Life is a Contact Sport

It was probably in the neighborhood of fifteen years ago....I was managing WMAN Radio, a long time Ohio State Football affiliate, and we had the team bus scheduled to arrive at an empty storefront at Richland Mall to sign autographs and meet the public. My partner in crime and sales manager, Margie Tasseff, and I had cleaned up the empty store, brought in food for the players and we eagerly awaited the arrival of the bus. Assisted by our sales staff and the on air staff, now the fans were arriving to wait in line.   Hundreds of people were gathering to meet the players, coach John Cooper and former Heisman trophy winner, Archie Griffin.



Planning ahead I had purchased half a dozen footballs for everyone to sign, thinking we could use them as giveaways on the air during the upcoming season. That morning I had received a telephone call from a father whose little boy had broken a leg and was in the hospital recovering. The little guy had been looking forward to meeting Archie Griffin, and now he wasn’t going to be able to do that. Dad asked if I could possible get Archie to sign a poster for the little boy; I agreed that I would.



The day moved in fast forward, but everything was ready as our staff waited for the team to arrive. Finally we got word that the bus had pulled up, and soon a crowd of young men and their entourage filled the room.



In those days my friend Ed Douglas worked for WBNS, the OSU flag station in Columbus, and traveled with the team to these events.  As we stood and chatted the football players ate everything in sight and prepared to sign autographs and take pictures with the crowd that now lined the mall. Soon we were greeted by Archie Griffin, a very pleasant man who greeted the public and my staff graciously. I knew it would be a big success, and I was very happy with the direction in which things were proceeding.



I have to say here that I am the most ignorant human being on the face of the planet when it comes to sports. When something doesn’t interest me I have the ability to purge all that information on that particular subject from my mind….and that has always been the way I’ve dealt with any sports. I don’t care; I do not have the voyeuristic need to watch people play sports. When it came down to sports the arrangement with Margie, a true sports fan, we agreed that I would always smile, nod and let her answer any questions about sports. It worked pretty well for a lot of years.



Suffice it to say I hadn’t a clue who Archie Griffin was, although everyone else was really excited to meet him. As I stood and chatted with Archie and Ed I told Archie about the little boy in the hospital and how his Dad had delivered the poster to the radio station for me to have him sign for the child. Archie asked if the child was in a local hospital and I told him he was. That’s when he floored me with, “Well, we have time to go see him if it’s close. We can be back to sign autographs….let’s go!”



Impressed and really surprised I loaded Archie Griffin and Ed Douglas into my car and off we went to Med Central to see the little boy. At that time of night there was no problem finding a parking place, but as we walked into the hospital people looked, then looked again, and  I heard voices chiming….”Hey, Archie!” We were surrounded by half a dozen fans as we moved to the elevators.

Heading up to the room in the elevator I turned to Archie and said, “Didn’t you play with a helmet on? Everyone knows who you are,” which elicited a big laugh from the football icon.



Once on the floor we walked up to the child’s room and I entered first. A toe headed little boy of about six was flat on his back, his little leg suspended in the air in a heavy white cast. His Mom sat by his bed, and I think there were a couple of other people in the room with them. Walking up to the bed I explained to the little fellow that there was someone here who wanted to meet him; right on cue Archie Griffin walked in wearing a grin from ear to ear. I don’t think I’ve seen many children happier than that little boy was at that moment as his idol stood by his bed. We had brought one of the footballs with us, Archie signed that ball and I believe the child’s cast as well. Dad showed up about that time, having been to the mall to make sure I hadn’t forgotten the poster. It was one of those moments I won’t forget.



Back in my car I turned to Archie Griffin and said, “Mr. Griffin, I may not know anything about football…but I do know a thing or two about people. That was a very nice thing you just did.” Then I called home to tell my husband that I had Archie Griffin in my car and I wished he could be there. He just groaned that this was the final proof that there is absolutely no justice in this world.



