This column originally appeared on Sunday, March 29, 2009
This column comes with a warning.
I generally respect my readers and try not to demean or offend them, so I’m letting you all know right off the bat that I will be writing about toilets this week.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that all of a sudden, when you were least expecting it, here is the Daily Local News turning into the Howard Stern Show. Here’s the finest example of journalism printed within spitting distance of the Downingtown Interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike all of a sudden joining the potty humor crowd. Here’s the Voice of Chester County letting go with a good long belch.
That’s why I warned you; I didn’t want it to come as a shock. If you’re offended, you can feel free to skip the rest of this column and go straight to the box score of the Villanova-Pitt game. (Repeat after me: “Even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter, because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Penn because they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or we lose! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!” Thank you, Bill Murray.)
But for those of you sticking around, what I’m about to tell you is not meant to offend or insult or demean. It is meant to inform.
There’s some “ghost flushing” going on at the Chester County Justice Center.
I know what you’re thinking. You Are thinking that you haven’t heard a good ghost-flushing story since October of 2007, when the news about the library in Kent, England, hit the wires. You remember, the one about the librarian at the Gravesend Library, ex-Royal Marine Gordon Jenns, who asked the local council to pay for an exorcist to solve the mystery of his haunted water closet. Jenns, it was reported at the time, “believes that the loo is inhabited by a ghost, who flushes the toilet after everyone has gone home.”
"I'm absolutely certain the toilet flushed itself,” Jenns told his local newspaper reporter, who I assure you could not wait to get back to the newsroom as soon as he could and tell his editor about his scoop. “The door was locked and the cistern was still filling up when I went in. It even happens when the loo door’s locked,” he added, calling the matter, “off-putting.”
Be that as it may, when you go to the men’s loo on the Fifth Floor of the JC, there will come a time when the toilets around you start flushing away, every few seconds, even though you are the only person in the room. The toilets have those modern motion sensor gizmos that are supposed to react only when you leave so you don’t have to go through the trouble of pulling the handle. But instead they go off with the slightest provocation, or with no provocation at all. So there you are, all alone with your thoughts and the latest Daily Local, and all you hear is a symphony of rushing flushes, timed perfectly, one after another, whooshing away nothing but pure, clean water. It’s off-putting, you might say.
Not wishing to raise the specter, so to speak, of having an exorcism performed for the ghost flushing at taxpayer expense, I made discreet inquiries about the matter. Seems like I was not the first to knock on that door.
County Director of Facilities Extraordinaire Steve Fromnick told me that he has had his people working on the problem for some time now. One of his assistants wrote to say that: “Originally, we had to go through and calibrate the flushometers to zero them in. We believe now we’re getting ghost flushing because of cleaning agents being used on the sensors. How much of this ghost flushing is happening we’re not sure, but we are in contact with our custodian contractor to educate them on the correct maintenance procedures.”
I’ll bet the folks in the White House Press Corps would give their Blackberries to be able to use the word “flushometers” in a sentence.
I don’t know if I actually want the problem solved because it is, after all, somewhat relaxing to hear the sound of whooshing water going on around you when you’re otherwise occupied. I accept the fact that ghost flushing is most likely wasteful and environmentally unsound. Still, I remember those days when I thought that pure joy revolved around nothing more than flushing the toilet over and over again.
But we all graduate college at some point. Even ‘Nova students.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
My Hero, The I Choose Hell Guy
This column originally apeared on Sunday, March 22, 2009
Everybody should have a hero, and George Kalman is mine.
I know what you’re saying. I know, for beginners, that what you are not saying is: “Why couldn’t you have chosen Chase Utley, or Barack Obama, or even Joe Dirt, even though he’s a fictional movie character brought to life by the guy who is not Chris Farley, as your hero?” I know, as well, that you are not saying: “Why don’t you choose as your hero somebody really important, like the inventors of Facebook, which has done more towards the efforts of Americans who want to substitute frivolous time-wasting activities for actual productive tasks than anything since the invention of the personal telephone call from the office?’
No, I know that what you are saying is: “Who in the name of Joe Dirt is George Kalman?” I understand the sentiment behind that question, because up until about four hours ago, I did not know who in the name of Joe Dirt George Kalman was either.
But thanks to Samuel G. Freedman of The New York Times, I do know who George Kalman is, and now he’s my hero. But not for the reason you might think.
