposits and total resources of $36,994. By May
of 1959 deposits had grown to $7,215,182 with total resources in excess of
eight million dollars. But none of it was mine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My
little savings account and the Christmas Club accounts that my grandmother set
up for my sister and me were in the Farmers National Bank [Susquehanna Bank] next door on Broad Street.
They were boasting the newest banking craze—branch offices. You could then deal
with Farmers Bank in downtown Lititz or at their branch in the new Lancaster
Shopping Center, just south of US 30 between the Lititz and Oregon Pikes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Across
Broad Street from the banks was a row of Victorian houses that may have made up
the most classically beautiful block of homes in Lititz. They would soon be
torn down in a melee that included a gas station, Lititz Springs Park and moving a street that I will get into at some other time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">And
that brings us to “the square” which is actually a triangle. In 1959 it is much
the same as it will be in 2005 [and 2013]. It was here in 1957 where the community
gathered spontaneously to celebrate the victorious Warwick Union High School basketball
squad—perhaps still the most successful in the history of the school. Coach
Dean Miller and his assistant Leroy Troupe dismounted from the yellow school
busses after winning the Lancaster County championship on March 1. They again
addressed the crowd after defeating Manchester High School, York County on
March 12 to advance to the District 3, Class “B” PIAA finals.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Having won the county championship the thinclads went on to defeat York
County’s Manchester High School by a heart stopping score of 56 to 54. They had
previously defeated the Biglerville and Camp Hill teams as county champs.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Warriors (who started the season unofficially as “the Pretzels”) had amassed
1,518 points in the season, besting their opponents by 380 points. They grabbed
448 more rebounds than those they faced. But in the District 3, Class “B” PIAA
finals they ran into the Palmyra Palms and were soundly trounced 61 to 37.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When the yellow school busses holding the dejected Warriors pulled up to the
square the crowd was, if anything, larger than the ones previous that were
celebrating victories.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Coaches
Miller and Troupe introduced team captain Ed Harnley and the coaches brought
every member of the team onto the trampled flower beds to raucous applause. One
by one:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ed Larkins, Dick Allebach, Glenn
“Shorty” Martin, Ken Keener, Johnny Gibbel, Ron Roth, Nev Weit, Sam Nuss and
Jere Long were treated to cheers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
managers Dan Sheffy and Gerry Kemper got their share.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
other sports didn’t fare as well as the basketballers but the new Warwick Union
School District showed up in baseball, football, field hockey, boys (called
varsity) and girls tennis as well as a winning girls’ basketball team.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Coach
Joanne Smith and her managers Alice Gundrum and Theresa Cuccio supported a 7-3
winning season. The seniors were Captain Sue Myers, Mary Alice Diehm, Marilyn
Zartman, Susie Beck, Sally Sue Templeton, Pat Binkley and my grandparents’
neighbor on Cedar St., Lucy Hall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But
now it is time to cross the other leg of Main Street, pass the General Sutter
Hotel [General Sutter Hotel] and pop in on the firemen, enjoying a chat and a cigar sitting next to
the fire trucks with tires, in 1959, nearly as tall as I.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hess
Cleaners [Hess Clothing and Cleaners], “the only dry cleaner in Lititz,” was next to the fire house [Lititz Borough and Police Department] and
Gearhart’s Self-Service 5cent to $1 Store [Hess Clothing and Cleaners] was next to Juniper Alley (not then
“Lane”).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Gearhart family were great people but I never made friends with them because
their store was the scene of my own personal crime spree. Some years earlier I
was putting up my train set just before Christmas and the Plasticville log
cabin was situated behind a plastic log fence that was one section shy of being
complete. Soon thereafter I was in Gearhart’s, saw a section of fence in a 5 cent
bin. I put it in my pocket and walked out the door. It still bothers me, some
six decades later and I often wonder what would have happened to me had I been
found out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Most
likely I would have been reported to my parents and punishment would have been
swift and sure. Today kids get locked up for offences that, in my day, were
parental problems. I wonder if we are better off?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Sitting
at the fire house on South Broad Street in 1959 on folding wooden slat chairs,
the cigar smoke is pretty thick.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
fire house was still the social hub of the community with it’s Springtime
Strawberry Festival and the Chicken Corn Soup Festival in the Fall. Santa
handed each child in Lititz an orange from Stauffers ON Kissel Hill and a box
of Wilbur-Suchard chocolates from the decorated arch door to the fire house
kitchen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Even
in those days the battle raged over the Chicken Corn Soup—to add the skin or
not add the skin to the recipe. Some years it even went so far that the
pro-skin crowd would grind up the skin and dump it into the mix when no one was
watching. My grandfather was proud to have been the official Lititz Fire
Company soup dipper for more than 50 years until they came to an end soon after
the new firehouse (which was dedicated to him and Paul Diehm) was constructed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
remember attending my first Lititz Sportsmen’s Club “Smoker” at the fire house.
