The Bottom Falls Out on Bottom Dollar

One Thursday about a month ago, I was hit with the news as I was pulling my car into work.  The radio newsman led into his story with the phrase “Bottom Dollar is outta here”.  My favorite supermarket will be gone by the end of the year. I didn’t see this coming, although I found out later that Bottom Dollar’s parent company had been looking to get out of the discount supermarket business.  Even if I did know about it, I wouldn’t have suspected that they would sell Bottom Dollar to its biggest competitor, Aldi. But that is what happened, and now Aldi will swiftly do away with what I think is its biggest rival.

It still doesn’t make sense to me in a lot of ways.  As recently as this summer, newly constructed Bottom Dollar stores were opening, and now those brand new buildings will be vacant as of next year. It doesn’t seem to be a natural death, especially since it is not even five years old as an entity. What looked to be an up and coming retail chain suddenly had its foundation torn out from under it because the parent company decided to sell it to its leading competitor.  Bottom Dollar is dying a tragic death at a young age when compared to Kmart, which appears to have run its course and to be dying a natural death.

On a personal level, I loved shopping there because there was a store near my home and I found it cheaper.  I didn’t see any reason to pay more when I didn’t have to.  They touted themselves as having unbelievably low prices, and while that catch phrase may not be literally true, they seem to beat all competition in that area.  The one drawback is that both the quantity and variety of products seem to be limited when compared to the larger supermarkets.  And like Aldi, they didn’t provide free plastic bags, but those are minor inconveniences I could live with.  I would usually only go somewhere else if there was something I needed that Bottom Dollar didn’t have, or if something I needed was on sale there.  I would guess that the concept with Bottom Dollar is that they are somewhat of a throwback to the post war days when a supermarket had all the basic items that were needed to fill the refrigerator and the pantries.  It was later that supermarkets became larger and larger, and added their own bakeries, florists, cafes, and pharmacies.  I hope that concept is picked up by another supermarket that will offer the basics at a lower price.

But right now, I just have to accept that Bottom Dollar will soon be gone.  It’s nothing horrible or tragic, but I just hate the fact that we had something really good going, and now it is suddenly taken away.

Will He, Won't He

I have been glued to this computer the last 48 hours now, obsessively checking Google and Yahoo for the latest developments in the Penn State coaching search.  Of personal interest to me, of course, is the fact that current Miami coach Al Golden is among the top three candidates that are being pursued at the moment.  Since he is scheduled to meet with PSU officials today, there will be a lot of anticipation among college football fans who will be watching closely and flooding the internet with posts, blogs, tweets, and every other possible medium through which information can be viewed.

Yesterday, there were conflicting reports about Golden.  At least one source supposedly had it confirmed that Golden was already offered the job and was expected to accept.  Going by that report, it seemed to me that it was about 90 per cent certain that Golden was the new Penn State football coach. It stopped just short of declaring it a done deal.  However, several conflicting reports soon popped up, one of them claiming that Golden had no intention of leaving Miami.  All these reports aside, it seems that the consensus is that the two parties will meet today, and nothing can be officially confirmed until the results of this meeting are made public.

Something about all these various reports reminds me of something that happened in the WWF back in the late eighties.  Near the beginning of a weekly show, manager/commentator Bobby Heenan announced that he had a new wrestler under contract by the name of Bam Bam Bigelow.  In his words, he had Bigelow signed, sealed, and delivered.  Within a few minutes, each of the other four WWF heel managers appeared in brief taped promos, one by one making the same announcement as Heenan.  Predictably, it turned out that Bigelow wanted none of them as a manager and chose someone else.  There actually isn’t much in common between this old WWF storyline and the PSU coaching search, except for the conflicting reports.  And in the case of PSU, none of the confusion comes from any of the parties involved.

But after all that, I’ll just keep looking back at the news reports.  Everyone will know for sure soon enough, and then all the analysis can begin.  

The Dawn of a New Era With a Strange Twist

I am thinking back to one day in January, as I was starting my car and waiting for it to warm up in the cold of the winter’s day, which was by then darkening into evening.  I tuned in to the news radio station and heard the announcement that the Eagles now had a new coach.  Since the sports talk stations were buzzing about Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley the previous evening, I assumed I was about to hear his name.  He had just completed an eight hour interview with the Eagles, and all reports were that they were near a deal.  So it took me by surprise to hear Chip Kelly’s name being announced as the new Eagles coach instead of Bradley, and it took a few seconds to really grasp it.  And then I was left wondering what happened in the last 24 hours that had proven all the sources wrong. 