George Kalman is the East Brandywine man and independent filmmaker who has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia to overturn Pennsylvania’s blasphemy law. He did so after the state in 2007 turned down his request to name his film production company I Choose Hell Productions L.L.C., a choice meant to emphasize his belief that even if life can be hell at times, it is better than committing suicide.
Yes, I know what you’re saying: “Pennsylvania has a law against blasphemy? Then how did they get the permission to build those awful looking homes in Upper Uwchlan? And don’t even get me started on the Coatesville City Council!” Actually, the anti-blasphemy statute it is not a law like those weird codes that outlaw women in Florida from falling asleep under a hair dryer, or ban animals in California from mating within 1,500 feet of a day care center, or restrict locating a sexology shop in West Chester, Pa., within 300 feet of a church. No, this is a statute that maintains that corporations in the Commonwealth cannot have as their names any words that would “constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or that profane the Lords’s name.”
Leaving aside for the moment the notion that there is such a thing as “non-profane cursing,” we should point out that the state bureaucrats who are in charge of sorting out the blasphemes from the ordinary words in corporate Pennsylvania have not always been as diligent as they were in Kalman’s case when they denied his I Choose Hell Productions L.L.C. name. According to the Times article, there exist in the state corporations that use the handle Devil Media and Vomit Noise Productions, so somebody was apparently paying too much attention to his or her “Which Overly Restrictive State Red Tape Functionary Are You?” Facebook Quiz when those applications came across their desks.
But thank (not to drop names) God for providing Kalman with the wherewithal to bring the matter to the attention of the courts, where hopefully someone with the requisite understanding of the Constitution will see that the Pennsylvania’s anti-blasphemy statute makes about as much sense as not being able to play professional baseball in Philadelphia on Sundays (law repealed in 1933) or being forbidden from buying a bottle of “Two Buck Chuck” wine at the nearest Trader Joe’s any day of the year (law still on the books.)
But even though I think his mind is in the right place, his legal challenge to the law is not the reason why Kalman is my hero. No, he is my hero because of what he told Mr. Freedman of the Times.
“When you read the First Amendment, this is something you can be proud of,” he is quoted as saying. “If you care about the human condition, then you care about the First Amendment.”
I think even Joe Dirt would agree.
Everybody should have a hero, and George Kalman is mine.
I know what you’re saying. I know, for beginners, that what you are not saying is: “Why couldn’t you have chosen Chase Utley, or Barack Obama, or even Joe Dirt, even though he’s a fictional movie character brought to life by the guy who is not Chris Farley, as your hero?” I know, as well, that you are not saying: “Why don’t you choose as your hero somebody really important, like the inventors of Facebook, which has done more towards the efforts of Americans who want to substitute frivolous time-wasting activities for actual productive tasks than anything since the invention of the personal telephone call from the office?’
No, I know that what you are saying is: “Who in the name of Joe Dirt is George Kalman?” I understand the sentiment behind that question, because up until about four hours ago, I did not know who in the name of Joe Dirt George Kalman was either.
But thanks to Samuel G. Freedman of The New York Times, I do know who George Kalman is, and now he’s my hero. But not for the reason you might think.
George Kalman is the East Brandywine man and independent filmmaker who has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia to overturn Pennsylvania’s blasphemy law. He did so after the state in 2007 turned down his request to name his film production company I Choose Hell Productions L.L.C., a choice meant to emphasize his belief that even if life can be hell at times, it is better than committing suicide.
Yes, I know what you’re saying: “Pennsylvania has a law against blasphemy? Then how did they get the permission to build those awful looking homes in Upper Uwchlan? And don’t even get me started on the Coatesville City Council!” Actually, the anti-blasphemy statute it is not a law like those weird codes that outlaw women in Florida from falling asleep under a hair dryer, or ban animals in California from mating within 1,500 feet of a day care center, or restrict locating a sexology shop in West Chester, Pa., within 300 feet of a church. No, this is a statute that maintains that corporations in the Commonwealth cannot have as their names any words that would “constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or that profane the Lords’s name.”
Leaving aside for the moment the notion that there is such a thing as “non-profane cursing,” we should point out that the state bureaucrats who are in charge of sorting out the blasphemes from the ordinary words in corporate Pennsylvania have not always been as diligent as they were in Kalman’s case when they denied his I Choose Hell Productions L.L.C. name. According to the Times article, there exist in the state corporations that use the handle Devil Media and Vomit Noise Productions, so somebody was apparently paying too much attention to his or her “Which Overly Restrictive State Red Tape Functionary Are You?” Facebook Quiz when those applications came across their desks.