It was one of the all male events of the day, was bawdy and raucous and,
indeed, culminated with everyone (except me and the few other teenagers in
attendance) lighting up and puffing on a Phillies Cheroot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
second floor of the fire house contained a social room for smoking, chewing,
playing cards and shooting pool. Behind it was the Borough Office—one room that
the Council used for their meetings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
basement was the police department and the “lock up.” One of the town’s Boy
Scout troops met there (the other two, as I recall, met in the house next to
the Lutheran Church at Broad and Orange Streets, and in the Brothers House on
the Moravian Church campus).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Perhaps
the greatest mystery that Lititz ever held was viewable to me as I sat on that
folding chair in 1959 in the front of the fire house and looked across the
street. The great mystery was a house that was owned by a club. My grandfather
belonged to the club and he would go there regularly to play Hasenpfeffer or
Euchre. I never went inside it and no one ever talked about it. The Lititz
Record Express never wrote about it (that I could recall) and I don’t remember ever seeing a sign.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Lititz Young Men’s Business League (“The League”) is as much a mystery today as
it was then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now, there is hope for
future disclosure—our esteemed editor, Steven Seeber, it is reported, has been
inducted into membership. I wonder, did he get a membership card? [At the age of 68 this year I, too, became a member of the League].</span></div>
Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-20513000507954047052012-09-08T10:50:00.001-04:002012-09-08T10:51:10.284-04:00In Defense of Willared RomneyThe Republican nominee to be President of the United States is being unfairly attacked for not using the words Afghanistan, Soldier or Veteran in his acceptance speech. He has explained that he did use those words in a speech the day before to the American Legion (a speech that generally went un-covered by any media)in Indianapolis. He further stated that he did use the word Defense several times and that to him Defense and Soldier are the same.<BR><BR>
I call the attacks upon him unfair because, in his mind, he was not minimizing the importance of Defense. Further, his opinion was probably echoed by Democratic candidate Barry Obama in 2008--Defense and Soldier are synonyms.<BR><BR>
But after 3 and a half years of talking with, weeping with and praying with families of Soldiers (not Defense) who gave their last full measure of devotion to their country, Obama knows all too well the difference between Defense and Soldier.<BR><BR>
Yess, I give Willard a pass on this one but I don't give a pass to his party whose speakers were hell-bent upon making a name for themselves so that they can run for President in 2016 when the second and final Obama term ends. A party whose leaders in the past could legitimately be called heroes gave little notice to current war and warriors while threatening more un-necessary wars.<BR><BR>
Past Republican leaders have included Eisenhower, Dole, G.H.W. Bush and McCain. Now it is dominated by the neo-cons who have never served a day of military service but who rattle the chains of war loudly. Soldiers die when they have their way.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-46715789716849514662012-09-08T08:53:00.000-04:002012-09-08T08:53:20.098-04:00Spend, spend, spendNow is NOT the time to cut back on government spending. Now is the time to borrow more and spend more.<BR><BR>
Government's current borrowing rate is as low as it has ever been and, in fact, if it were any lower lenders would be paying for government bonds. But, I will agree, cheap money is not a good reason for going further in debt--unless there is a positive outcome.<BR><BR>
Bear with me, this is an argument that runs counter to all of the political statements you have heard from both sides. It is an argument based on Bill Clinton's "arithmetic" and unless you understand it, it sounds so very wrong.<BR><BR>
So here goes:
Government should borrow as much money as it can to do infrastructure projects. Projects like repairing roads, fixing bridges, constructing a 21st Century electrical grid. Few people are aware that our electrical grid was never designed, it was built in the beginning and middle of the last century and parts of it do not talk to other parts--it is one of the great disasters on the verge of happening. Like the dam construction that brought us out of the Great Depression, grid construction can pull us out of the Greatest Recession.<BR><BR>
Having borrowed the money, government then creates the projects, hires the workers. Feeder industries and support services build up around them. Unemployment is quickly down several points, middle class families have income and they (unlike millionaires who send their surpluses overseas to avoid additional taxation) buy stuff.<BR><BR>
Buying stuff forces the "job creators" to hire people to make stuff and the unemployment rate hits 4% (the point at which they call it "full employment").<BR><BR>
All of this employment generates taxes (and here is where the problem comes in because it requires honesty and common sense from the political crowd) with which the debt can begin to be paid down.<BR><BR>
But the simple fact is that austerity is not the solution to our debt problem, productivity is the solution and we come by that using the historically low cost of borrowing. AND we somehow get through to congress that extra income is not to spend but to pay off debt.<BR><BR>
Millionaires and small business owners may be the job creators but it is the middle class that are the demand creators. No jobs are ever created without demand.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-82309823711381240472012-08-31T10:39:00.000-04:002012-08-31T10:39:10.060-04:00Calling the electionRealizing that the citizens of the United States do not elect the President, I took a close look at the electoral map and all fear of a Romney victory just went away.<br><br> It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win election.<br><br> Currently 219 are in the firm or leaning Romney columns. 247 are in the firm or leaning Obama columns.<br><br> Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa and Colorado are toss-ups. For Romney to win he must have a near clean sweep of all of the toss-ups. For Obama to win he needs Florida (or Ohio and New Hampshire).<br><br> As I've said all along, incumbents win unless they do something to take themselves out. Barring a crucial international incident or a gaffe well over the level of which even Joe Biden is capable, this election is over.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-81871919267949623122012-08-27T20:25:00.000-04:002012-08-27T20:31:25.499-04:00Social Security is healthy and financially secure.Social Security is not going bankrupt, it just needs a debt collector<br><br>
