Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Diner Dating: The part of town a diner is in can sometimes suggest how long it’s been around. For example, diners in the middle of a town tend to be older because they once catered to local customers, before people commuted in cars. On the other hand, diners located close to highways are more likely to have come along later, after the growth and expansion of America’s highway system.

  Eats: Throughout Pennsylvania, there are certain diner menu standards: meat loaf, milk shakes, triple-decker club sandwiches, chipped beef, French fries with gravy, sticky buns, and homemade pies. Naturally, though, different areas offer some variety—diners in Pennsylvania Dutch country also feature regional specialties like chicken and waffles, pork and sauerkraut, schnitz and knepp (ham and dried apples with dumplings), shoofly pie, and chowchow—a mustard-flavored relish made with corn, beans, onions, pickles, and other vegetables.

  Lingo: There was a time when diner owners and patrons spoke a language all their own. The terms are heard less often today, but here are some bits of old-school diner lingo you still might hear floating around the counter:

  •Hockey puck: A well-done hamburger

  •Burn one: To put a hamburger on the grill

  •On the hoof: Meat served rare

  •Rabbit food: Lettuce

  •Whistleberries: Baked beans

  •Wreck ’em: Scrambled eggs

  •White cow: A vanilla milk shake

  •Bucket of cold mud: Chocolate ice cream

  •Sinkers and suds: Doughnuts and coffee

  •Blowout patches: Pancakes

  •Wax: American cheese

  •Pin a rose on it: Add an onion

  The Pennsylvania Diner Hall of Fame

  Most Original Name: The Yakkity-Yak Diner in North Apollo. Order its namesake from the menu, and you’ll get a fried bologna sandwich.

  Most Famous: The Downingtown Diner—currently called Chef’s Diner and once called the Cadillac Diner—appeared in the 1958 Steve McQueen movie The Blob.

  Most Political: The American Dream Diner on Herr Street in Harrisburg is a favorite spot of Pennsylvania politicians; state legislation has even been signed at its tables.

  Oldest: Kay’s Italian Restaurant in Daleville opened in 1920.

  Most Successful: German immigrant Richard Kubach opened the Melrose Diner in Philadelphia in 1935 and, according to Brian Butko, author of Diners in Pennsylvania, turned the run-down, abandoned business with just 19 stools into the most popular diner in the city in just one year. The diner’s jingle: “Everybody who knows goes to Melrose.”

  Did You Know?

  Philadelphia-born Albert Barnes made a fortune in the early 1900s as the inventor and manufacturer of an antiseptic called Argyrol. By the time he died in 1951, Barnes was worth about $3 billion. He was also an eccentric, a philanthropist, and an art lover. In 1922, he combined these interests when he opened the Barnes Foundation in Merion Township. The foundation offered art classes and hosted a museum filled with artwork from Barnes’s personal collection—mostly Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. The classes were open to the public, but the museum was by invitation only . . . and whether you got an invitation seemed to depend entirely on Barnes’s mood. Legend says that writer James Michener was refused entry and that people who wrote asking to make appointments were sometimes turned down in letters “signed” by Barnes’s dog.

  Jim Thorpe

  The place, not the guy.

  Town: Jim Thorpe

  Location: Carbon County

  Founding: 1818

  Population (2008): 4,800

  Size: 14.8 square miles

  County seat: Yes

  What’s in a Name?

  In the early 20th century, athlete Jim Thorpe was one of the most famous people in the world. He won the decathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, played professional football, and is frequently named as one of the greatest athletes of all time. Thorpe wasn’t from Pennsylvania; he was born in Oklahoma in 1888. In fact, he never visited the town that came to bear his name.

  Jim Thorpe died in 1953, and his body was placed in a vault, pending the State of Oklahoma’s approval and financial backing for a memorial site in Tulsa. But in the end, the Oklahoma state legislature rejected the plan.

  This is where the Pennsylvania town of Mauch Chunk comes in. In the 1950s, officials in the small city of Mauch Chunk (an American Indian name that meant “Bear Mountain”) were looking for a way to bring tourists and money to their town, and they needed a hook. So they asked Thorpe’s family if they could build a memorial in Pennsylvania and inter his body there. To sweeten the deal, they’d rename the town Jim Thorpe.

  The Thorpe family consented, the town voted, and in 1953, Mauch Chunk became Jim Thorpe. Ever since, the body of Thorpe has lain in a park called the Jim Thorpe Memorial. His marble tomb is etched with pictures depicting him playing various sports.

  Claims to Fame

  •Mauch Chunk’s opera house opened in 1882 and was originally built as a combination bazaar and concert hall. In the early 20th century, musicians from Al Jolson to John Philip Sousa performed there before it became a movie theater in 1927. Over the years, the building fell into disrepair, but eventually, the town’s historical society bought it and renovated it. Today, the old opera house is again a performing arts theater.

  •Mauch Chunk’s Switchback Railroad is often called one of America’s first roller coasters. The railroad began in the 1820s as a means for miners to get coal from a nearby mountain to the town below. Powered only by gravity, the train barreled unrestrained down a mile-long track. (Mules pulled it back up.) In 1873, the train started carrying thrill-seeking passengers instead. That year alone, about 35,000 people rode on the Switchback. It closed in 1929, but the track’s path remained. Today, bikers and hikers can travel the railroad’s 18-mile route.