I took Ed and Archie back to the mall, where he shook hands and signed footballs and did everything he could to make our radio station look good. What a rare individual; I’m not at all surprised he’s still so popular with Ohio State fans.



A few years after our caravan tour I was at an Ohio State Affiliates dinner at the Wigwam, owned by the Wolfe family, in Columbus. Archie Griffin was there, smiling and shaking hands as he served as the official OSU greeter. The line finally deposited me in front of him and I was certain he wouldn't remember me; I would never have said anything to remind him as the long line of people pressed in behind me. Archie took my hand, shook it and smiled as he met my eyes and said, "Still don't know anything about football, do ya?"



I've met some very interesting and gracious people throughout my career....I think Archie Griffin is at the top of the list.



                                                                      LIFE IS GOOD

The "Turtle-ing" of America

Our manic dependency upon our electronic devices was brought sharply home when my semi-hysterical granddaughter ran into the house to tell the group gathered in the family room that her cell phone was at the bottom of the pond.   This latest acquisition, just a week old, had all her contacts, her pictures on a chip, her messages , emails, and probably all her hopes and dreams in its slender case…..AAAAAAAHHHHRRRRRRRGGGGGH!!!!           Oh the humanity…..

As I sat watching the drama unfold it occurred to me that there has been a “turtle-ing” of our society.  I’ve created that word to point out that, like the lowly turtle that carries everything he owns in the shell on his back, we have come to do the same thing with our electronic devices.    Every phone number we’ve ever collected….pictures of special events, decorating changes, building progress and other odds and ends.   And let’s not forget our file cabinet of recipes, work information, medication lists and appointments and addresses…..on and on and on.

If you have your iPhone or iPad with you it seems you have your whole family in there too.   I know people who watch their grandchildren grow over SKYPE sessions……parents who keep an eye on their children who are home alone with face time.  One couple I know doesn’t let working in two distant cities prevent them from having lunch “together”.    They chat over their lunches while looking at each other over the internet.

When is the last time you went through a complete day without having someone display an “album” of photos they just happen to have with them?   As you swoosh through their smart phone pages the whole family is on display.  How convenient that  you no longer have to wait for someone to lure you to their home with the promise of a great spaghetti sauce where they just happen to have their vacation photos loaded into six carousels for the old projector when dinner is over.   Today those four thousand fascinating vacation photos just happen to be in his hip pocket as you stopped at the water cooler.

Security systems have advanced to the point that you can “walk” through your home from wherever you are just to check things out….and it’s a great way to keep an eye on Fido, too.   It’s also a smart check in with the babysitter, or grandma when she’s not feeling well.   Camera systems aren’t technically beyond us any longer because they’ve been made so simple to install and operate.   Just like the ancient reptile of the order Testudines, we are now technological turtles carrying our homes with us. 

 I’m just as guilty if not more of “turtle-ing”.   I always have my iPhone on me, and usually my iPad as well.   Every face I love beams at me from the backlit screen, and I can scroll through every phone number I ever used.     These things that mean so much to me could bore another adult human being into semi consciousness in less than fifteen minutes; I keep them to myself unless someone asks to see.   Even back in the low tech days I was not one of those parents who could pull a string of plastic windows filled with school pictures and birthday smiles out of my purse.    I think it’s inhumane to do that to some poor unsuspecting person who happens across your path.     I keep my turtle-ing to myself….but it’s refreshing to know that I can call up the memory and a picture of a wonderful kayak trip to a favorite spot whenever I want to.   I just happen to have forty or fifty of those shots with me at any given time if you’re interested……….

                                                                   LIFE IS GOOD

Looking Back at Love

Last summer I was in a board meeting at Malabar Farm where the big “Hollywood Returns” promotion for the summer of 2012 was in the early planning stages.   Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s son had been contacted to see if he would be willing to attend such an event, and in the process Russ Hill, a devoted Malabar Foundation board member who has spent a lot of his own money and a great deal of his life over the last year putting it all together, had found the name of Judge Shettler’s daughter.    The Judge married the movie star couple, and I was intrigued and asked for the name of the daughter so that I might contact her.