But thank (not to drop names) God for providing Kalman with the wherewithal to bring the matter to the attention of the courts, where hopefully someone with the requisite understanding of the Constitution will see that the Pennsylvania’s anti-blasphemy statute makes about as much sense as not being able to play professional baseball in Philadelphia on Sundays (law repealed in 1933) or being forbidden from buying a bottle of “Two Buck Chuck” wine at the nearest Trader Joe’s any day of the year (law still on the books.)
But even though I think his mind is in the right place, his legal challenge to the law is not the reason why Kalman is my hero. No, he is my hero because of what he told Mr. Freedman of the Times.
“When you read the First Amendment, this is something you can be proud of,” he is quoted as saying. “If you care about the human condition, then you care about the First Amendment.”
I think even Joe Dirt would agree.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Build A Lake, And I Will Swim.
This column originally appeared on Sunday, March 15, 2009
Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword has not been paying close enough attention to my column.
I have written in these pages as advocate for a number of what I consider perfectly worthy causes, and to date have had exactly none of them come to fruition. Cincinnati chili parlors in West Chester? Nope. Chadds Ford relocated into Chester County? Sorry, Charlie. Public swimming pool within easy walking distance of my home? Fuddegaboudit. Cloaking device to keep West Chester shielded from more drunken tourists? What’re you, kidding?
I am not doing well in the mightier-pen department, you might say. If I were a presidential candidate, I’d be Dennis Kucinich (2008 campaign: 25 months, 12 days. Delegate total: 0). If I were a Major League shortstop, I’d have a batting average worse even than Mario Mendoza (Nine seasons, three teams, .215 lifetime batting average.) If I were the melting point of ice on a temperature measurement scale, I’d be Celsius (0 degrees).
But what I am not is unpersistent.
Let me put that another, less grammatically incorrect, way. What I am not is a quitter (See above: “Kucinich”). I persist in these campaigns, whether they are successful or not. Once I have taken up arms, I do not stop the just just because someone has lopped off my hands from the shoulders down. I do not take my role as an advocate lightly, especially when it comes to Cincinnati chili or cloaking devices.
So once again I hurl myself into the breech. Staring today, I am officially urging the Army Corps of Engineers to begin blocking up whatever body of water is available to create a lake somewhere in West Chester, preferably within walking distance of the childhood home of Smedley Darlington Butler, of which, as has been established previously, I am a neighbor.
The thought that we need a large body of open water here occurred to me as I visited Marsh Creek State Park one recent sunny afternoon. Marsh Creek Lake is one of the most beautiful man-made sights in northern Chester County, and brings with it a sense of tranquility and ease. It is a spot for boating or fishing, sunbathing or kayaking, or simply just gazing across its grand expanse of clear blue water. (It is also a spot for surreptitious swimming, as I once discovered when a friend of mine slipped over the side of the boat we had rented for a cool dip, even though such practice is technically illegal. I say this because I am fairly certain the statute of limitations on aquatic offenses is safely behind me.)
I am also certain that having a lake somewhere in the middle of West Chester would provide a number of financial benefits to the borough that it has heretofore not enjoyed. There is the possibility of a windsurfing franchise, for example. There would be a great opportunity for a bass fishing tournament that we could conceivably spin off of the latest television episode of “Viva Le Bam.” It would make a nice swimming location as well (See above: “Cool dip”), which would not exactly conform with the sort of economic stimulus that the papers all say our nation is sorely in need of, but it would make my summers significantly more enjoyable, and what of it?
I am not at all certain how this flooding project would be accomplished, but questions like those are, as our newly inaugurated president once said, above my pay grade. I’m the idea guy, not the nuts-and-bolts guy. I lay out the strategies in broad stokes and let the Timothy Geithners and Lawrence Summers of the world fill in the details. I say we need a lake; I let someone else build the dam. If I were a movie character, I would be Bill Blazejowsky in “Night Shift”: (“What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tuna fish? Or... hold it! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED 'em mayonnaise! Call Starkist!”).
Look, I know that you are shaking your head in disbelief at my apparent naïveté that what I wish in these pages will somehow come true. In response, I point out that someone had to be the one to think of putting a lake in the middle of Upper Uwchlan. He or she probably got laughed at by all the residents of Milford Mills right up until the time the waters of Marsh Creek started creeping into their root cellars, and where are they now? I tell you where they are: Living on the banks of a 535-acre man made lake, that’s where hey are. So sing your song of impossible dreams to them.
