Take a close look. Who actually thought it would be a good idea to PIN an Aids Awareness ribbon to a condom pack?
Oakmont Memories
Watching the US Open being held at Oakmont Country Club just outside of Pittsburgh brought back a TON of memories the last few days and I’d like to share a few.
The 1978 PGA Championship was held at Oakmont while I was living in Pittsburgh. At the time my buddy Tod Jeffers was working at WMAJ a radio station in State College. Tod and I had quite a scam going. Tod was the sports director for the station and he would write to the PGA and USGA for media credentials to some of their golf tournaments and he would regularly get two (one press and one photographers – oddly enough, they never asked why a radio station needed a photographers pass). The 1978 tournament at Oakmont was one of the first where we pulled this little act (btw – they have wizened up and no longer give out press credentials to radio stations outside of a 50 mile radius of the tournament site).
The access that the credentials provided us was incredible. Not only could we enjoy the numerous benefits of the press tent but we also had access to the course. The way that most media covered the tournament was to sit in the media tent and watch the tournament on TV (more on that later). Then, following competition of their round, each player would come into the interview tent and handle and questions by the media. Rarely did they venture onto the course. Not Tod and I though. We would spend the day on the course walking along with the players.
Friday was the first day that we hit the course. I took a vacation day from work. Because hosting a major championship in town was such a major deal many of our office sales team took customers to the tournament so there were a lot of fellow IBMers at Oakmont. Early in Fridays round Tod and I decided to follow Jack Nicklaus. After Jack’s tee shot on two, Tod and I are strolling up the second fairway about twenty feet behind Jack and his caddy when I here this voice yell “Yo Fall”. I look over and there’s the IBM Branch Manager, Scotty Theissen, behind about five rows of spectators lined up along the fairway. Scotty was about 6’6″ so he stood out from the crowd and could get a good view from behind the others. As soon as I see him, Scotty says “you’d better write a good story” (the press credentials back then were a little different than today – today you hang a placard off of a belt loop, then you had a yellow armband that said PRESS – so Scotty was obviously commenting on the armband). My first thought was “I hope he isn’t upset that I took a day off to come to the tournament”. When I got to work the following Tuesday (more later on why I wasn’t in on Monday), he called me into his office and his comment was “How did you pull that off? I’m impressed.” I think his opinion of me jumped a couple of notches that weekend.
What Tod and I would do for the most part was tag along with the official group that walks along with each golfer. Normally, you’ll have 2-3 golfers, their caddies, a scorer, a standard bearer, a rules official, and maybe a few photographers. The group of us would walk just behind the golfers, and when we got to the green we’d find a spot near the exit walkway and kneel down so we wouldn’t block anyone’s view. We’d do the same thing on the tee when the golfers would tee off.
During one of the rounds, Tod and I were following Tom Watson. We walked up to the 15th tee and before we even got a chance to kneel down a guy standing directly behind me started mouthing off to his friend next to him “Goddamn press. I wait here for hours to see Watson tee off and they come stand right in front of me”. Without hesitation, and with a totally straight face I turned around to him and said “Hey buddy, you’re out here having fun. I’m out here trying to make a living. Cut me a break.” Jeffers had a hard time keeping a straight face.
I mentioned the press tent before. It seems like nothing today with the way that modern technology has advanced but I was really impressed with the IBM computer systems at Oakmont. Remember, there were no PCs then and computers ran in heavily air conditioned back rooms – also there was no such thing as wireless access. At Oakmont though, IBM had wired the entire course. A data entry person would sit just off of each green and they would enter players scores as they completed each hole. That would be immediately transferred back to the main computer that sat in a refrigerated trailer just outside of the press tent. In the press tent there were a series of terminals hooked into the mainframe so that the press could check on the stats at any point in time.