To me and most Philadelphia sports fans, Chip Kelly was a thing of the recent past.  It appeared at first that he was close to a deal with the Browns, and then it appeared he was close to a deal with the Eagles. Then after that it appeared he would return to his position as head coach of the Oregon Ducks and pass on the NFL for at least one more season.  It seemed final, and that the Eagles and Browns had moved on.  But then suddenly he was introduced as the Eagles head coach.  Chip Kelly would be the Eagles head coach after all, and this time it was a done deal. 

Maybe it wasn’t so sudden.  The reports I was hearing as the story developed indicated that Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and Kelly made some kind of a secret agreement that would allow Kelly to return to Oregon and brief his players on what was about to happen, while all the time managing to keep it from leaking to the press.  I wasn’t listening to the radio during the day of the announcement, but I have a feeling someone tipped off the sports media that Kelly was in Philadelphia, and that the sports talk stations were buzzing with anticipation and speculation that he was indeed the Eagles new coach.  It may not have been a total surprise to them at the time of the announcement.   But even if that was going on, long time Eagles play-by-play announcer Merill Reese stated that he was as surprised as everyone else that it was Kelly who would take over as coach.

Once that was out of the way, I moved on to other things.  It was January, and while the season was still going for some NFL teams, as far as the Eagles were concerned, it was effectively over in November.  Football will not be a concern for me until August.  But, if nothing else, it was an interesting turn of events that ushered in the new era for the team.

Revisiting The Island

America came to a standstill on November 23, 1963 as people all over the country gathered around their televisions and radios, in shock over the news of President Kennedy’s assassination.   One such group was a cast of actors and crew filming on location in Hawaii, working on the pilot episode of a potential new series.   What they were doing had no real historical significance, especially when compared to what had just happened in Dallas, about 7000 miles away from where they were at.  But their show did indeed get picked up by CBS and was aired that next September as Gilligan’s Island.  The series lasted three years, but its popularity far outlived its original TV run.  Throughout the next few decades, the endless syndication run and occasional reunion specials assured Gilligan’s Island its own place in history.  It may have been meaningless in the overall context of history, but it left an undeniable mark in the far less important realm of pop culture.

Once series creator Sherwood Schwartz got the green light to produce the new show for CBS, and the tweaking process was completed, the show was left with seven characters, all of whom would become pop culture icons, while the actors would be forever associated with those characters, for better or for worse.  From what I read, most of the actors liked their characters, or at least learned to like them over time.  The one major exception was Tina Louise, who portrayed movie star Ginger Grant (basically Marilyn Monroe with auburn hair).  She wanted to be a dramatic actress and pursue more serious roles, and claimed the Ginger Grant role killed her career.  On the other hand, Alan Hale, Jr., known on the show as Skipper, loved his character from the beginning.  His trademark captain’s hat would stay with him long after he walked off the set of Gilligan’s Island for the last time.

Although it seemed the cast of Gilligan’s Island had fond memories of the show (except Tina Louise, of course), the television critics of the day were not impressed.  Although I haven’t found any actual reviews of the show from its original run, I remember the general tone from various sources I have come across over the years.  In brief, the show was bashed for its childish stupidity.  But Gilligan’s Island did seem to fit in well with the sitcoms of its time.  This was an era of TV shows about flying nuns, hillbillies in Hollywood, and monster families.  If the critics felt the way they did about Gilligan’s Island, then I think it’s safe to say they didn't believe they were living in the golden age of television.  Not when it came to comedy, at least. 

Regardless of the critics’ reaction to the show, enough people tuned in to Gilligan’s Island to keep it on the air for three seasons.  Actually, there was supposed to be a fourth season.  When the final episode of the 1966-67 season was finished, everyone involved with the show walked off the set fully expecting to be back in the fall.  However, there was a problem.  Apparently, the long running western series Gunsmoke was going to bow out after that season, but a CBS executive wanted to keep it to please his wife who liked the show.  Room would have to be made on the schedule, and Gilligan’s Island was sacrificed to make that happen.  So now the cast of Gilligan’s Island, who thought the fourth season was a done deal, were suddenly out of work.  And, of course finding regular employment would be difficult in their highly competitive profession.