I wrote to Penny (Shettler) Benzing to ask if she would be willing to speak with me about her memories of that wedding day so many years ago.  She responded that she would be in Mansfield for a high school class reunion and she’d be happy to stop in the office with some things that had belonged to her late father.  

                       Front hall at Malabar where the wedding took place in 1945

Promptly on the appointed day Penny walked into the offices of Sun Graphics carrying a large suit box that had obviously been around for a while.  She explained that this box of memorabilia had been shoved under a bed, and she wasn’t quite sure any longer what was in it.  She handed it to me, we visited and chatted as I made notes, then she was off to do the half dozen things she had to do before her reunion that evening.

     Humphrey Bogart Commemorative Stamp

Heading upstairs with the box I could hardly wait to get it to a surface where I could open and go through the contents.  Pushing aside some papers on an empty desk I lifted the lid, then gently opened the tissue paper that wrapped some of the newspaper articles.  It was as if history opened up for me.  The song “Key Largo” began to drift through my mind and I was submerged in an afternoon of blissful exploration.  I had Bogey and Bacall at my fingertips.

                                    

Old newspaper articles from 1945, some Xeroxed magazine articles and other treasures competed for my attention.   The Christmas card the Bogarts sent out that first holiday as a married couple….with a handwritten note from Lauren Bacall inside.  The receipt for their marriage license….a handwritten letter from Humphrey Bogart to the judge thanking him for all he had done to make their wedding memorable.   There were other letters the judge had kept from friends who cheerfully chided him for his newly found fame as the “judge to the stars”.   Penny told me her father was in many of the popular magazines of the day, some of which she still had at home.

                                                                                                                             

Layered on the bottom of the stack was the original news script that was read on a WMAN news cast on the day of the wedding.   It was especially meaningful for me to hold these papers in my hands, along with a note from Mr. O’Hara, the first general manager at WMAN. The offices were perched above the Ohio Theatre (Renaissance Theatre) back in the day.   He was one of three men who managed the station before me, and I held the note he wrote to Judge Shettler along with those scripts with a feeling of awe.   I wasn’t even born when these scripts were typed by the news person, and here they were moving across all those years and into my hands.   In the time period this was written a woman might be found as a receptionist at the front desk, but certainly not on the air, or in the news room or sales office, and definitely not sitting behind the general manager’s desk.    I was lucky enough to be the first woman to do several of those jobs, and when I retired three years ago as Market Manager for the Clear Channel radio cluster, I left with an abiding affection for radio in general and WMAN in particular.

                                                            

I spent the entire afternoon with the box, breathing in its history and thinking about the article I wanted to write.  Penny had been a seven year old child when the Bogarts wed, and as she described her time observing from the stairs the article started to write itself in my head.   I scanned everything I wanted to use and put the precious items back into the box.

Penny Benzing came back to pick up the amazing box of memories she had shared with me.  She is intelligent, articulate and interesting and I’ve enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with her.   We would meet again when she returned to Mansfield to visit friends and take a tour of the house she grew up in on Glendale Boulevard.   I asked her to have her picture snapped on those stairs, and she was kind enough to do that and to send that photo to me.

                                                Penny (left) presents Lauren Bacall with
                                        the picture of Bogey/Bacall and Judge Shettler

I still have a book Penny loaned me that I need to return to her.  I look forward to her emails and the times we speak on the phone.  Every article that I write seems to add at least one person to my list of friends; I like to think Penny Shettler Benzing is now on that list.