When the Social Security System <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NB-G6sh2ZjY/UDwP41XRR9I/AAAAAAAAAHE/ZgIQz3P6UFo/s1600/dollar.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="64" width="64" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NB-G6sh2ZjY/UDwP41XRR9I/AAAAAAAAAHE/ZgIQz3P6UFo/s320/dollar.png" /></a></div>
was created in the 1930s there were more than 10 workers paying in to support one recipient of "Old Age Insurance." It was taking in a whole lot more than it was paying out and to hold the money and make sure that the system would be stable for decades to come they created the Social Security Trust Fund.<br><br>
Enter Congress. Looking for ways to make their excessive spending more palatable to the masses who would be needed to reelect them, they saw money building up in the Social Security Trust Fund. So they borrowed it.<br><br>
How much did they borrow? In order to answer that properly you need to know that our Congress has borrowed $1.17 trillion (with a T). As of this month Congress owes the senior citizens of the United States of America an astounding $2.7 trillion--that's more than twice as much as they owe to China.<br><br>
So there you have it--all we need to do is send a notice of collection to Congress and the Social Security System will be flush with cash.<br><br>
Failing that, we could ask them to make a monthly payment, just like they have to do for their Master Card. I think they should pay the Social Security Trust Fund $1 each month. Now that, of course would be on top to the 15% interest which comes to $40 billion so that the monthly bill would be $40,000,000,001 EACH MONTH.<br><br>
Social Security and Medicare do not have a problem--Congress does.<br><br>
Can I sue them for my trust fund money?Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-31401696424071478982010-01-01T10:12:00.004-05:002010-01-01T11:40:52.884-05:00Spy Agencies Failed to Collate Clues on TerrorI woke up to this headline in the <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> the other day and had a great idea. <br /><br />What we need in government is a central clearing house for sensitive and potentially dangerous information. This agency would be sort of a sensitive stuff tsar (I use this spelling because, for some reason czar is kind of out of fashion these days and tsar is simply an alternate spelling).<br /><br />But wait! Now I recall that such an agency already exists, in fact it is an entire new cabinet department--The <span style="font-weight:bold;">Department of Homeland Security</span>. So then, if we already have a sensitive stuff tsar, why the headline, and more importantly, why the attack?<br /><br />Now let me see, Mr. Peabody and I will take a ride on the wayback machine and take a look at the birth and rearing of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security in case you have forgotten).<br /><br />Soon after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 there were a lot of people asking how all of those people could have passed through the security grid on that day. What they quickly learned was that there was ample evidence to tag all of the conspirators and keep them from boarding those airplanes. The problem was that while the FBI knew one thing and the CIA knew another thing and the DIA and the NSA each had a piece of the puzzle, no one was in place to put the puzzle together--there was no FBICIADIANSA marriage bureau in federal government.<br /><br />The minority Democrats in Congress (the opposite of progress) said, lets make an agency to do that. The Bush administration said it was not needed and fought against a law that would create such an agency. Eventually enough Republicans bought into the concept and miraculously it became a Bush idea.<br /><br />Immediately (well, within two and a half years) they started putting demi-tsars in place with tentacles in every three letter section of the FBICIADIANSA. But, they also found a way for other agencies to dump parts of their mission into this new and growing department. So they dumped Immigration and Naturalization, Border Patrol and those folks at the airport who peer into your bags into the new department. Logical enough, they are directly involved with security matters.<br /><br />But, in order to make it the second largest department in government, and pick up a greater share of the money pie, they added some things that would have better been left alone.<br /><br />First, they ripped the heroes of our shores, the U. S. Coast Guard out of their nest in the Treasury Department and dumped them into DHS. Second, they also pulled the Secret Service out of Treasury and finally took the Federal Emergency Management Agency from its perch as an executive agency directly under the President and added it to the morass. This group of agencies was always looked upon with awe and as examples of well functioning federal activities. <br /><br />DHS took their funding and put it into the big pot. Each of the last three essentially saw severe budget cuts under their new masters. The Coast Guard has found ways to continue to do their sterling job without degradation of services but that may not last long. We all know what FEMA, denied direct access to the president, did in New Orleans. And now we are starting to see the chinks in the armor of the Secret Service.<br /><br />It has always been interesting to me that Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security, a career politician and public servant gave up in about two years and the spot was filled by a horse breeder. At least now we have someone in the position with public service experience, but without more power, Secretary Napolitano can not change the culture in the FBICIADIANSA.<br /><br />There is no way to un-explode the new agency, but there are ways to make it more efficient. That requires Congressional backing. Anybody want to guess if anything will actually be done about it? There will be plenty of words and virtually nothing of value will come out of it.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> should hang on to that headline, they will have opportunity to use it again. Unfortunately the next time real people will have died.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-69614509185946608132009-12-20T18:48:00.003-05:002009-12-20T19:06:54.136-05:00Get off Tiger Woods' caseCan I blow a whistle and throw a red flag?<br /><br />The penalty is “piling on” and I want to enforce a “shut the hell up penalty.”<br /><br />Tiger Woods is a very good golfer (I am told by some that he is the best there ever was). He plays golf in public, earns a lot of money and leads the lifestyle of a millionaire. None of that gives me—or anyone else for that matter—the right to know every intimate detail of his life. I don’t care if he has dozens of mistresses (God knows he can afford them), I don’t even care if he likes whips and chains or horses.