50 Years Ago Today: Reflections on a Friday

November 22, 2013, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. This piece was written the evening of November 22, 1963. It describes that afternoon when we learned of this. John Kennedy had been President for less than three years at that time and was concerned about the election year coming up. When you read the article keep in mind that JFK was not liked by everyone, in fact, it was not at all certain he would win re-election in 1964. Don't be shocked that there was joking and even expressions by some of being glad this happened. This is not a fiction, but simply a recording of what occurred when the news came in to the office here I worked and the reactions of those around me.

REFLECTIONS ON A FRIDAY

November 22, 1963, Malvern, Pa.

         Lunchtime, I sat at my desk with the Philadelphia Daily News across its top. The headline read

“Baker’s Pal’s Widow Denies Suicide Link.” A picture of a woman was on the left.  On the right was one of Jackie Kennedy, with the President standing just behind her. She was speaking in Houston, Texas.

One o’clock, and I was supposed to be back on the job, but I went out to cash my paycheck and do a little shopping with my friend, Dave Claypoole, and was late to eat. I skipped the news and turned to the editorial page to read the letters. Even the usual crackpot letters were dull. I flipped further back and read the comics. My lunch was finished so I stuffed the paper into a drawer, put my empty soda bottle in the wastebasket and returned to sorting the index cards I had been working on before lunch.

As I sorted, a simple matter of putting them in numerical order, I planned for the coming weekend.  First, we would get groceries. Then I would get a haircut while my wife, Lois Jean, shopped. Saturday I would get up early to change a bad tire on our car and then I would take Lois Jean bowling. In the evening we would go to a drive-in movie. Sunday I hoped to get my studies finished and work on a story I was writing.

As I outlined my weekend, time was flying on its way through the afternoon. I was tired of looking at numbers and glanced at the wall clock. It was eleven minutes until two o’clock. At almost the same moment, Bob Keifer, a fellow worker, came by my desk. We had become good friends during the year and he often stopped at my desk with a new joke.

“Did you hear? They shot Kennedy.”

I waved away his joke with my hand. “Aw, come on, Bob.”

But he circled around to the side of my desk. “I’m not kidding.” He had a strange smile on his face

 So I still didn’t believe him.

“They’ve shot Kennedy. If you don’t believe me, ask Bill.”

I decided to take him up on this dare. Bill Mayberry was fanatical about John F. Kennedy. He had worked as a volunteer for Kennedy during the election and he never ceased praising the President. He had a large picture of Kennedy taped to his desk and a habit of whistling, “Hail to the Chief”.

“That’s Jack’s favorite song,” he would tell us.

I walked briskly, although not with urgency, toward the front of the mailroom where Bill had his desk. Before I reached him, I overheard a conversation between two mail boys. I did not catch the actual words, but I did hear something about the President and a shooting.

Now I could see Mayberry. He was sitting still with an expression as if his brain had short-circuited. I wanted to know what had happened, but I could not approach Bill after seeing his face. I went over to the mail boys. I did not notice who was saying what.  It was a jumbled, boiling conversation. Much of the afternoon was that way.

Sometime in this same general period, covering three minutes perhaps, the mail truck returned from a trip around the company offices. It passed by me.

“Is he dead?” somebody asked.

“I heard he was in serious condition,” said a voice behind the truck.

Bill stood and moved into the open area of the room. He was shaking his head slowly. He might have said something. I don’t recall if he did.

Someone else was speaking.

“I hear he’s dead. And his wife and some governor are in critical condition.”

I turned toward the sound, never seeing who was speaking. I asked, “They got his wife?” I felt a quick shiver in my backbone.

“That’s what I heard,” said a voice.

“I heard they missed him,” said another unseen. Voices were in the air, like spirits come to confuse mortal men.

A new mail boy named Jim Curtain entered the room, chattering like a small boy announcing information he isn’t supposed to have, saying over and over, “They got him with machine guns. I heard he was sprayed with bullets.”

Mayberry confirmed the rumor in a low murmur.  “He was shot.”

Curtain was flitting about an older boy named John Pal, asking John about a certain caliber of Browning rifle. “That’s a machine gun, isn’t it? It’s an automatic. Don’t you have to use a tripod to shoot it?”

Still at this point, no one really believed it had happened. At least, no one believed the worse. We were beginning to accept the rumor the President had been fired at, but we doubted the rumors of his death or injury was true.