Or to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who, just by way of explanation, in his 1839 play “Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy,” coined the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” I’m sure he’ll listen.
Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword has not been paying close enough attention to my column.
I have written in these pages as advocate for a number of what I consider perfectly worthy causes, and to date have had exactly none of them come to fruition. Cincinnati chili parlors in West Chester? Nope. Chadds Ford relocated into Chester County? Sorry, Charlie. Public swimming pool within easy walking distance of my home? Fuddegaboudit. Cloaking device to keep West Chester shielded from more drunken tourists? What’re you, kidding?
I am not doing well in the mightier-pen department, you might say. If I were a presidential candidate, I’d be Dennis Kucinich (2008 campaign: 25 months, 12 days. Delegate total: 0). If I were a Major League shortstop, I’d have a batting average worse even than Mario Mendoza (Nine seasons, three teams, .215 lifetime batting average.) If I were the melting point of ice on a temperature measurement scale, I’d be Celsius (0 degrees).
But what I am not is unpersistent.
Let me put that another, less grammatically incorrect, way. What I am not is a quitter (See above: “Kucinich”). I persist in these campaigns, whether they are successful or not. Once I have taken up arms, I do not stop the just just because someone has lopped off my hands from the shoulders down. I do not take my role as an advocate lightly, especially when it comes to Cincinnati chili or cloaking devices.
So once again I hurl myself into the breech. Staring today, I am officially urging the Army Corps of Engineers to begin blocking up whatever body of water is available to create a lake somewhere in West Chester, preferably within walking distance of the childhood home of Smedley Darlington Butler, of which, as has been established previously, I am a neighbor.
The thought that we need a large body of open water here occurred to me as I visited Marsh Creek State Park one recent sunny afternoon. Marsh Creek Lake is one of the most beautiful man-made sights in northern Chester County, and brings with it a sense of tranquility and ease. It is a spot for boating or fishing, sunbathing or kayaking, or simply just gazing across its grand expanse of clear blue water. (It is also a spot for surreptitious swimming, as I once discovered when a friend of mine slipped over the side of the boat we had rented for a cool dip, even though such practice is technically illegal. I say this because I am fairly certain the statute of limitations on aquatic offenses is safely behind me.)
I am also certain that having a lake somewhere in the middle of West Chester would provide a number of financial benefits to the borough that it has heretofore not enjoyed. There is the possibility of a windsurfing franchise, for example. There would be a great opportunity for a bass fishing tournament that we could conceivably spin off of the latest television episode of “Viva Le Bam.” It would make a nice swimming location as well (See above: “Cool dip”), which would not exactly conform with the sort of economic stimulus that the papers all say our nation is sorely in need of, but it would make my summers significantly more enjoyable, and what of it?
I am not at all certain how this flooding project would be accomplished, but questions like those are, as our newly inaugurated president once said, above my pay grade. I’m the idea guy, not the nuts-and-bolts guy. I lay out the strategies in broad stokes and let the Timothy Geithners and Lawrence Summers of the world fill in the details. I say we need a lake; I let someone else build the dam. If I were a movie character, I would be Bill Blazejowsky in “Night Shift”: (“What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tuna fish? Or... hold it! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED 'em mayonnaise! Call Starkist!”).
Look, I know that you are shaking your head in disbelief at my apparent naïveté that what I wish in these pages will somehow come true. In response, I point out that someone had to be the one to think of putting a lake in the middle of Upper Uwchlan. He or she probably got laughed at by all the residents of Milford Mills right up until the time the waters of Marsh Creek started creeping into their root cellars, and where are they now? I tell you where they are: Living on the banks of a 535-acre man made lake, that’s where hey are. So sing your song of impossible dreams to them.
Or to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who, just by way of explanation, in his 1839 play “Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy,” coined the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” I’m sure he’ll listen.
Monday, March 09, 2009
25 Random Things About a Geo-Political Entity
This column originally appeared on Sunday, March 8, 2009
Hello Daily Local News readers. It’s me, Chester County.
Yes, I realize that it is odd to find that a geo-political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is writing a column, but with modern technology anything is possible. Welcome to the 21st Century! Any moment now, wholly abstract concepts, such as “happiness,” the color “red” or “Andy Dinniman” are going to have their own Web sites and Twitter addresses, so my ability to interact with you is really just the beginning.