<br /><br />I really liked it better in the days of Camelot when JFK was cheating on the woman every young man in America would have given any body part of your choice to spend just one night with her. We all kind of knew about the president and Marilyn Monroe and it was great sport to see the news reports of Marilyn in that slinky gold gown singing, “Ha------py, Birth------day, Mister Pres-------i----------dent.” He was good looking, had enough money to buy the presidency and was an unofficial member of the Las Vegas Rat Pack. The Secret Service was a-political in those days and just let things happen. Privacy was expected.<br /><br />This voyeuristic way of life began with Ken Star investigating a blow job in the oval office, for which we—the taxpayer—paid $40 million. And what did we—the taxpayer—get for the investment? Not a damned thing. President Clinton was charged (the official term is impeached) by the House of Representatives with “lying to congress.” The Senate did not convict him.<br /><br />The other thing that added to this explosion of voyeurism is the endless news cycle where they have got to find enough “news” to keep those crawls going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365.25 days per year. There ain’t enuf real news to do that so the TV talking heads revert to gossip, innuendo and planted stories.<br /><br />OK, Tiger Woods got some strange. That’s the news. How he resolves issues with his wife and others is none of our frigging business. Tell us when Nike cancels his contract or something newsworthy happens. Do not parade a boatload of tall blond floozies looking for their 15 minutes in front of me for hours and repeatedly.<br />We’ve had morality police forever. When the morality police gain control we have excesses—just ask the thousands of “heretics” who were burned at the stake by the good old Spanish Inquisition. Our modern morality police are the Talaban. Is that really the direction in which we want to be moving?<br /><br />Why don’t we all just mind our own damned business and get off Tiger Woods case. Let him resolve his family issues and get back to entertaining us on the golf course. And if after the game he decides to pick up a little strange, that is his business. It isn’t illegal and morality is something that is best left to the individual. I think it is what they call freedom.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-72721705123086913922009-11-20T15:33:00.003-05:002009-11-20T16:23:02.759-05:00He is our President wether you like it or notI am so fed up with this character assassination of the man who the majority of Americans elected to the Presidency that I am about to puke.<br /><br />First, I did not vote for President Obama, so don't start labeling me a liberal or a leftist. If anything I am a Republican who would like to have his party back from the screamers and the blubberers and the flat-out liars who now own the party.<br /><br />Second, I didn't vote for George W. Bush either. His flaky Air National Guard time was a poorly concealed effort to avoid the draft. As President he issued orders for an un-necessary war that has taken thousands of the flowers of our nation and extracted their futures. He regularly ignored the Constitution in many of his Executive Orders and I personally think that he will be remembered in history right along side the likes of Millard Filmore and Herbert Hoover. BUT, when the election was finished he became MY President--I didn't like it but the majority had spoken. The Constitution says that he was qualified and properly elected. I reserved the right to complain but I never wished for his assassination or demanded that he resign because I don't like him.<br /><br />The constant drone of fanatical right-wing drivel is actually causing me physical pain. The latest nonsense, a photo of the President on a dais bedecked with U. S. flags where everyone is saluting except for him. The perpetrator of this nonsense screams out that he shouldn't be Commander in Chief if he won't salute the flag. In his email he says he has no idea what is going on but everyone else is saluting, why isn't he? Good question, so I went to a video of the ceremony and surprise, surprise--the photo was taken during the playing of "Hail to the Chief." The Obama-is-wrong-no-matter-what crowd would be up in arms if he had saluted himself, wouldn't they?<br /><br />Birthers, Death Panels, even lies about reducing my access to health care through my military retirement are all absolute lies that many people will not check because they simply WANT them to be true. Folks, it doesn't work that way. Miss Hoffman, my first grade teacher, taught me that before I pass on rumors about someone else I should first seek the truth--did all these people miss first grade?<br /><br />This country is in real trouble (as it is most of the time) and I, personally, want the President and his administration to concentrate on those problems, not on the lies and ignorance that are proclaimed daily by the cuckolds of the Republican Party. I firmly believe that ANYONE who advocates or even suggests the assassination of a President of the United States should quickly find themselves in the domestic version of Guantanimo Bay. The well known Secret Service should be earning their pay by rounding these people up and then shutting them up.<br /><br />Where is the Republican Party of the past that knew how to be the "loyal opposition" and to whom I would go for truth? Those leaders are all gone and have been replaced by un-truthful pervayors of whatever venom is flowing from the fangs of the T-party organizers and the "entertainers" who dominate talk radio. My beloved Grand Old Party has become the realm of bumper stickers and talking points and absolute fabrication.<br /><br />Truth, where art thou?Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-34504744494560311072009-11-18T02:14:00.005-05:002009-11-18T11:14:39.599-05:00The UPC and Five Guys burgers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/SwOi0gedGUI/AAAAAAAAACY/oNw6bn15huI/s1600/UPC.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 129px; height: 75px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/SwOi0gedGUI/AAAAAAAAACY/oNw6bn15huI/s320/UPC.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405343000729295170" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/SwOiPx3qglI/AAAAAAAAACQ/lVgQfy792rs/s1600/FiveGuys.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 137px; height: 92px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/SwOiPx3qglI/AAAAAAAAACQ/lVgQfy792rs/s320/FiveGuys.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405342369743274578" border="0" /></a><br />Everyone today knows what a UPC is.<br /><br />The ubiquitous Universal Product Code is the little white rectangle located somewhere on everything that tells the computer what the item is, how much it costs and probably a whole lot more.<br /><br />I went to sleep one night in the 70s or 80s not ever having seen a UPC and the next morning everything had one. Nobody ever stood up in a press conference and said, “I did it.” No newspaper or television talking head ever read the press release announcing the birth of the UPC. It just simply appeared—everywhere—on the same night.