Fortunately for Gilligan’s Island (and many other TV shows through the years), it didn’t end there.  When the show moved into syndication, it soon reached a new and far wider audience, many of whom were too young to remember the series when it was on CBS.  In a phenomenon somewhat similar to shows like Star Trek and the Three Stooges, the afterlife took on a life of its own.  During the early 70s the cartoon company Filmation would produce an animated version of Gilligan’s Island, with most of the original cast voicing their characters.  In the late 70s, there would be a reunion special where the castaways finally got rescued.  There would be other cast reunions on talk shows, and on other sitcoms such as ALF. 

Although Gilligan’s Island managed to maintain its popularity for decades, it now appears to be fading from view as it approaches the half century mark.  I don’t think it is running on any channels currently, at least not in my area.  However, there are several classic television networks, such as TV Land and Antenna TV.  Gilligan’s Island would be a good fit for these channels to pick up and run for a while.  Other than that, it is hard to watch old episodes without purchasing the DVD.  It seems is a copyright blocking episodes from being shown on YouTube, which would be the only free outlet I could think of in which to watch old episodes.  But things like this have a way of going in cycles.  If there is enough of a popular demand, it will find its way back.

Watching Hurricane Sandy In Real Time

Where I live, we were warned about a week in advance that Hurricane Sandy might make a left turn from the course it was on, going up the Atlantic.  The new projected path would send it directly into the Jersey Shore.  And since this was combining with a nor’easter into a super storm, the entire heavily populated Northeast Corridor could be at risk.  By Friday afternoon, there was no longer any question about it. It was definitely going to make that left turn and come right at us.  As I watched the news on the networks and the Weather Channel, it only got worse.  Soon, Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia was on, as well as Governors Christie of New Jersey and Corbett of Pennsylvania.   Everyone was warning that this storm would be dangerous and lives and property were definitely at stake.

It seemed like a lot of hype, especially considering the last big storm that came through about 14 months ago.  Hurricane Irene was felt in our area, but didn’t produce the devastation that forecasters predicted it could bring.  This sentiment was expressed especially along the coast, where people heeded the government warnings to evacuate the shore towns, especially the barrier islands, most of which were no more than a few blocks wide, with the ocean on one side, and the bay on the other.  The storm did indeed bring plenty with it.  However, it seemed the damage was minimal for all the warnings that were issued.  Now these same warnings were issued, and now they were more urgent than they were for last year’s big storm.  The eye of the hurricane would make landfall in either Delaware or New Jersey, and would arrive as a category 1 hurricane.  Coastal flooding was a very real possibility from the Carolinas to New England.  Everyone in the path of the storm had been hearing all of this all weekend.  But, of course, they heard those same warnings last year and were skeptical.  A storm was coming, of course, but they had been through all kinds of storms before, and felt they had seen everything.  It may have been rough at times, but everything always stayed intact.  This sentiment is typified by a woman from one of the shore towns being interviewed for a local news program.  She had lived on the Jersey Shore a good part of her life, and had been through everything.  Last year, she heeded the evacuation orders for Hurricane Irene and moved inland to stay with friends.  It turned out that her friends lost their power, but nothing happened to her home on the shore.

However, this time everything seemed to be happening exactly as the meteorologists were predicting.  Even as this was going on, the “here we go again” attitude was prevailing in some shore residents, like the woman referenced above.  They watched as the wind picked up and the rains began to fall.  They watched as the warnings and pleas to get off the barrier islands grew stronger and more urgent.  Governor Christie, who is not known for mincing words, could not convince them either.  So they waited and watched as the rain and winds grew heavier and stronger, even as the ocean began to crash through the sand dunes and turn the streets into rivers.  They walked around with their cameras and documented this as it was happening, and soon their pictures began appearing all over the social media outlets.  But many of these diehards eventually had all they could handle, and those who could do so found their way to the designated evacuation points or made last ditch 911 calls.  But a few were determined to go down with the ship if they should have to.

The storm apparently weakened somewhat once it made landfall, although it was still strong enough to cause plenty of damage when it reached my town, about 60 miles inland.  Fortunately, the town I live in sits on a hill and there is not much worry about flooding.  There are plenty of valleys around our town that are prone to flooding, but we’re fairly safe.  But no one is safe from the wind and pounding rain.  The wind howled throughout Monday into the small hours of Tuesday.  I remember going to sleep at 10 to the sound of the perpetually roaring winds, and then waking up around 2am to relative quiet.  The winds had died down.  The next day, just about everything was closed or shut down, so I was able to take a walk around to visually assess the damage Sandy had caused.  There were plenty of downed trees and generators humming.