Which is my way of getting around to letting you know that I now have my own Facebook page and am hoping you’ll all sign up to be my friends. Considering there’s almost 485,000 people living within my borders, I’d say I have the possibility of establishing yourself as the Facebook “Friends Leader of All Time” if just a small portion of you sign up. I’ll try to provide a handy link later.
But just so you know that even though I’m more than 300 years old I still have a sense of what the hottest trends are in the modern world, I thought I would let you know that I do have prepared a “25 Random Things About me” list. Apparently, it is something you have to do to really get in the spirit of Facebook. After all, chain letters are so 1888.
This is my way of letting you know a few personal things about me that might have not captured your attention in the past. I’ve dug down and mined the bottom of my personality, my likes and dislikes, the bits and pieces of my life that will let you know why you might want to be my friend. Hope you like it.
1. Degrees of separation between me and William Penn: None.
2. My Official Seal shows a tall-mast ship at sail on the ocean. But I have no ocean. Don’t ask me.
3. I have 73 municipalities, but am hoping a recent diet I started will get me down to the mid-50s.
4. Favorite television actor: Dennis Weaver, as “Chester” on Gunsmoke. Duh!
5. I have never seen Cheshire County, England, who I am apparently named after. Don’t want to, either. More of a Wales guy, myself. (See, “Tredyffrin.”)
6. Used to encompass both Lancaster and Delaware counties. Felt bad about losing Lancaster (great outlet shops!) but OK with the Delco thing.
7. Favorite fungi: mushroom. Double duh.
8. George Washington slept in me.
9. Totally over Susan Richardson of “Eight is Enough.” Sort of have a thing for Tina Fey, though.
10. Motto: “Come in Gay, go out High.”
11. Did you know: The Hooters filmed a music video inside me at an old drive-in movie theater in Exton.
12. Number of “Hooters” restaurants located in me: Zero.
13. Loved “Witness.” Hated “The Village.”
14. I would trade 50 percent of the foxhunters I find traipsing across my verdant fields if I could just have one minor league baseball team located within my borders. Preferably in the Baltimore Orioles farm system.
15. Always knew that Thurgood Marshall fellow would amount to something.
16. Can recite “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes at the drop of a hat.
17. I’ve got lots more fieldstones where those came from if you want to build a barn somewhere.
18. Favorite Herr’s snack food: “Salt and Pepper Potato Chips.”
19. Jim Croce? Meh.
20. Turn ons: Unpaved dirt roads. Turn offs: Route 202, Tuesdays, 8:30 a.m., between Boot Road and Route 29.
21. Secretly miss Courtroom One.
22. I actually only need one jury commissioner.
23. If you go to the Eagleview business and residential community in Uwchlan, you can’t actually see Eagle.
24. Politically, I’m feeling purple.
25. I have 3,730,000 hits on Google. Go ahead, try and beat me.
Hello Daily Local News readers. It’s me, Chester County.
Yes, I realize that it is odd to find that a geo-political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is writing a column, but with modern technology anything is possible. Welcome to the 21st Century! Any moment now, wholly abstract concepts, such as “happiness,” the color “red” or “Andy Dinniman” are going to have their own Web sites and Twitter addresses, so my ability to interact with you is really just the beginning.
Which is my way of getting around to letting you know that I now have my own Facebook page and am hoping you’ll all sign up to be my friends. Considering there’s almost 485,000 people living within my borders, I’d say I have the possibility of establishing yourself as the Facebook “Friends Leader of All Time” if just a small portion of you sign up. I’ll try to provide a handy link later.
But just so you know that even though I’m more than 300 years old I still have a sense of what the hottest trends are in the modern world, I thought I would let you know that I do have prepared a “25 Random Things About me” list. Apparently, it is something you have to do to really get in the spirit of Facebook. After all, chain letters are so 1888.
This is my way of letting you know a few personal things about me that might have not captured your attention in the past. I’ve dug down and mined the bottom of my personality, my likes and dislikes, the bits and pieces of my life that will let you know why you might want to be my friend. Hope you like it.
1. Degrees of separation between me and William Penn: None.
2. My Official Seal shows a tall-mast ship at sail on the ocean. But I have no ocean. Don’t ask me.
3. I have 73 municipalities, but am hoping a recent diet I started will get me down to the mid-50s.
4. Favorite television actor: Dennis Weaver, as “Chester” on Gunsmoke. Duh!
5. I have never seen Cheshire County, England, who I am apparently named after. Don’t want to, either. More of a Wales guy, myself. (See, “Tredyffrin.”)