<br /><br />Ever since then I have wondered where it came from, how it was agreed upon, who mandated it and even who came up with the design. I’ve Googled it. I’ve looked for it on Wickapedia. I asked my next door neighbor. Nobody knows, and even more fascinating is the fact that no one seems to care.<br /><br />I’ve learned to live with it only slipping back into my “I wonder” mode a few times a year. At one time I thought it was done by the CIA. Another year it was Schwan’s (you know, the big yellow trucks that are everywhere but few people have ever bought anything from them). Then at another time I worried that it was some kind of terrorist plot—but to resolve that one I simply stopped watching the Fox Everything is a Terrorist Plot Network. Honestly I had almost given up on the quest for that bit of knowledge. Then it happened—the light flashed and it all became clear.<br /><br />Last night I went to Five Guys for supper. Now if you don’t know what Five Guys is, you are forgiven because soon it will be revealed to you. Five Guys is a relatively new fast food eatery. The walls are generally unadorned, your table is placed among 50 pound bags of Idaho potatoes. Their menu consists of Burger, Cheeseburger or Bacon Burger, a “Little” version of that trio, hot dogs and fries. Red and white tiles line the walls and above the tiles are quotes from restaurant critics and newspapers extolling the virtues of the burger chain.<br /><br />You walk in the storefront, walk to the big red letters “Order Here” and order. You find a table, get a handful of peanuts and sit down to await your number being called. As you look around you spot the sign that says: “Today’s Potatoes Are From” with the name of the town in Idaho where they were grown scribbled on the sign with a Sharpie.<br /><br />As you watch them prepare your order—everything is done right out in the open—you see someone pick up a Styrofoam cup, fill it with fries then put your fries and your burger (in its aluminum foil raiment) into a bag. Then he scoops up another order of fries and drops them into your bag.<br /><br />Rumor has it that they started in Washington DC. President Obama is probably their most famous customer. I first tasted the best burger in the world a year ago and now they appear to be everywhere. We found one in Lancaster, York and Harrisburg, PA and we ate our way down I-81 all the way to Orlando and Ocala, Florida.<br /><br />As I said, last night I was sitting in the Five Guys in Orlando and it dawned on me. I was marveling at the fact that in less than a year there were Five Guys almost everywhere—almost “overnight.” Who in the world could make something expand so quickly? Hmmm, it has to be the same guys who made the UPC appear. Who in the world could do that?<br /><br />I looked at the white tiles and thought Frosty the Snow Man. I looked at the red tiles and thought Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Of course==the master of the one-night miracles. The only person in the world who can visit every house in that world from sunset to sunrise all in one night, and at the stroke of midnight in most. And, do it all without being spotted by 99.999996706 percent of the population. (There is that report from Little Jimmy Dickens about what he spotted his mommy doing)<br /><br />So now it is revealed, the creation and implementation of the UPC and the rapid expansion of Five Guys could only have been accomplished by Santa Claus. Now we know he does work more than one night a year.<br /><br />It is oh, so obvious. I could kick myself for not figuring it out earlier.<br /><br />I’ve been a verrrrrrrry good boy!Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-43577993730215353182009-10-23T11:15:00.000-04:002009-10-23T11:17:09.947-04:00Obama's Fox War Front is a Bad IdeaWhile I agree completely with the Obama Administration’s assessment that Fox News is no more “news” than its “Fair and Balanced” slogan means either fair or balanced, I also feel that attacking Fox is a mistake.<br />Way back, the first time Don Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense, he had an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs named Bill Greener. I once heard him talk at a Defense Information School (where they teach military public affairs officers their trade) symposium. His central theme was the Greener Dictum which simply stated is “Never argue with the man who buys ink by the barrel.” Today he would most assuredly add, “or the one who has control of the 24-hour news cycle.”<br />Obama has nothing to gain from attacking Fox. It will simply cause more people to watch Fox to find out what he is talking about.<br />The thing is, since Fox News does not rely on news sources for its information (most of its stories are Republican Party talking points or the amplification of the crazies) they lose nothing in not having access to the White House sources. Major Garrett, the Fox News reporter assigned to the White House, is a credible, working journalist but please note how little air time he gets as compared to, say, Fox’s current star, Glenn Beck.<br />Beck and his fellow-travelers take the Republican Party talking points and amplify them with information not base on any facts what-so-ever. The rantings about “death panels” or the screams of the “birthers” and Beck’s own horror of calling the President a racist are what pumps up his far-right audience.<br />The Obama administration can not out-scream Fox—doing so is beneath the dignity of the office of the President of the United States. Rather than try to excoriate Fox the Obama Administration’s truth squad would do better to counter the crazies who come up with death panels and release so much information on the President’s birth, including eye witness accounts, that the birthers just slake away looking for other sources of mis-information to scream.<br />The Obama Administration has not yet figured out that we are in a bumper sticker world and they must learn how to state their objectives in one sentence of less than 10 well crafted words. Their last effective bumper sticker was Bill Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid.”<br />I hate it and I read as much as I can and I watch as many divergent views as I can but the fact remains that more than 95 percent of this country is incapable of internalizing any message that takes more than one sentence to explain. Every administration must learn that message.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-77489796682989313142009-07-20T20:36:00.000-04:002009-07-20T20:38:33.011-04:00Researchers Check Sources<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGlenn%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGlenn%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGlenn%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> 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class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">I am spending the summer as a Park Ranger at <a href="http://www.nps.gov/gett">Gettysburg National Military Park</a>, PA where I make presentations to the public and answer questions at the Visitor Center.