One of the afternoons, Tod and I were in the press tent when we heard a roar go up out on the golf course. A hole in one roar at a major tournament is different than any other. It was immediately obvious that someone had sunk one somewhere out on the course (actually from the direction it came, we were reasonable sure it was hole #8. I walked over to one of the terminals and typed in the request for current stats for #8. Sure enough within seconds, up popped a 1 next to Gil Morgan’s name (the eighth hole is the one that’s playing at around 270-280 for this tournament – Morgan dunked his tee shot on the fly for his one with the hole playing at 242). At the time that absolutely amazed me. Of course, with today’s technology, the exact same data, and much, much more, is instantly available to everyone around the world via the internet but in ’78 that was quite impressive.
By Sunday, Tod and I pretty well had the course mapped out. We knew exactly where to stand to get on camera – and we did. All the TV shots came from fixed cameras on the tees or behind the greens – there were no roving fairway cameras then. Since we could walk with the players, we would make sure that we stood behind the players so that they were always directly between us and the camera on the hole. That meant that we got on MANY times. There was one memorable shot that I can remember quite well.  It came on #3 when Johnny Miller put his shot onto one of the mounds between the church pew bunkers.  Johnny stood on top of the mound to take his shot and Tod and I were directly behind him.  Because the camera shot was a telephoto from behind the green it looked like we were about two feet from him when the reality was we were a good 20-25 feet.
About an hour or so after the tournament was over I got a phone call from Mother and she went on to repeat the following conversation she had with Dad to me.
DAD (from the TV room watching golf): “Eileen – get in here!”
MOM: “What? Why?”
DAD: “I think I just saw your son on TV”.
MOM (now in the room with him): “Where?”
DAD: “Wait a second until this guy tees up. He’ll be standing right behind him.”
MOM (with the camera now on us): “Well. I don’t know. That sort of looks like him – I guess it could be… Wait a minute. That’s definitely he’s friend Tod next to him so it must be.”
My own mother doesn’t recognize me but recognizes Tod.
John Mahaffey won the tournament in a three-way playoff with Tom Watson and Jerry Pate shooting a 276. Mahaffey made up 7 strokes on Watson over the last 14 holes to take the title. Tod and I followed Watson around for the final nine but not didn’t hang around for the playoff.  In those days, tradition called for dropping the ropes behind the final group as they came up 18.  The fans who rushed in behind the players were quite careful to respect the players space but they had no such concern for us “media” types. It was too much work fighting our way through the masses to get inside the ropes coming up 18 and we knew it would be the same way for the playoff so we bailed (in those days the playoffs weren’t set up just for TV either – players went right onto the first tee and played from there – the didn’t follow any of the weird playoff formats we have now).
So while the tournament ended on Sunday for most of the participants, it didn’t for us. Another tradition for the majors is that on the Monday following the tournament, the host course is open to the media for free play. THAT was an opportunity that Tod and I were not about to pass up. Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not cooperate. Come Monday and it was pouring rain. We went out and tried to play anyway but it was just too much and we had to quit after nine. Still it was an incredible experience, one that I would love to repeat sometime.
Tomorrow, I’m going to be able to relive part of it but it won’t quite be the same. Randy Woolridge and I are headed to Oakmont to watch the Sunday round. The bad news is that we don’t have press credentials.  The good news is that we have VIP privileges (Randy got the tickets from a big time banker friend in Pittsburgh) which includes access to the Pittsburgh Steeler corporate hospitality tent located just off of the eighteenth hole. I’m looking forward to the experience and will report back on Monday.
The Ultimate Rube Goldberg Device
Normally you see this things set up on stages using all sorts of esoteric construction materials but this was all done in a couple of apartments with everyday normal items.
It’s a masterpiece (although I do wonder how many takes it took).
Go here to see it in action.
State College Spikes – Season 2
The State College Spikes are a short season Class A baseball team – short season meaning they don’t start play until the end of June. Major League Clubs support short season teams so they have a place to stock the players whom they sign through their draft which takes place after high school and college regular seasons are complete.