Now, as I finish writing this, it is over a week later, and things are back to normal here in Bucks County.  The Jersey Shore, of course, is a different story.  The cleanup will be going on there for a while, and hopefully it will be ready to receive its tourists by the time summer arrives.  Although these were the two areas I was watching most closely during the storm, there were plenty of other areas of the Northeast hard hit by this storm, including West Virginia, which received a lot of snow.  But it appears the coastal areas were the hardest hit, and which have the most to lose from all the damage.

Remembering a Landmark and a Blown Chance Encounter

Sometime around 5 to 10 years ago, I was riding the train home on a Sunday afternoon with a few of my friends.  I usually have a good memory about these things, but my recollection of that day is fuzzy.  I don’t remember exactly what we were discussing, but I think our conversation centered on my hometown of Langhorne.  An elderly gentleman was sitting nearby as we talked.  As the train was nearing Langhorne station, he was one of the people who got up to exit the train.  He had overheard our conversation earlier and knew what we were talking about, and he introduced himself by showing a tag on his suitcase.  The image on his tag was a landmark in my area for several decades.  It was the old Constellation airplane that was mounted and propped up by three large columns on top of a restaurant in Penndel, owned by a man named Jim Flannery. When the plane stood, it was visible from the station we were arriving at, although the view was partially obstructed. The man identified himself as Flannery. I was speaking with none other than Jim Flannery.  He ran that restaurant for years before he bought the plane, which was then carefully disassembled and shipped north from Dover, Delaware.  It was then carefully reassembled and fastened to the roof of the restaurant, and used as a cocktail lounge.  A spiral staircase was constructed leading up from the ground level to the airplane/cocktail lounge.

Growing up in Langhorne, that was a part of my childhood.  An old airplane resting on top of a building is not something you see every day, but in my case, it was.  We passed by it every Sunday on our way to church, and throughout elementary and middle school, my bus would drive past it.  It was there until the late 1990s, when, after having gone through several post-Flannery ownerships, the restaurant finally closed for good.  The property was sold, and the plane was disassembled and dismounted from the main restaurant building, which was razed to make way for an Amoco station and mini-market.  I remember seeing the huge dismantled relic lying on the ground, until it was finally taken away to a museum.

But after I got past the initial surprise that I was speaking with Jim Flannery, my curiosity led me to ask a question about the opening ceremony for the airplane/cocktail lounge in 1968.  It was publicized by sending a hot air balloon off from the parking lot.  But it all went wrong right after takeoff when the wind sent the balloon into power wires, electrocuting both riders and sending them falling to their deaths.  Without thinking, I asked him about what went wrong that day.   He gave a quick muttered response that I didn’t understand.  I then came to my senses and realized that was not a good question to ask.  I wish I would have thought of something wiser and more pleasant to say, since this was no doubt a bad memory for him, and presumably something he has had to answer to many times in the past.

I had mostly forgotten that chance meeting with Flannery until recently, when I passed by the BP station that now sits on Flannery’s old site.  In a friendly gesture, the owners of the station commemorated the landmark that once stood there by attaching a replica to the top of their neon sign.   I pass by this station often, and sometimes fuel up there, but I didn’t think much of the miniature Connie.  This time, however, I decided to do some internet research on the restaurant and airplane.  In doing so, I also came across Flannery’s obituary.  He passed away last June, after living most of his life in Penndel, near his business, and the landmark that will forever be associated with his name.

The Return of Gino's

I was driving along Street Road in Bensalem, PA a few weeks ago when I saw something I hadn’t seen since I was in high school, at least.  It was a Gino’s restaurant.  Gino’s was a fast food chain started by legendary Baltimore Colts running back Gino Marchetti, and their restaurants were a fixture in my area during my childhood.  It seemed to me that around here Gino’s was third to McDonald’s and Burger King in the fast food market.  They also worked out a joint deal with the Colonel that paired Gino’s with Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the only place to buy KFC food was at a Gino’s.  The signs outside the stores placed the KFC bucket logo above the big red Gino’s Hamburgers sign.  But as far as I know, Gino’s was never a national chain and never expanded beyond the northeastern United States.  It came to an end in 1982, when the chain was brought out and the Gino’s name was retired.  All existing Gino’s locations were converted to Roy Rogers, and for the most of the next thirty years, Gino’s was a memory.