<span style=""> </span>It’s the best job I ever had and I am loving every minute of it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">But today I almost died of laughter.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Sitting in the Interpretive preparation area of the new Visitor Center with Rangers Dan Welch and Liz Dietzen I was working on my Battle Overview Powerpoint presentation.<span style=""> </span>Dan was reading “Command and Communication Frictions in the Gettysburg Campaign” by Phillip M. Cole.<span style=""> </span>As I walked by him, knowing my background in the Marine Corps, he said, “Whenever two Marines are together, one is in charge.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Kind of surprised at the comment I agreed and he continued, “Really, it’s right here in this book.”<span style=""> </span>He then started paging through the book looking for the quote and eventually found it on page 9.<span style=""> </span>Then like any good researcher we went to the footnote to find the source.<span style=""> </span>I waited patiently for him to find the footnote, which read, “. . . Glenn B. Knight, editor and compiler, <i style="">Unofficial Dictionary for Marines</i> [Internet Address: <a href="http://4mermarine.com/USMC/dictionary.html">http://4merMarine.com/USMC/dictionary.html</a> copyright 2002-2005].”<span style=""> </span>Yes, the source was me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">The dictionary got its start as a 12-word glossary for members of my Yahoo group, MyMarine.<span style=""> </span>The group is for parents, relatives and friends of Marine Corps Recruits—we help them to get through the often mysterious 13-week roller-coaster ride that is Marine Corps Boot Camp.<span style=""> </span>It can be found at <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mymarine/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mymarine/</a>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">The Unofficial Dictionary for Marines is just exactly that.<span style=""> </span>It is FOR Marines and it comes with a warning that the information contained within it is not politically correct, is sometimes obscent and somethimes even borders on the pornographic—but is is the lexicon used by Marines from 1775 to yesterday.<span style=""> </span>Please don’t check it out if you are easilly offended.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Marines love it.<span style=""> </span>Others think it is just in bad taste.<span style=""> </span>I’ve enjoyed collecting it, verifying it and publishing it.</span></p> Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-53578861199527339122009-07-19T22:30:00.001-04:002009-07-19T22:31:38.847-04:00How many Hectacres in a Rod?If you had to remember a series of numbers and your ability to buy groceries, build a house or even talk with your neighbor depended on remembering them, which of the following sets would you choose?<br /><br />1-12-3-5,280<br /><br />1-10-100-1000<br /><br />Now consider that in the first set, there is no true universal value for the 1.<br /><br />In the second set, the 100 represents a fixed length which is a specific fraction of the length of the equator.<br /><br />The first set of numbers is also only used by you and your family.<br /><br />The second set is used by everyone else on the planet.<br /><br />Now, which one would you logically choose? Unfortunately those of us living here in the good old U. S. of A are stuck with and hide bound to the first set of numbers that was invented by the British. Even the British have stopped using it.<br /><br />Originally, a foot in length was exactly that—the length of the King’s foot. Somebody decided to divide that length up for smaller measures so they used 12. Why? Well, because the length of the King’s thumb from the tip to the first knuckle was what they called an inch and on most Kings it required 12 thumb lengths to measure the King’s foot.<br /><br />Three of the King’s feet combined to make a measure they called a yard (the distance between the King’s nose and his out-stretched hand) and 5,280 of the King’s feet constituted a mile (it had originally been 5,000 Roman feet but the British wanted their own system after they kicked the Romans out). For property measures they even added in the acre and the hectacre, along with some perches and furlongs just to provide a fudge factor.<br /><br />The British, not the brightest candles on the international cake, in my opinion, were smart enough to dump that ridiculous and cumbersome system of measure for the much simpler and more logical metric measurement system. In metrics, every measure is ten times the size of the previous measure.<br /><br />We fought two wars with the British to end their heavy-handed influence over us and we became a sovereign nation. So why do we fight so hard to hold on to a British tradition that even the British realize was terminally flawed?<br /><br />The biggest reason, I am told, is that it is so difficult to convert from a mile to a kilometer—is it 1.62 kilometers to a mile or 62 or .62?<br /><br />Who cares? A kilometer is a measure just like a mile is a measure. I know that a mile is about the distance between my house and Route 26. I make no effort to convert that distance—it is just a distance and I have a reference for it.<br /><br />A kilometer is about the distance from my house to the entrance to Bethay Bay. I don’t need to convert it to or from anything—it is just a distance and I have a reference for it.<br /><br />Even our own military measures things in metrics and most soldiers know that a “klik” is the difference in distance that an artillery round flies when the elevation is adjusted one click. It is almost exactly a kilometer. Why are we holding on to a confusing, antiquated system that the rest of the world, including the British who invented the system, has already given up?Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-43626750982760482662009-07-17T19:30:00.002-04:002009-07-17T19:35:52.802-04:00Selnplig is irlvneletMy last incarnation in journalism was as a typesetter and proofreader for <span style="font-style: italic;">The Delaware Wave. </span>As such I spent a lot of time looking for typos and misspelled words. No publication is ever free of errors so I guess the job is rather futile, but I have always been convinced that spelling and grammatical errors are bad things and should be avoided.<br /><br />I was incensed, a couple of years ago, when the latest W.E.B. Griffin book came out and I was one of the first to read it, only to find that it was replete with errors of every kind. There were even factual errors of the type Griffin never makes (a Marine captain was identified throughout the first two chapters as a corporal -- inexcusable). The very worst kinds of errors are errors in fact and this was a big time error in fact.<br /><br />So upset was I with the unprofessional presentation of this ninth in his series of books about Marines, that I wrote a review for Amazon.com suggesting that he fire his publisher.