Today is that draft day. It will begin at 2PM and the first few rounds will be televised for the first time (ESPN2 is carry the draft).
Since I have time on my hands, I’ve thrown together a website to track the Pittsburgh Pirates draft choices (the Pirates are the major league affiliate for the Spikes team) because the Spikes roster will be primarily populated with kids from this draft. This provide a way for friends of mine, who actually have jobs and have to work, to actually follow the draft today and get a feel for who might be playing for the Spikes this year.
I seeded the site yesterday with those Pirate players whom minor league baseball currently lists as being owned by the Pirates but not yet playing with a Pirate minor league team (they are primarily holdovers from last years short season team who didn’t get promoted to a higher level team this year – some of them will be cut before the short season play starts June 20th). During the course of the draft today I will be updating the site in real time as the Pirates make their picks.
Here’s the link to the site.
And here’s an RSS feed that will be updated as each pick is made.
FOLLOW-UP: While the blog turned out pretty good for a quick and dirty deal, I ran into some Blogger issues (WordPress has spoiled me) when I tried to put some bells on whistles on the blog.  So I’ve converted the blog to WordPress and here’s the link to the current version.
Legends of the Fall – Version 2.1
It’s upgrade time.
Over the last month or so I’ve added several new features to the blog and I figure this is as good a time as any to announce them (it’s also a good time to make a post or two so I can move that obnoxious jock strap picture down a bit 🙂 ).
For a detailed description of what’s included in the new version, click here or click on the Legends – Version 2.1 link in the Info Pages section in the sidebar.
Look what I stumbled upon!
in my never ending crawl through the depths of the internet I occasionally find a gem – and this is one of those times.
Here are the original rules for the Fall Family Cup competition at the Battle of Battle Creek.
Thanks go to Gary for the wonderful header photo (and me for sanitizing it).
Where are they now?
Just in case they didn’t know it, I thought I’d update Ken and Gary on the whereabouts of a couple of old friends of theirs from our Chalfont days.
I’m sure most of us second generation Falls remember Conti’s Cross Keys Inn in Doylestown. I had my high school graduation dinner there with the family shortly after the graduation ceremony and shortly before I rear ended a car on 611 on my way to a party – which not surprisingly I never made.
Walt Conti, was the proprietor of the Inn, and I got to know Walt later through my association with the Tavern Restaurant in State College. Walt was one of the original Tavern waiters hired while he was a student at Penn State in the late 40s early 50s. Walt maintained close contacts with the original Tavern owners and even helped train the first Tavern bartenders when State College finally allowed liquor sales in the late 60s (people used to have to drive 10 miles to Bellefonte to buy a drink or a bottle of booze).
Walt was quite successful in the restaurant business rising to head the prestigious National Restaurant Association. He was remained connected with Penn State serving as a long time Board of Trustees member and even chairing the Board for several years. Walt is now retired and living in South Carolina. However, Walt isn’t the reason that I’m making this post. His two sons, Joe and Mike, are.
Joe Conti was good friends with Ken in high school. Ken can provide more details but my understanding was that at one time Joe and Ken had talked about going to Penn State, majoring in Hotel and Restaurant Administration, then opening a restaurant together. As it turns out, when the family made the move to Illinois following Ken’s senior year in high school, he decided to stay closer to home and enrolled in Illinois State instead.
Joe continued the family tradition and enrolled at Penn State. He also followed in his fathers footsteps by working at the Tavern Restaurant where I got to now him. Joe eventually took over management of the Cross Keys Inn from Walt. But like his Dad, Joe wasn’t content to just run the family business. Joe got involved in politics eventually getting elected as a State Senator from Bucks County. The demands of his new political career forced Joe to sell the two family restaurants – the Cross Keys Inn and the Pipersville Inn – in 1999.