It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes since Bob Keifer had first stopped at my desk when it crossed my mind to call my wife. She might have the TV on and know more than we did. I got the company operator on Mayberry’s telephone.

 “Is this a personal call or…”.

“Personal, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” she seemed angry, “we can hardly get business calls out under the circumstances let alone personal.”

I hung up and walked to my own section. I could not work without knowing more about the rumors. The deaf man, who ran a stuffing machine, George Taylor, asked me what had happened.

“They shot the President,” I told him.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know.”

I returned to the front of the mailroom and Bill Mayberry had left for lunch.  The latest rumor was the President and his wife were alive and all right, as well as some Senator who had been wounded. There was a knot of mail boys talking at the front of the room. I saw Bob Keifer and, I believe, John Pal. George Johl was working not too far away. George was another close friend. He was a family man, holding down two jobs and going to night school, and a Negro with strong loyalty to Kennedy.

I went to the group and said to Bob, “I wonder if Bill will be heading out for revenge?”

“He went home to get his gun,” said Bob, then he turned to George Johl.  “See what you caused, see what your people caused?”

Suddenly bad taste had taken a hold of the room. It was strange, people telling cruel jokes at such a time, but I think it was because we wouldn’t accept the idea such a thing could happen. It must  just be a bad-taste joke as well.

A Federal Mailman came through the supply room from outside dragging a dirty gray bag of mail. He was grinning.  He dropped the bag and pointed at Bob Keifer.

“Why’d you do it?”

Bob kind of laughed, eyes wide, throwing up  his palms. “I didn’t do it.”

“Sure,” said the mailman. He looked at the rest of us. “He did it,” he said. “You did it.” No one spoke. he looked around. “I’m kidding. But I know who did it.”

“Who?” asked one of the girls.

“His wife was going to,” said the mailman, looking at her, “she would have.”

I was stunned by the broad grin on the mailman’s face as he explained how Jackie hated Jack and had plotted his death. “I’m glad it happened, the mailman said.”

I stood and listened. I wanted to slug the man, but one doesn’t do that in real life, do they? The mailman left.

I murmured to Bob, adding my own prejudice to the rumors, “And you wondered what Johnson was doing?”

Bob had asked only the other day what the vice-president was doing these days.  Johnson’s invisibility was a common joke. Now I was hinting that he had been plotting this crime. But perhaps, considering the rivalry and the location, it wasn’t so uncommon to say such a horrible thing.

Now speculation about the motives and who might have done it multiplied. Somebody thought it was a Cuban plot. Bob felt it had been a Negro group in Brooklyn.

“The Black Muslins?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“They’re not just in Brooklyn,” I told him.

“I know,” he said.  “They’re everywhere.”

An idea came to me. “Hey,” I said, “Edwin Walker! Isn’t he down there in Dallas?”

“Yeah, that’s his territory,” said Bob.

“Could be those nuts. Look at what happened with Stevenson.” [Note: On October 24, 1963 U. N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson arrived at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium to make a speech and was attacked by a large mob of General Edwin Walker's followers.]

Speculation was beginning to repeat itself. I decided to visit my friend Dave Claypoole in the payroll department to see if he had heard anything. It seemed an eternity until an elevator arrived in the lobby.

I took the elevator, which was crowded. There were three women and at least as many men in it. As we ascended everybody was silent until we reached the fourth or fifth floor and then one of the women mentioned something about the President being wounded in Dallas.

“He’s dead,” said a man.

“Uoh!” gasped the woman. “He’s dead?”

“That’s what I heard outside,” said the man.

Another man nodded his head. “I understand he was shot three times in the head.”

I got off and found Dave in his office. We both went down to the cafeteria and had a cup of coffee. I leaned against the machine that dispensed the coffee.

“Bad news. This is bad news,” I said.

All of a sudden I was shaking. I could feel it in my legs and stomach. It was a quivering, as if I was outside on a cold day.

A woman walked toward us, as if seeking news.

Dave tossed his arms up and open, speaking in a louder than normal voice. “Well, is this our chance to take over?”

The woman gave him a look of distaste. She hurried away. His words panicked me. I spun toward him. I began pacing with my hands in my pockets, trying to get rid of the cold I felt. I was shaking my head, sucking in on my lower lip. “What a sense of humor,” I said.