<br /><br />Now comes something that has shaken my entire belief system. A computer newsletter called Knowledge News recently included this letter from Rebecca J. Favro.<br /><br />Daer Hguh,<br />Tihs is pertty inrettesnig! Aoccdrnig to rseearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are. The olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses, and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.<br />Ceehiro,<br />Rbeka<br /><br />George Orwell, in his book 1984, shook my belief system with his explanation of newspeak -- his theory that all unnecessary words will eventually be eliminated so that an entire sentence can be written in one word. Sort of like the German language to the max.<br /><br />My one course in linguistics at Millersville State College started me to wonder about the future of spelling. But to now find out that spelling is truly irrelevant is a blow to my professional psyche.<br /><br />I, oddly, find myself sort of without words -- spelled correctly or not.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-40821504380765163622009-07-16T08:40:00.002-04:002009-07-16T08:43:09.060-04:00An Ode to the P-38<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/Sl8gEFKFXvI/AAAAAAAAABA/Os9xeM1RX4M/s1600-h/canopener.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 305px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/Sl8gEFKFXvI/AAAAAAAAABA/Os9xeM1RX4M/s320/canopener.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359037336070217458" border="0" /></a><br />I had occasion recently to require the immediate use of a Philips screw driver. I later needed to scrape a sticker off a window. Then I ran into a situation in which a paint lid had to be pried up. A box had to have the tape sliced in order to open it and the clay mud on my shoes had to be scraped off. And then there was that can that had to be opened.<br /><br />In each case I reached into my left pocket, extracted my key ring and applied my well-worn P-38 to the task at hand.<br /><br />World War II aviators and aviation buffs will recall the P-38 as the “Lightning,” a versatile twin-tailed pursuit (thus the P) aircraft, but that is not what I carry on my key ring.<br /><br />What I have with me always is another P-38 that can do almost anything—the universal tool. It was originally designed to open the aluminum cans that were boxed inside every C-ration issue. C-rats, as we called them, contained olive drab cans of various combinations of meats and vegetables (the very early models had paper labels which frequently tore off leaving a mystery-meal for the soldier in his foxhole—they eventually learned how to print directly on the can). Also included was an accessory pack containing chiclets, a small package of cigarettes, salt, pepper, sugar, eventually creamer and a napkin—you get points in combat for being neat.<br /><br />Each case of Cs—another nickname—contained a pack of five P-38s which were doled out to the newbies, thrown out or hoarded by supply sergeants.<br /><br />In the field my P-38 kept me well nourished with a wide range of high calorie food, including a chocolate disk wrapped in aluminum foil that was made by Wilbur-Suchard back in my home town of Lititz, Pa. The cigarette packs were part of a grand scheme to hook a couple of generations of Americans on smoking. Heck, at the end of every daily version of the Camel Caravan of News, John Cameron Swayse made an announcement that cases of Camel cigarettes were being delivered to a VA hospital for our veterans.<br /><br />While I was in boot camp at Parris Island, SC in 1963 I was given a box of Cs and the cigarettes in the accessory pack were Lucky Strikes—in green packaging. At the beginning of World War II Lucky Strikes made a big announcement that Lucky Strikes green was going to war. Green paint was in short supply and the cigarettes began to sport a mostly white package for the war effort. That meant that my Cs were at least 20 years old.<br /><br />Boot camp was where I got my first P-38 and I haven’t been without one since.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-26191960703138383072009-07-15T19:50:00.001-04:002009-07-15T19:51:33.490-04:00The Hunt for John ZwiffelWill the real John Zwiffel please stand up!<br /><br />Many, many years ago in a land far, far away (actually it was Milwaukee) I made a serious attempt to drink the town dry. In any town but Milwaukee I might have succeeded.<br /><br />Every night after work we would adjourn to the bar across the street to re-hash the day’s activities and get home in time for a quick nap before heading back to work the next day. It was in Milwaukee that I learned the trick of downing a shot of peppermint schnapps after the first case of beer to settle the bubbles and allow me to imbibe on even more roots, barks and hops. Milwaukee has a bar on every corner and often one in the middle of the block in case you get thirsty crawling from one to the other.<br /><br />Evening and week end entertainment either centered on a keg of the local brew or involved drinking—like bowling which is a sport lubricated by foam and made more palpable under a hazy stupor.<br /><br />When, in 1976 I was selected as the most outstanding military noncommissioned officer in Milwaukee I was given a plaque from the Eagles Club and a party each by Miller, Schlitz and whoever-the-heck-the-third-brewery-in-town-was.<br /><br />Lets just say, I drank a lot.<br /><br />This is, however, not a tale of drunken debauchery or skidding to the bottom to fight my way up by my own boot straps. At some point in my life I just got tired of the routine “pleasures” and quit.<br /><br />I remember little of the “good times” and sometimes that really scares me. One day, after an all night party I decided to clean out my wallet and found a piece of paper folded and tucked into the place where the dollar bills had been if I had not spent them all on beer. On that torn corner of a notebook page was the name “John Zwiffel” and a phone number in my own hand writing.<br /><br />I do not remember ever knowing of meeting anyone named John Zwiffel and while I wanted to know who he is, I never wanted to call and find out. So I carried the piece of paper with me—for two decades—often opening it up and staring at the name and number. Always putting it back into my wallet until one day, about five years ago, when I got bold and threw it out.<br /><br />John Zwiffel still haunts me, but, thankfully, I don’t have the number so I can’t call to resolve the mystery.<br /><br />Yesterday, I picked up some papers to put away and the corner of a notebook page fell onto the floor. I picked it up and in my own hand was a telephone number that I didn’t recognize. My wife didn’t recognize it either as we pondered it and then in unison said: “John Zwiffel.” I threw it out immediately.Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-63552331407815322222009-07-15T18:11:00.005-04:002009-07-17T19:39:40.369-04:001957 Chevrolet<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/Sl5U_SAYNqI/AAAAAAAAAAw/Ss4TLj2HguU/s1600-h/1957+Chevy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 314px; height: 164px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_r_af0PxcsGY/Sl5U_SAYNqI/AAAAAAAAAAw/Ss4TLj2HguU/s320/1957+Chevy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358814052759385762" border="0" /></a><br />1957 Chevy.