In 2006, as is wont in politics, Joe got caught up in a political football (state legislators voted themselves a 2005 midnight pay raise that became to be known as a greedy money grab by the public – Joe made an ill fated joke about the pay raise that came back to haunt him and he fell out of favor with the Bucks County Republicans). Joe elected to retire from the Senate rather than fight what appeared to be a losing battle (even if he had won the fight against his fellow Bucks County Republicans he might have lost the war when many Republicans were swept out of office by the Democrats in the 2006 election).
Don’t worry about Joe though. He landed on his feet with a nice appointment as the head of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board aka the LCB. Pennsylvania maintains an archaic system (maybe even more so than Utah) where all liquors sales are controlled by the state. You can’t buy a bottle of booze in this state anywhere other than one of the 600+ State Stores scattered around the state. So Joe is now effectively the manager of those 600+ stores that bring in a staggering $1.6 billion in sales. Nice gig Joe. Oh yes, also like his father, Joe served on Penn State’s Board of Trustees.
That brings us to Mike Conti. Mike and Gary were friends in junior high school. Mike followed in his brother and fathers footsteps by also going to Penn State, working at the Tavern where I got to know him, and also becoming a friend of mine (I even went to Mike’s wedding in 1978).
After graduation, Mike went to work for his dad at the family inn back in Doylestown. However, like many of us, Mike couldn’t get Penn State out of his blood. In 1992 he returned to work for the University as part of the University’s Hospitality Services. Hospitality Services runs Penn State’s two on property hotels, the Nittany Lion Inn and the Penn Stater Conference Center.
Mike started out as the Food and Beverage Manager for the restaurant at the Nittany Lion Inn. Today he is the General Manager of the entire hotel. The Nittany Lion Inn has been an on campus fixture since it was built in 1929. It features 220+ rooms and is the place to stay to for alumni returning for campus visits. During it’s 75 year history, many notables, including numerous presidents, politicians such as Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King, actors like Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman, and entertainers as varied as Billy Joel and Brittany Spears, have been guests at the hotel.
My hat’s off to the Conti’s – one of Penn State’s most highly regarded families.
The Wilds of Montclair
We went camping this weekend. Saturday night, we and 2 neighbor families camped in the Falls’ “Back 40”.
We had a talent show, s’mores, and ghost stories.
Better Late Than Never
Two recent events:
Lex’s birthday Party: 10 6 yr olds and mini-golf. I’ll never do that again…. tho I may do it with 7 yr olds.
Mother’s Day: 2 traditions.
1) A picture in front of our neighbors bushes (azaeleas?).
2) A vist to the Van Vleck Gardens, here in Montclair, for a Mother’s Day Concert. (Tho we’ve actually made it for the concert only once, we do stroll the gardens.)
Hypothetical Moral Dilemma
I just finished reading this interesting article on moral principles. A Harvard researcher hypothesizes that evolution has provided us with a base moral compass. As evidence he offers these three intriguing questions on morality.
Question One:
A trolley is coming down a track and it’s going to run over and kill five people if it continues. A person standing next to the track can flip a switch and turn the trolley onto a side track where it will kill one person but save the other five. Is is morally permissible to flip the switch?
If you answered yes, then you have responded the way that most people do – they feel it’s morally permissible to harm one person when five are saved.
Question Two:
A nurse comes up to a doctor and says “Doctor, we’ve got five patients in critical care; each one needs an organ to survive. We do not have the time to send out for organs, but a healthy person just walked into the hospital – we can take his organs and save the five. Is that OK?”
Not surprisingly, no one says yes to this question.
Question Three:
What’s the difference between these two situations?
According to the Harvard professor, people of different ages, people of different religious backgrounds, people of different educations typically cannot explain why those cases differ. He proposes that there is some sort of hard wired unconscious process at work during moral judgments.
I found that quite intriguing and I certainly couldn’t rationally distinguish between the two hypothetical situations.
If you are interested, here’s the online version of the article.