“I’m surprised it got you so shook up,” he said. “You didn’t agree with Kennedy’s policies.”

“But he is the President.”

We went back upstairs. I was still shaking. A woman passed us. “It’s true,” she said, “that was my mother. She said she heard he’s dead.”

The girl just inside the payroll room spoke, “I have a friend who use to work on the Inquirer. She knows someone there. Somehow she got through to them. They say he’s dead.” She told us somebody else was critical and we thought she said Jackie.

I left Dave and caught a down elevator. People got on and off. Two men were talking, smiling, joking. Other people were calm and normal. One carried coffee. Everybody hadn’t heard yet.

Back in the mailroom, I found Bob. “Let’s see what Russ says?” We found Russ Weeks, who just returned from lunch.  He had a radio and most of the mailroom was grouped around him.

Russ was just breaking away from the group when we got there.  His radio was not working. “He died, I understand,” he said.

It seemed certain by this time that the President had been shot and was probably dead.  It was confused whether anyone else had been shot.

Someone told Russ that Mayberry had left.

“Did he? Has anyone checked to see if he chartered a plane to Dallas?”

“No, but he went home to get his gun.”

Russ shrugged. “It’s a shame he got shot on a Friday,” he said over his shoulder, “otherwise, we might have least got a day off out of it.”

It was useless to try to work, but equally as useless to stand around. I started back to my desk again and was stopped by George Taylor.

“Ya know,” he said, “they were goin’ ta have steak. Somehow the Pope had made it a special Friday so they’d have meat. I don’t know what was the reason, but the Pope made it so they could eat meat.”

“I’ve heard they have certain Friday’s they can eat meat.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not Catholic so’s I don’t know what they called it, but the Pope said they could have meat today.”

“I’m not either,” I told him.  “I don’t know myself.”

“Well, ya know,” George lowered his voice; “the chef down there at the place in Dallas wanted to put this large special steak aside for Kennedy. The Secret Service wouldn’t let him. They told him to put it with the others. You cook up 3,000 steaks and we’ll pick one out.”

I kept nodding.

George went on. “Ya know, it’s funny. Just two days ago this turkey farmer wanted to give him a forty-pound turkey. Kennedy told ‘em to give it back to the man who raised it.”

Russ Weeks came in the back door. He stopped between us.

“They got the radio on out there,” he said. “One of the priests they called to perform the Last Rites said he’s dead. It’s still unofficial, though. But why would a priest lie?” He went up front.

George leaned toward me. “What he say?”

I told him. George shook his head. I followed Russ to the front. The mail girls were chatting to one side.

“I think if he was dead, Bill’s wife would have called,” said one.

"Not necessarily,” I told her, “you can’t get through. I tried to call my wife and they wouldn’t let me through.”

Jim nodded. “That’s likely.”

Somebody else, "You can’t even get a dial tone,”

Jim and I went over to Russ, who began talking right away.

"It used to be when something like this would happen, the newspaper would get out extra editions. I remember when you used to hear boys calling ‘extra, extra’ up and down the street. But now…”

I said the papers put out so many editions they didn’t need extras. But Russ had his own explanation.

“TV and radio get it so fast that the papers aren’t necessary to inform the people anymore. We were at the Cathey Teahouse when we heard. The waiters came around to each table and said the President had been shot. They said they would turn on the TV for news. It was something. The whole place went silent. The waitresses moved slowly, trying to be very quiet. Everybody just sat and listened.”

“I wish we’d get the story clear,” I mumbled.

“I don’t know how they feel upstairs,” said Russ, “but I think we should be allowed to go home.”

Mayberry’s wife called, getting through somehow, and after Russ told her Bill had left and hung up, he, Jim and I began talking about whom might have done it.

“I don’t think it was a Cuban," Russ said. “I think the anti-Castro Cubans hated Kennedy more that the pro-Castro.”

“I hope it’s a nut,” I said, “I hope it’s just some nut.”

They agreed. Russ spoke. “If the guy was with some group it would be bad. If it was a colored guy, they’ll be a lot of colored people killed. If it was a white guy doing it for the Negroes it’ll be just as bad. If it’s a Cuban, a lot of people’ll want to wipe out Cuba. I don’t think we would invade Cuba, but a lot of people would want us to.”

“That’s why I hope a nut did it on his own.”