  Prank-More College

  This year, we decided to give Uncle John’s “Best Hijinks” award to Swarthmore College. These kids really know how to let loose.

  Swarthmore College is one of America’s finest small liberal arts colleges. Its students have a reputation for being smart, intense, and bookish—a reputation that they cultivate carefully. But Swarthmore students also know how to have fun, and they have a long history of pranks and silly traditions. Here are some of the most memorable.

  The Crum Regatta

  The Saturday morning of Parents’ Weekend is the time for the Crum Regatta. Students compete on nearby Crum Creek in boats they build themselves out of “found” materials. Boats can be made out of almost anything: one student used trays from the cafeteria, and in 2007, a student waded down the creek while pulling five girls on a wooden plank. (He came in third.) Nearly everyone wins a prize—first, last, most creative, etc.

  Dash for Cash

  Once each semester, members of the men’s and women’s rugby teams run through the school’s main administration building, Parrish Hall, grabbing fistfuls of dollars from the hands of eager spectators. The catch? All the runners are naked. The tradition got started in 1990 (or 1989—no one seems completely sure) when a group of players on the men’s rugby team streaked through one of the women’s dormitories. The women wanted the men to do it again, and they agreed under one condition: the women had to give them some cash. It’s all for a good cause, though. The money collected these days goes to buy supplies for the teams. (Rumor has it that members of the faculty have been offered cash not to participate.)

  The McCabe Mile

  One night in the spring of 1970, Dave Johnson and Peter Gould, two Swarthmore “sewer rats” (students who liked to study in the basement of the school’s McCabe Library), decided that they needed to let off some steam. The library had just been redecorated with new orange carpeting, and the two figured out that it would take 18 laps around the orange carpet to make a one-mile run. So when the library closed for the night, they put on their running shoes and did it.

  Word of their race got around, and the next spring, 18 Swatties (as Swar
thmore students are known) showed up for the run. Eventually, it became one of the school’s most cherished traditions. In 1974, students even started handing out a “trophy” . . . a single roll of Scott toilet paper to honor Thomas McCabe, the library’s namesake and a former chairman of the board at the Scott Paper Company.

  A Unique Start

  •With so many students participating in such a small space, a position at the head of the line is highly desirable, so the organizers devised a competition. Before the start of the race, someone reads a quotation. The first Swattie to identify the source and shout out the book’s title gets to go to the front of the line.

  •The race begins when the book from which the quotation was read is slammed shut.

  The Department of Men’s Studies

  One of Swarthmore’s most ingenious pranks of all time took place at the start of the fall 2007 semester. Seniors Ben Blander, Nathan La Porte, and Mike Rosenberg formed an entire fictitious department . . . the Department of Men’s Studies. The three printed an “addendum” (formatted to look just like a real catalog) and handed it out to all incoming freshmen. The addendum explained that “due to a printing error, one department was left out of the College Bulletin.” Offerings in the Department of Men’s Studies included classes such as Demolition, Beer and Malt Liquor, and Study a Broad. The school’s registrar, Martin Warner, even allowed the pranksters to staff a table at the Departmental Advising Fair. Warner said that he found the parody of the course catalog “cute.”

  Did You Know?

  Nearby Haverford College has its own traditions. According to many people on campus, there are three things that every Haverford student must accomplish (outside the classroom) before graduation:

  1. Swim in the duck pond.

  2. Run the Naked Mile, a tradition that began at the University of Michigan, where students run naked through campus on the last day of classes each spring. It seemed like so much fun that other schools, including Haverford, took up it up.

  3. Spend a full night in Magill Library cramming.

  On the Radio

  KDKA of Pittsburgh has many things to be proud of. Here’s one: it’s the oldest commercial radio station in the United States.

  Thank Frank

  In 1890, 16-year-old Frank Conrad got a job at the Westing house Electric and Manufacturing Company of Pittsburgh. He would eventually spend his entire working life (51 years) there and, early on, began experimenting with the new medium of radio. In 1919, he set up a crude radio station in his garage, trading messages with just a few listeners. But one night when he ran out of things to say, Conrad played music. The people who heard it wanted more, so he did it again . . . and again.

  As more listeners picked up his broadcasts, he developed a following.

  A local music store was the first business to take notice; it supplied records for Conrad to play in return for on-air advertising. Next, a department store started selling ready-made radios so that people could listen to Conrad’s show. Previously, most people had made their own radios, but that took time and the public didn’t want to wait to hear Conrad’s music. Finally, Westinghouse started paying attention.

  Radio, the Early Days

  Back then, radio stations were mostly low-key operations, headed by individuals (like Conrad) or small businesses, who used them to communicate with each other—very few people saw radio as an entertainment or profit-making medium. But because Conrad had so much success playing music, Westinghouse came to believe that entertainment was radio’s future.