<br /><br />If you live in the United States and are not Amish or a member of the Henry Ford family, you know exactly what I am talking about. It may be the closest thing to a universal phrase.<br /><br />Even when I was in Turkey I ran into the 1957 Chevy—thousands of them. A Turkish company bought the dies from General Motors and makes “new” 1957 Chevys. Your choice for an auto in Turkey is the classic Murat (a Turkish version of the Fiat coupe), a Mercedes or a 1957 Chevy.<br /><br />While a student at Warwick High School I drove a 1952 Ford. But I still knew what a 1957 Chevy was. And in those days you could tell a 1952 Ford from a 1957 Chevy. 1957 was also the time of the Plymouth fin wars. Fins were in and Plymouth took them to the extreme, particularly in the Sport Fury. That same year, Mercury added a distinctive tail that was highlighted by a gouged out section leading back to the slanted taillights. Sears stopped making the Allstate in 1954 so three years later no one remembered them.<br /><br />The distinctive Buick portholes were elongated in 1957 and the car still had the image of being the “Doctor’s car”. Cadillac started the fin wars back in 1951 but it was not until 1959 that the shark’s dorsal would dominate the line. Even though they were technically smaller than the Plymouth, the 1957 Dodge Dart fins were the most obvious. The Dart actually looked like a dart. The DeSoto looked a bit like the Plymouth but it still was unique enough to be its own marquee.<br /><br />The Edsel, with its distinctive “horse-collar” grille and 50-pound speedometer would be introduced in 1958 with unprecedented advertising and fanfare. Ford gave up on the line just a few years later. The 1957 Hudson Hornet would be the last of its breed but many of us will never forget the gaudy grille side swoosh.<br /><br />The 1957 Lincoln looked like it had a jet air intake just behind the front door, leading back into a fin that could well have been the stabilizer for a “modern” jet airplane. That year the Nash stuck with its poor imitation of an upside-down bathtub. By 1958 they were no longer producing the brand. They did, however, keep making the mini-Nash, the Metropolitan, well into the next decade.<br /><br />Just say Studebaker and the images of a small, sleek, and totally unique vehicle flash to mind.<br /><br />So what’s my point? Those of us who lived during the 50s and 60s remember our cars. We remember the distinctiveness of the nameplate. We remember who rode in which car to which dance or which game or whichever. Can someone tell me the difference between a 2001 Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Saturn or even an Oldsmobile for that matter? The most accurate comment that comes to mind is the politically incorrect, “They all look the same to me.”<br /><br />(Note: This column appeared in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Lititz Record-Express</span> in 2001 but even with the recent changes in the auto industry it rings true today.)Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295603775503861561.post-57625202213028344312009-07-15T07:48:00.001-04:002009-07-17T19:38:31.816-04:001956<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGlenn%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The year was 1956. It began with Tennessee Ernie Ford at number one on the Billboard Top 10 with “Sixteen Tons” and ended with Elvis in the top spot with “Love Me Tender.” It began for me with snow days from Lititz Elementary School and ended with seventh grade in the new Warwick Union High School.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ike was president and early in the year he survived his second heart attack, then announced that he would seek reelection. Most surprising though was the fact that he was keeping Richard Millhouse Nixon on the ticket with him. But it was no surprise when Ike trounced Adlai Stevenson taking 41 states in the fall election.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bill Haley and the Comets hit the charts in March with “See You Later, Alligator.” Our parents were still convinced that big band, jazz and pop music would soon regain its popularity and “Rock and Roll” as it was named by Alan Fried, would soon become a passing phase. Harvard had just raised its tuition from $800 to $1,000 per semester and campuses across the country were being plagued with “Panty Raids.”</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Actress and Philadelphia native Grace Kelley was making preparations to become royalty and Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller. The collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm attracted our attention as did the futile rebellion in Communist controlled Hungary and the collision of two airplanes over the Grand Canyon, killing 128 people.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My home town of Lititz, PA was celebrating 200 years as a community with bowler hats for the gents and bonnets for the ladies, beards and the “Brothers of the Brush.” In addition to the normal Memorial Day and Halloween Parades, Lititz had a Bicentennial Parade and a Fireman’s Parade—the Lancaster County Firemen’s Association annual convention was held in Lititz.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The LITITZ Theater brought “Around the World in Eighty Days” as well as “The King and I” and Ingrid Bergman as “Anastasia” to our fair community. On the new medium of television it was the era of the game shows with the “64 Thousand Dollar Question” leading that movement. An era in entertainment ended when the venerable Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that it was retiring its big top and would be holding its spectaculars in stadiums and arenas.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And in Montgomery, Alabama a lady named Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front of the bus and was ejected by police. A local minister led a successful boycott of busses and businesses in that community—his name was Martin Luther King. Warwick High School had no minority students or faculty.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Lititz Rec (in the old Spacht warehouse at the north end of Spruce Street) was beginning to hold teen dances and its new director, Bill Bell, was doing more to bring in the teenagers. We were listening to WLAN out of Lancaster and WSBA in York was working up to an all rock-and-roll format.</span>
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<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A year of change, of new beginnings and a brand new high school. Such was my 1956.</span>
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<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> Glenn B. Knight, CIGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413513917576166013noreply@blogger.com0