“But if this is a group, I’m afraid there will be a lot of violence,” said Russ.

A new report reached us. It said the President was dead, the Governor of Texas was critical, Johnson was having a heart attack and was probably wounded. It was also reported that a German Musser rifle had been found on the sixth floor of some building. Three shell casings were nearby and one unfired bullet was in the rifle. It was believed this meant the assassin meant to get Johnson too.

Bill Mayberry returned and reported they had caught the assassin.

“He’s twenty-five and white,” he said.

More and more people knew. It was about three o’clock. There was anger and joy, rumor and speculation. I asked to go home and was allowed. I caught the train and the entire trip I read and reread the headline on the Evening Bulletin:

SNIPER KILLS KENNEDY

We Pause in our Tale for Milestones

My mother and me with her dog Nellie, 1943. Nellie had been around much longer than me at that point. I'd been born a couple years earlier in June.

June was a big month for our family and still is I suppose. Lot of us arrived along with summer, including friends.

One of my two best life-long buddies was born in June, three days after I was. That was Stuart Meisel. On that same day, my wife's life-long best friend Evelyn Weinmann was also born.

My Grandmother, who was very close to me as I grew up, was also born in June as was my mother.

And then my mother and father married on my mother's birthday, which is June 21. Everybody got pulled into a celebration even if not born in this month. After all, there is Father's Day, which happens to be today and has in times past fallen on my parent's anniversary or mom's birthday, however you want to put it.

Here are some photo just to pay tribute to this month of June and we June Bugs.

I don't know why they waited so long to take my picture.

Mom at age three.

Dad the year he was born, 1918. You know what, he still looks like that.

See hasn't changed a bit, except for the glasses.

Dad when he looked like me, age 17.

Dad with his shipmates aboard the Destroyer Escort USS Jaccard off Manila in 1944. Dad is the one squatting on the far right.

1946 in Virginia, my Grandmother is the lady seated on the far left. My Aunt Edna is sitting next to her. The woman on the far right is my cousin, Millie Wilson, who was Maid of Honor at my parent's wedding.

My Grandmother in her garden, 1939.

Grandmother in another Garden, 1954

Grandmother 1967 with Jet.

Her last birthday on this earth, June 1987. She died the next year.

Mom at the Ship Road School, 1934. She is seated center. She would be either 13 or 14.

The two Millies, 1936. Milly Wilson left and mom right.

Mom in Kerr Park 1944.

Mom and Dad at Laponte, pa. 1939

Mom and Dad, 1938. Dad was 5 foot 11. Mom was 5 foot 1 and weighted 98 pounds.

Dad and Mom 1939

1946, not long after dad returned from serving in the Navy during WWII. he is squatting in front. My mom is on the far left and my grandmother on the far right. That is me leaning out the car window in the background. The other ladies were Mary Lukens, wife of a Navy buddy and Peg, a friend.

June 21, 1940, the wedding picture. L. to r.: Milly Wilson, Maid-of-Honor, Mom, Dad and best man Bill Hill.

June 21, 2010, my parents cutting the cake at their 70th Wedding Anniversary celebration.

Lois and I at my parents' 70th. Look how happy Lois is to have her picture taken. June 21, 2010.

June 21, 2010. Mom and Dad renew their wedding vows.

Oh, Tell I Here of the Hotel There

No, that isn't a hotel shaped as a Wedding Cake. That is our hands fifty years ago in a mid-September. A lot of fuss is often made of the Golden Anniversary, proper parties and such. But times are rough and no one in my family is in shape to throw a big bash. The best we could come up with was a little trip of a couple days.

We may not even went off on such a thing if reservations and plans hadn't been in place before I lost my job at the end of August. But sometimes the best way to deal with adversity is to get away from it for awhile.

So to what grand and exotic spot did we go to celebrate such an auspicious occasion as our fiftieth?

Mauch Chunk, of course.

Ohhhh-kay, why?

Back in 2008 the Little Woman and I started off on an ill-conceived vacation into Northern Pennsylvania. After eating lunch in the Bear Swamp Diner at Macungie (and perhaps that name was a hint of what was ahead) we traveled northwest until we hit wilderness. After a while of seeing naught, but scrub grass and trees we got the heebie-jeebies about where we might stay the night or even eat. I confessed I may not have planned this out very well as we decided to turn around and flee for more civilization. We ended up having a wonderful few days staying in Gettysburg. (You can get the gory details of that truncated jaunt here -- Getting to Gettysburg: Jim Thorpe and Traveling is Broadening.)