6. Used to encompass both Lancaster and Delaware counties. Felt bad about losing Lancaster (great outlet shops!) but OK with the Delco thing.
7. Favorite fungi: mushroom. Double duh.
8. George Washington slept in me.
9. Totally over Susan Richardson of “Eight is Enough.” Sort of have a thing for Tina Fey, though.
10. Motto: “Come in Gay, go out High.”
11. Did you know: The Hooters filmed a music video inside me at an old drive-in movie theater in Exton.
12. Number of “Hooters” restaurants located in me: Zero.
13. Loved “Witness.” Hated “The Village.”
14. I would trade 50 percent of the foxhunters I find traipsing across my verdant fields if I could just have one minor league baseball team located within my borders. Preferably in the Baltimore Orioles farm system.
15. Always knew that Thurgood Marshall fellow would amount to something.
16. Can recite “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes at the drop of a hat.
17. I’ve got lots more fieldstones where those came from if you want to build a barn somewhere.
18. Favorite Herr’s snack food: “Salt and Pepper Potato Chips.”
19. Jim Croce? Meh.
20. Turn ons: Unpaved dirt roads. Turn offs: Route 202, Tuesdays, 8:30 a.m., between Boot Road and Route 29.
21. Secretly miss Courtroom One.
22. I actually only need one jury commissioner.
23. If you go to the Eagleview business and residential community in Uwchlan, you can’t actually see Eagle.
24. Politically, I’m feeling purple.
25. I have 3,730,000 hits on Google. Go ahead, try and beat me.
Monday, March 02, 2009
How to Fight The Winter Blues With a Black Robe
This column originally appeared on Sunday, March 1, 2009
I know how you feel. It’s finally March, but it still feels like February. You’ve been stuck inside since the last days of 2008 and the cabin fever is outdone only by the expansive boredom you and the spouse feel. The only words that come to mind during the weekly game of Scrabble are ennui, torpor and doldrums. The bi-weekly game of Monopoly has turned into a monotony. The movies offer only “Doubt,” “The Uninvited,” and “Paul Bart: Mall Cop.”
Even the high-strung Collie your neighbors asked you to walk while they vacation in Ibizia shows decided signs of dispiritedness. She’s more lassitude than Lassie. When your teenage son and daughter sigh that they have nothing to do, you sigh and say: “The line forms to the rear.”
Yo. Do what I do. Stop by Judge Thomas G. Gavin’s courtroom on the 7th floor of the county Justice Center for a taste of His Honor’s unique brand of wit and wisdom. Let’s join in while the program is already in session.
“You can walk this off if you complete the first year of probation without any problems, with the understanding that we won’t see each other again,” Gavin, the one time Marine, was telling a criminal defendant who has promised, essentially, “not to do it again" last Tuesday. “If we do, bring some reading material.”
In Gavin-ese, “bring some reading material” means don’t make any plans for the weekend: you are going to jail.
A Philadelphia sportswriter once wondered if he could get an entire column out of asking Pete Rose a single question about hitting. Two hours later, he’d filled an entire notebook. That’s the way I approach a day with Judge Gavin; sooner or later he’s going to say something worth writing down.
Like this advice to a West Chester University students who got arrested for underage drinking: “Part of being in college is that it is the last opportunity to see how stupid you can be.” Had I known that back in 1977 at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., I’d certainly have afforded myself the opportunity to get in a lot more trouble than I did.
Judge Gavin has been on the bench for 23 years, and he’s slowly but surely approaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 that judges in Pennsylvania face. But although I heard one bright-eyed prosecutor who practices in front of Judge Gavin on occasion describe Judge Gavin as “world weary,” he still strides onto the bench every morning with a brisk, determined gait. He will bluntly tell you, if you have cause to appear in front of him, that he’s seen, if not all of it, then the vast majority of whatever “it” is. But he does not seem jaded or indifferent to what is happening in front of him.
“We’re going to be a little bit creative here because your client has been trying to make a new life for himself,” Judge Gavin told a defense attorney one day last week. “We’re going to make life easy for him. Bt the first thing we have to do is see the whites of his eyes.”