  On November 2, 1920, the company debuted its own station, KDKA, which would include programs aimed at creating a solid listener base and would make money from advertising. The first broadcast? Results from that year’s presidential race between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox. KDKA became the first commercial (for-profit) radio station in U.S. history.

  In 1992, KDKA switched to an all-talk format, which it still uses today. The last song played? Don McLean’s “American Pie,” about “the day the music died.”

  The Name Game

  If you’re wondering where KDKA got its call letters, here’s the story: Before 1920, radio was mostly used for communication—between ships and shore, for example. That radio network grew out of earlier telegraph stations, which had been assigned identifying call letters, and radio operators used them, too. Different countries had different call letters; U.S. stations all began with K, W, or N. When Westinghouse applied for its license, the letters KDKA were the next available on the government’s list.

  Innovation

  Being the United States’ first commercial station was quite an accomplishment for KDKA, but the station racked up other firsts, too:

  1921: In January, it hired the first full-time radio announcer, Harold W. Arlin, who provided the first play-by-play coverage of a Major League baseball game: the Pittsburgh Pirates versus the Philadelphia Phillies. (Pittsburgh won.) That year, KDKA was also the first to broadcast a presidential inaugural address, a heavyweight championship bout (Jack Dempsey beat Georges Carpentier), and a football game—between the victorious University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University.

  1922: KDKA hosted comedian Will Rogers in his first radio broadcast.

  1924: The station took part in the first transcontinental radio broadcast. A New York City station broadcast a program from the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom; KDKA picked it up by shortwave radio and sent it to a station in Hastings, Nebraska, which sent it on to San Francisco.

  1927: KDKA became part of NBC’s Blue Network, a chain of stations across the country that broadcast simultaneously. It was the progenitor of the national radio and television networks we know today.

  1951: Ed and Wendy King’s Party Line, the first radio talk show, debuted and ran for 21 years.

  1954: Rege Cordic and his talk show Cordic and Company set a new standard for morning talk shows. Instead of sober, straight journalism, Cordic and Company—with regular guests Louie the Garbageman and Omicron the Alien—featured zany humor.

  1982: KDKA was the first AM station to broadcast in stereo.

  The Pittsburgh Pirates Quiz

  Think you know the history of Pennsylvania’s oldest Major League Baseball team? Let’s find out. (Answers on page 302.)

  1. When did the organization that became the Pittsburgh Pirates start playing ball?

  A.1862

  B.1872

  C.1882

  D.1892

  2. What was the earliest name of the team that became the Pirates?

  A.Alleghenys

  B.Grays

  C.Spiders

  D.Parkers

  3. When did the team play its first actual game in Pittsburgh?

  A.1892

  B.1896

  C.1901

  D.1908

  4. Why did the team become the Pirates?

  A.The nearby coastline was once famous for piracy.

  B.They stole a player from another team.

  C.Their team logo resembled a skull and crossbones.

  D.Their owner’s favorite novel was Kidnapped.

  5. What is the fewest number of wins recorded by the team in one season?

  A.15

  B.23

  C.42

  D.51

  6. How many times have the Pirates won the National League pennant, but not the World Series?

  A.1

  B.2

  C.3

  D.4

  Did You Know?

  In 1999, M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Sixth Sense earned seven Oscar nominations. Since then, Shyamalan, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of Penn Valley, has based his production company in Conshohocken, giving the Commonwealth its first major film production company since the collapse of Lubin Films in 1914.

  Philadelphia Triple Feature

  Wishing for a night of movies with the word “Philadelphia” in them? Here you go!

  Philadelphia (1993)

  What It’s About: A hotshot lawyer (Tom Hanks) gets fired by h
is Philadelphia law firm when the senior partners discover he has AIDS. He sues and is represented in his fight by an attorney (Denzel Washington) who has to overcome his own homophobia to try the case.

  Uncle John’s Ranking: Four cheesesteaks out of four. Philadelphia plays a big part in the movie, which was filmed in the city. Featured landmarks include City Hall, the Furness Building at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Wachovia Spectrum.

  Philadelphia was the first major Hollywood film to deal with the subject of AIDS. It was also the film that won Tom Hanks the first of his two back-to-back Best Actor Oscars. (The second was for Forrest Gump.) In his acceptance speech, Hanks called Philly the place where “wise, tolerant men” founded the United States. The film won a second Oscar for the Bruce Springsteen song “The Streets of Philadelphia.”

  Philly Fact: In the film, Denzel Washington’s character mentions that he hopes the Phillies will win the pennant. The year the film was released, they did.

  The Philadelphia Story (1940)

  What It’s About: High society fixture Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) is getting married for a second time, and the first husband, C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) crashes the festivities with a sardonic journalist (Jimmy Stewart) in tow. Is he there to see his old wife off—or to get her back?

  Uncle John’s Ranking: Three cheesesteaks out of four. This film is a classic, but we gave it only three cheesesteaks because, even though the city of Philadelphia shows up in the movie, its role is minor. Portions of the film focus on the lives of people living in Philly’s ritzy “Main Line” western suburbs, which were at one time Pennsylvania’s equivalent to Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side of Manhattan.