Well, between Macungie and dread, we passed through the little burg of Mauch Chunk. (The Little Woman said it sounded like some kind of animal eating. Not far off, the name means Bear Mountain in the language of the Lenapes.) The town was very crowded that day and there seemed no where at all to park, so we only saw it from our moving car, but the Little Woman thought it charming and intriguing and ever since that day wanted to go back and visit the place.

By the way, although the rail station reads Mauch Chunk as do many signs in the place, it is better known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Jim Thorpe (pictured right) is considered by some the greatest American athlete ever, even the greatest world athlete. He was born in Oklahoma and, like the Little Woman, was part Irish and part Native American. In 1904 he left the Okay state to attend the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School where he first came to fame playing football for the Carlisle Indians. He went on to excel in football, baseball, basketball and win Olympic Gold metals in track.

So, he never lived in Mauch Chuck, perhaps never even visited, and Mauch Chunk isn't exactly a suburb of Carlisle, which is his connection to Pennsylvania. But like all humans, Jim Thorpe, super-athlete that he was, died and when his home state of Oklahoma wouldn't erect a memorial to him, his wife (his third) got angry. Most powerful weapon of mass destruction in the world is an angry woman. She made a deal with Mauch Chunk, an old coal town dying, and they erected a monument and renamed the town Jim Thorpe. He was interred there (His son began a lawsuit in 2010 to have his body exhumed and reinterred on Native American ground in Oklahoma.). His Wife got the memorial she felt he deserved and Mauch Chunk got new life as a booming tourist town. (There is a certain irony in Jim Thorpe and Mauch Chunk coming together this way, but I'll get to that in another post.)

This post is about hotels.

The Little Woman and I have been fortunate enough to do a little traveling. We have over time stayed in some interesting and historic hotels. Not the big grand ones, such as the Waldorf-Astoria, although we did spend a couple night in it many moons ago, but smaller, perhaps lesser known hostels.

(On the left is the Little Woman relaxing in our room at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, 1962.)

Here are some of the very old and interesting places we have enjoyed staying at over the years:

The Inn on Canal Square in Lewes, Delaware. We have been privileged to  stay here several times in recent years. The photo here was from earlier this year. It rained all the first day and then turned to snow overnight, which turned to a blizzard burying the Mid-Atlantic.  We always stayed here out-of-season because of the cost in season.

The Lighthouse on Casco Bay at Sebasco, Maine. Like The Inn on Canal Square, we had a marvelous view from our room of water. Here we were overlooking an expansive bay and inlet rather than a canal. It was an unique place to stay.

Part of our room in the historic Hawthorne House, Salem, Massachusetts. The infamous "House of Seven Gables" was a short walk away and across the street was the "Salem Witch Museum". Yes, in was named for Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Independent Park Hotel in the Old City district of Philadelphia, just around the corner from Two Street; surrounded by the history of our country's founding and a few steps away from a world of dining experiences, from an Havana Street at Cuba Libre, the Indian cuisine of Cafe Spice, to eating off a coffin in the Eulogy Belgian Tavern.

These are all fine establishments, places I would recommend to anyone, at least if they have remained as they were when we visited. But here I want to sing the praises of The Inn at Jim Thorpe. I would put it at the top of an enjoyable carefree stay for comfort, cleanliness and accommodations.

Jim Thorpe seems to have a way of taking you to other places, but more on that in later posts. There is a certain reminiscence of New Orleans to the Inn. This had caught the Little Woman's eye when we passed by several years ago.

The flowers trimming the railings are real, I hope anyway, since a man is watering them.

Parking is ever a premium in this town and for a moment I feared I would find no room at the inn for my car (actually the Little Woman's car). I drove about the rather cramped lot twice. It was quite filled-up it seemed and had narrow stretches I had to maneuver to escape on the first run through.

I had to exit thought a alleyway, which grew more cramped the further you went. This deposited us back on the main street we had originally entered from, much to my anxiety. There were no sign of parking spots along this avenue.

"What do we do now?" I said.

"Go back around where we went before," said the Little Woman.

I gave her a questioning look, but did so.

"There," she said as we entered the lot again, "turn left."