It was not a total surprise to see a Gino’s restaurant.  I heard a few years ago that a return was planned. They had a website going, with a list of targeted locations, but I don’t remember seeing the Bensalem spot on the list.  I was actually looking forward to seeing Gino’s restaurants again.  Part of it was out of nostalgia, but part of it was also because I liked their food, although I generally try to avoid fast food nowadays.  I think I remember reading that there already was a Gino’s open in King of Prussia, PA, which is on the opposite side of the Philadelphia metropolitan area from where I live.  But once I saw the Gino’s on Street Road, I had visible proof that they were back.

There are a few Gino’s restaurants that stand out to me in particular.  The one we frequented most was in Fairless Hills, PA, which I think was the closest Gino’s to where we live.  It stood at an ideal location, on the corner of a busy intersection.  I grew up in a fairly large family, one of five kids, and my mother was a nurse who didn’t work, choosing to stay home and take care of us while my father supported us.  I think that is why whenever we ate out, it was usually McDonalds or Gino’s.  I don’t remember going to fancy restaurants much.  My parents just tried to treat us as much as they could on the budget they lived on, and looking back I was happy with it.

We ate at that Gino’s in Fairless Hills regularly when I was little, but there was one afternoon that I won’t forget, even though my memory is vague.  I think I was only about six or seven at the time.  We were eating at Gino’s during a windy day, and there was a shopping center under construction nearby.  A few minutes of particularly strong gusts created a makeshift dust storm coming from the construction site, and I saw the dirt flying all over.  For those few minutes, the visibility was very poor.  It had blown past by the time we left, and although I don’t remember it, our car was probably covered in dirt, as were all the others.  Decades later when we drove by that location, which is now occupied by an Amoco/McDonald’s joint store, my father still recalled that day.

Every summer our vacation routine was to spend two nights in Atlantic City during the middle of a week in late July or early August.  My parents liked going there, as they had since childhood.  And they probably found that plan cheaper than spending a week at one of the Jersey Shore resort towns that stretched from Long Branch to Cape May.  Going to Atlantic City was all I knew for vacation, and looking back I was fine with that as well.  As kids, one thing we really liked about Atlantic City was the famous Boardwalk.  And among the hundreds of shops and attractions on the Boardwalk there was a Gino’s, which I think we went to at least once almost every year we went there.  I have a vague memory of sitting at the Gino’s while looking out over the ocean and watching the waves crash into the jetty. 

During my childhood, our family would travel monthly to Jim Thorpe to visit relatives.  Our normal route was to take the Pennsylvania Turnpike to get there, but there was also a back way my parents liked to go.  That route took us through Bucks County, where we would ride the back roads until we got on the turnpike at the Quakertown exit.  More often, we would get off the turnpike there on the way back, and take the back roads through Bucks County the opposite way back home.  Along the way in Quakertown, there was a huge shopping center with a Gino’s, where we would often stop for lunch before continuing back home.

At one time Gino’s commercials were seemingly on all the time.  During the Phillies telecasts they were, since Gino’s was a sponsor, along with other local institutions such as Schmidt’s beer and Tasty Kake.  These ads stand out to me, I guess, because they ran repeatedly during Phillies telecasts, and I watched plenty of Phillies games.  Following the trend of Ronald McDonald and the magic Burger King, Gino’s also had their own mascot, the Gino Giant.  I don’t remember much about the Gino Giant except his telling kids to rub their bellies and make a wish.  I think after that, they were magically transported to the nearest Gino’s.  Later, in 1977, after the first Rocky movie created a sensation all over the country, Gino’s found a way to work the spirit of Rocky into their ads.  I always remembered a series of those ads, which would end with the main character of the commercial doing a victory dance similar to the one performed by Rocky when he finally made it to the top of the Art Museum steps.  In the background, there was music and a chorus of singers singing “feeling good at Gino’s”.  One day a few years ago, I searched YouTube to see if one of those old commercials was posted, and indeed I found one.  That is what led me to find out Gino’s was making a comeback.  My curiosity led me to look up Gino’s on Wikipedia to find out what actually happened to the chain.  I learned that they were bought out by Marriott and converted to Roy Rogers’s restaurants, but I also learned that there were plans in place to revive the Gino’s brand in the next few years.  That put me on the lookout, occasionally checking the sites, but I missed the news that they had bought property in Bensalem, and also was unaware when it opened. 

According to their website, Ginos now has four locations, with a fifth site opening soon.  Two are in Pennsylvania, and two are in Maryland, soon to be three.  I don’t know if they will regain the presence they had in the 70s.  There is no joint deal with KFC this time, and Gino’s is cooking their own brand of chicken.  I’m glad to see they’re back, although I don’t plan on going there much.  I would like to go there just once, probably when I’m on the run sometime.