Unlike some who wear black robes to work, Judge Gavin isn’t tied to the strict formality of taking each case on the docket in order. He’s more of a “whaddaya got?” type of jurist, ready for whatever comes his way. I’ve also found that he’s not afraid to mix up his metaphors a bit as he tries to get the message across with as little ambiguity as possible when talking to a defendant.
“Hopefully the light will go on between your ears at some point,” he told a man who was one step away from a trip to the confines of a government-run hotel upstate. “But you’re the only one who can answer that.”
Some of those who appear before Judge Gavin consider him lenient on some criminals, and I am certain that there are enough examples of that to go around. But he is also capable of slamming the door shut and wiping his hands of someone who just doesn’t seem to get the message the first time.
“Your probation officer did everything she could for you. She bent over backwards and all you did was kick her,” the judge told one serial violator last week. “You didn’t take advantage of her help, and now you’re going to pay your dues. Hopefully, you won’t spend too much time in state prison. Have a nice day.”
Thanks, judge. I always do, and I’m never bored.
I know how you feel. It’s finally March, but it still feels like February. You’ve been stuck inside since the last days of 2008 and the cabin fever is outdone only by the expansive boredom you and the spouse feel. The only words that come to mind during the weekly game of Scrabble are ennui, torpor and doldrums. The bi-weekly game of Monopoly has turned into a monotony. The movies offer only “Doubt,” “The Uninvited,” and “Paul Bart: Mall Cop.”
Even the high-strung Collie your neighbors asked you to walk while they vacation in Ibizia shows decided signs of dispiritedness. She’s more lassitude than Lassie. When your teenage son and daughter sigh that they have nothing to do, you sigh and say: “The line forms to the rear.”
Yo. Do what I do. Stop by Judge Thomas G. Gavin’s courtroom on the 7th floor of the county Justice Center for a taste of His Honor’s unique brand of wit and wisdom. Let’s join in while the program is already in session.
“You can walk this off if you complete the first year of probation without any problems, with the understanding that we won’t see each other again,” Gavin, the one time Marine, was telling a criminal defendant who has promised, essentially, “not to do it again" last Tuesday. “If we do, bring some reading material.”
In Gavin-ese, “bring some reading material” means don’t make any plans for the weekend: you are going to jail.
A Philadelphia sportswriter once wondered if he could get an entire column out of asking Pete Rose a single question about hitting. Two hours later, he’d filled an entire notebook. That’s the way I approach a day with Judge Gavin; sooner or later he’s going to say something worth writing down.
Like this advice to a West Chester University students who got arrested for underage drinking: “Part of being in college is that it is the last opportunity to see how stupid you can be.” Had I known that back in 1977 at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., I’d certainly have afforded myself the opportunity to get in a lot more trouble than I did.
Judge Gavin has been on the bench for 23 years, and he’s slowly but surely approaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 that judges in Pennsylvania face. But although I heard one bright-eyed prosecutor who practices in front of Judge Gavin on occasion describe Judge Gavin as “world weary,” he still strides onto the bench every morning with a brisk, determined gait. He will bluntly tell you, if you have cause to appear in front of him, that he’s seen, if not all of it, then the vast majority of whatever “it” is. But he does not seem jaded or indifferent to what is happening in front of him.
“We’re going to be a little bit creative here because your client has been trying to make a new life for himself,” Judge Gavin told a defense attorney one day last week. “We’re going to make life easy for him. Bt the first thing we have to do is see the whites of his eyes.”
Unlike some who wear black robes to work, Judge Gavin isn’t tied to the strict formality of taking each case on the docket in order. He’s more of a “whaddaya got?” type of jurist, ready for whatever comes his way. I’ve also found that he’s not afraid to mix up his metaphors a bit as he tries to get the message across with as little ambiguity as possible when talking to a defendant.
“Hopefully the light will go on between your ears at some point,” he told a man who was one step away from a trip to the confines of a government-run hotel upstate. “But you’re the only one who can answer that.”
Some of those who appear before Judge Gavin consider him lenient on some criminals, and I am certain that there are enough examples of that to go around. But he is also capable of slamming the door shut and wiping his hands of someone who just doesn’t seem to get the message the first time.
“Your probation officer did everything she could for you. She bent over backwards and all you did was kick her,” the judge told one serial violator last week. “You didn’t take advantage of her help, and now you’re going to pay your dues. Hopefully, you won’t spend too much time in state prison. Have a nice day.”
Thanks, judge. I always do, and I’m never bored.
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