 Hollywood Returns is being held at Malabar Farm Friday, June 1, Saturday, June 2 and Sunday June 3.  Stephen Bogart and Tyrone Power, Jr. will be there, along with an antique car show that will feature some things most of us have never seen before; rumor has it a presidential limousine for one thing.     Tickets and information are available at www.malabarfarm.org   I’m really looking forward to the event, and my husband and I will be volunteering there for the whole weekend.    Come out and enjoy Malabar Farm State Park, all proceeds go to help with restoration of Louis Bromfield’s “Big House”.    I hope to see you there.

                                                         Christmas at Malabar-2011
                                                                   Life is Good

Esther Williams and the chicken house

Who do you want to be when you grow up?  Not what but “whom”.   If you had asked me that when I was a little girl I could have told you without even thinking…..Esther Williams.

Summers my parents and I went to my Grand Parent’s home for a couple of weeks every summer.  My very best friend was my cousin, Theresa, and we spent the long, hot summer days playing together.  Sometimes those summer days included a movie at the Dixie Theatre, and my favorites were the Esther Williams extravaganzas.

It never occurred to me as we sat gobbling popcorn in the dark theatre that there was anything odd about a story line that always ended up in the water.  There she was…underwater with a smile that bordered on a grimace, her bulging eyes looking straight into the camera.   She was the Hollywood mermaid, and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.    

After the movie we’d hustle back to Grandma’s house to play, and I can still see two little blonde girls running to the “chicken house” to play with the trunk of old curtains and linens kept there.   We’d call out, “I’m Esther Williams”....”No!  I called it first!”…..”Nu-uh!  I called it first!” as we charged off to play.  After deciding who got to be Esther we’d play the rest of the day, pretending to be bathing suited movie stars…performing water ballets and synchronized swim moves as we ran through the orchard with old lace curtains trailing behind us.  Theresa would tell you I always got my way, I was always Esther Williams.  That’s just not true, and since I’m writing this I get to tell it my way.

The outbuilding we used as a playhouse was always dubbed the “chicken house” because Grandma had kept chickens there at one time.  After giving up on the pesky creatures she wasn’t one to waste a perfectly good outbuilding.  The “chicken house” sat full of wonderful treasures for two little girls to enjoy.  Old tableware, mismatched dishes, a few old pieces of furniture and some lawn chairs.  Even the big cast iron, wood burning kitchen stove that had provided heat, hot water and great meals for so many years now lived there.   Those old curtains became our costumes, and tied around our heads they were long, flowing hair.  Covering old lawn chairs made them elegant furnishings; the wormy apples we scavenged from the orchard and the grapes that grew there were mashed and smashed into meals that we ate and forced on anyone who was unfortunate enough to check on us.  Ah yes….I remember the crampy bellys of summer quite well.

I don’t remember my Grand Mother raising chickens, but I do have memories of her preparing them for the food chain.   Those memories keep me from enjoying meat to this day.   I still cannot eat any meat in recognizable body parts.   Chicken legs or wings?   No, thank you.  I’m absolutely worthless at a hog roast, and my Thanksgiving turkey is usually a couple of turkey breasts that are anonymous enough for me to eat.  If it’s the whole turkey I indulge in the big selection of trimmings we always enjoy and forgo the main course.   There is a great health benefit from living close to the land, but there is no way to forget living close to the chain of protein that ends up on the dining room table.    I am marked for life.

Watching Esther Williams swim gracefully across the screen so long ago I decided I was going to be her when I grew up, and I think Theresa was of the same mind.   I eventually grew up to run radio stations and now edit Heart of Ohio Magazine…..Theresa is a realtor.   Neither of us ever learned how to swim a stroke; today we are still two career gals who don’t like to get their hair wet. 

I think it’s time for me to take a road trip to visit my cousin so we can sit on her deep, shady front porch.  We can relax in the swing that hangs from chains and go through our mental scrap books together…and laugh.   When we were little girls she always hated the fact that I was older. Now that we are “mature women” she loves to remind me that I am the elder by two years and eleven months.    I think she’s just jealous because I’m Esther Williams. 

                                             Yes….I definitely feel a visit coming on.

                                                                  Life is Good