Up ahead upon a wall that ended this drive was a sign saying, "Inn Parking" with arrows pointing both left and right. We had turned right before and ended up exiting.

"I thought I saw more parking to the left," she said.

But the left was not a lane to extra parking, simply an indication that spaces lined this side of the drive. I pulled forward and amazingly, glommed what was apparently the last possible spot of the moment.

Yes, that is our little red Fit tucked away between two walls and a large SUV, almost a feeling of being in a garage.

If the parking lot seemed a bit -- oh, I don't know - spooky, intimidating, cramped, this was not the nature of the Inn once inside.

The hallways were like compressed galleries in an art museum, festooned with paintings right and left to escort us to our room on the third floor.

I look at this picture and realize it is some what surreal; it must be the Dali wing. The way the left wall appears to wave and waffle.

I think it sets the mood for this very interesting town.

Someplace that changed from street to street, a place still somewhat frozen in a bygone era, a place of fascinating history and a place with surprises around each corner.

We were in room 312, what was called a mini-suite.

The Little Woman was thrilled when we threw back the door and entered. Ahead we could see a wide-screen television. No, it was not the TV that made my wife thrill; I mean, come on. It was the mantle of what the TV sat upon, a working fireplace.

I am not exactly certain why she has this love of fireplaces, but she does. We had stayed in a hotel in Monmouth, N.J. a couple years ago, near the university. We were there for a concert and I didn't want to make the long trip home so late at night, something ironic as it turned out. It was one of the Marriott Residence Inns and it had a fireplace. Oh, the little woman looked forward to coming back from the concert and nestling down together before a blazing fire.

It wasn't to be. Leaving the University we got hopelessly lost and didn't find our way back to that Inn until the wee hours of the morning, weary and shaken. The Little Woman didn't get her fire and I traveled more miles late at night than I would have going home.

I sort of hated telling her that you couldn't light the fireplace here until October. I had read that in a room description on the website. However, no one at the checkin mentioned not using the fireplace nor was anything posted or in the Welcome to the Inn book in the room. I was tempted to flick the ignition switch and see if anyone squawked. There was wood in the thing. But I didn't.

There were plenty of amenities in the room beside the TV and fireplace. There was A/C and heat, of course. There was a CD player and clock radio, a DVD player hooked to the TV, Coffee Maker and assorted coffees and teas, a microwave and a refrigerator stocked with free bottled water.

There was also a ceiling fan and a skylight, which made other lamps unneeded most of the day. We were blessed with two beautiful, sunny days, a nice respite from all the rain of the last month.

There was another amenity, which we both made good use of and did it ever feel good on this old body, a whirlpool bathtub.

Sorry, it was not surrounded by mirrors so no accidental catching of me splashing about in the altogether.

On the floor below was a lounge for those who wanted to use such a place. Besides some magazines there was a shelving unit holding several board games.

As nice as these facilities might be, we preferred to be out and about the town or snug in our room.

The staff here was very accommodating. In a reversal of the maid accidentally walking in on the guest, we walked in on the maid or maids actually. The two young ladies were very friendly as we sat about watching them work. When the one noticed the coffee we preferred, she left us extra of it.

On Sunday evening after we returned from dinner, the Little Woman had a hankering for a candy bar. Finding such a thing seemed a unlikely mission, but I set out into the dark and empty streets to try. I saw a couple places that probably did have candy, but they were closed. I returned to the hotel defeated, but in my best conspiratorial voice, asked the Desk Clerk if they had any candy bars hidden about.

"No," she said, "but Dugans sells candy bars and he is still open. It is just a block up the street."

She was correct and I came back with a half dozen assorted candy bars. The Little Woman was happy, which is what you want.

The Inn was once known as the American Hotel. In the 1800s it was one of seven grand hotels that graced the town, but today is the only one still remaining and doing business. Those were the days when Mauch Chunk was a tourist destination second only to Niagara Falls and people flocked in to dance at The Flagstaff, its "Ballroom in the Sky". By the time of Jim Thorpe, Mauch Chuck may have long shed its title of "wealthiest town - per capita - in America", home at one time at the same time to 13 millionaires, when a million dollars was real money. (I'll let you in on a secret: a million dollars is still real money to me, so anyone who feels it is chump change can toss it to this chump.)

Anyway, this is the hotel of which I tell and I would tell you to stay there is you ever have the desire to lay over in Mauch Chuck. Maybe go during the October Fall Foliage Festival and ride an old train up through the Lehigh Valley River Gorge or take in Jay Smar, singing coal country classics in Josiah White Park.

And while there enjoying the peace and quite or the colors of changing leaves or the wonderful Inn at Jim Thorpe, learn some history.

See the upsides and downsides of our history. Learn of Asa Packer. Learn of the Molly Maguires. Visit, by all means, the mansions on the hill and then do not overlook or miss the dungeons of the Old Jail.

Then you will know why Mauch Chunk indeed.





All photos by the author, except the portrait of Jim Thorpe.

Upticks and Updates: More Why the Rich Get Richer and You Don't

That is pretty much the stock market these days. They seem to jump this way or that on whispers of the least little thing. Yesterday the Dow jumped up 186.45 points for what reason?  What have we heard this week that says buy? Retail sales last month were flat, nothing was selling, especially clothes and back to school didn't sent people out spending this year. The number of people beneath the poverty line rose, the medium household income fell. Europe is in financial turmoil. We had a rise of violence in the Middle East. First time unemployment claims were up...again; and the unemployment rate didn't fall. There were no new jobs created last month and a number of employers announced big lay offs to come. The cost of living rose and ever people are moving in together in homes, which tends to decrease spending for goods.

It was noted Wednesday that mortgage applications rose last week because the interest rate had fallen to a new low. Well, hallelujah, happy days are here again. Of course, a good number are people refinancing while they got the chance to maybe lower their payments. Meanwhile, a way too high percentage of home sales are on foreclosed property and foreclosures remain a problem, bloating the inventory.

Stock Markets went well up today on the belief now that Greece won't default. That is the state of it now. We don't have stock growth on positives, just that the worse negatives don't occur.

But no matter the state of the state or whether Greece is well greased or not, it doesn't mean you can't make money in the market if you are a Wall Street type and have wealth. If you have lots and lots of money you can play the Long and Short Selling game and you can even make money by betting stocks are going to fall. If you have enough dough, you can even manipulate the rise and fall by buying large amounts of a stock.

The rich guy buys enough of one stock hoping others jump on the bandwagon seeing his buy and they start buying and the stock goes up.  Then when the rich man wishes, he dumps the stock at a high price and sends it plummeting. Once it has bottomed out, he may buy it back at the low cost again. This is having your cake and eating it too. The guy makes money on the profit from his initial purchase and then buys it back low, thus keeping his profit and having the stock as well.

Now to update y'all on my previous post, "Tangles of the Ticker Tape: Why the Rich Get Richer and You Don't". In that piece I spoke of a certain CEO who bought 342,876 shares of his own company at $.92 a share. That was the report I read that day. It seems he actually bought a bit more than that over a couple more days. He bought another 342,876 shares on the 9th at $1.19 a share and then 481,714 shares on the 13th at $1.36. Notice how each time he has bought, the price has been higher. He spent $1,378,599.40 overall and do you know where that stock stands now? It is currently at $1.59, meaning if he sold it this instant it would sell for $1,856,270.94, a tidy profit in a week of $477,671.54 less broker fees.

Now the price has went up because his purchases gave confidence to other investors to also buy that stock. They believe if he has this much faith in his company turning around, he must know something. So, his money enables him to manipulate the price upward.

Could you or I do that? Well, if you be rich, probably. I am not rich. I might have been able to buy, oh say, 100 shares of that stock at $.92, a cost of $92 (plus broker fees of course). I don't think my ninety-two dollars or my reputation is going to encourage any followers to jump on any stock because I do. Then if I sold my 100 shares at the current price I would make a profit of $67 (less those broker fees cause brokers gotta eat too). That is a nice gain on my investment of 73%, but a long way from making me rich.

Besides, by the time we little fish jump in the pool, the sharks have driven the price to the heights, then they drain the pool and leave us high and dry. Of course, a bit earlier in the day I could have made $79, but by the end of the day that stock dropped $.12 since the opening

Will the stock regain today? Will it continue up, stay even, begin to drop back where it started? A lot will depend on how well the CEO's new business plan succeeds. If the efforts to turn the stores around faultier, then so will the stock price, and then will the CEO dump the stock for a profit or go down with his ship?

We shall see.