A Latrobe guy considers what Trump said about Palmer

 Arnold Palmer was in the news this weekend.

Well, part of him was in the news.

For you innocents out there, I’m referring to his genitalia. One of the two major party candidates for the office of U.S. president talked about Palmer’s penis as if it were the club he carried with him where ever he went.

Care to take a wild guess as to which candidate broached the subject?

It caused a national stir, and if we get anymore stirring provocations we’re bound to go stir crazy.

Many were outraged. Some said Palmer would have been flattered.

Me, I am chagrinned and keep thinking, well, it was nice while it lasted. See, I am the author of a 2018 book about Palmer and his enduring connections to Latrobe, “Arnold Palmer: Homespun Stories of The King.”

Being from Latrobe, we’re always asked what’s Palmer really like. I had a ready answer:

“Arnold Palmer is perfectly cool, authentic and refreshing. If Arnold Palmer were a drink he’d be an Arnold Palmer,” I’d say. “What’s he like? If Arnold Palmer were the only member of The Greatest Generation it would still be The Greatest Generation solely because it included Arnold Palmer.”

And that’s the God’s-honest truth. He was just the greatest. I always make that clear.

Now I fear people are going to go right to the penis.

Do I tell the truth and say it never once came up — and I mean the subject.

Will the admission that I never once talked cock with The King forever doom me to outsider status.

“Well, yeah, he may have written a word book about Palmer and the book may be 215 pages long but he can’t tell me how long was his schlong so I don’t know if we can trust him.”

And what will this do to his namesake Arnold Palmer drink? Will they start to serve it in deeper glasses. What kind of banter will ensue when you’ve had a bad day and say, “Bartender, give me an Arnold Palmer, will you? And make sure it’s a stiff one!”

Remember, a 3-hour erection is not a side effect. A 3-hour erection is a front effect.

I thought of conducting an investigation. But exhuming him from a truly unplayable lie for the purpose of a routine pecker check would seem blasphemous. 

Far less intrusive was going to the Arnold Palmer statue at the Arnold Palmer regional airport.It may have sounded like a good idea, but only to those who expect their statue subjects to be wearing their Speedo.

Maybe Palmer, the gold-standard when it came to sponsor product commitment, just figured out a from-the-grave way to get us talking about the kind of balls with which he plays.

Let’s hope, too, Trump dumps the whole topic before he becomes confused and begins insisting the hung one wasn’t Arnold.

It was Fred.

I answer your Tin Lizzy FAQs

 

First of all, I’m not a paid spokesperson for the Tin Lizzy so you can take my word that what I’m about to tell you is genuine. Having said that, I confess to every time I get my PA driver’s license renewed I for reasons I can not explain add another fraudulent inch to my height.

My license says I’m 5’11. I’m actually 5’7.

My goal is to live long enough to possess a license that says I’m 6’2.

It’s a peculiar format for a goal-driven fib.

It’s not like I believe I’ll one day get  pulled over and the  trooper will say, “Mr. Rodell, I pulled you over because I saw you swerving and I suspect you are either impaired or were playing Wordler on your phone.

“But your license says you’r over 6 feet tall so I have to let you go. I bid you ADIEU which if you are Wordlering today reveals two green and one yellow panel.”

I’ve had an office — the only office — in The Tin since July 15, 2015, the day after I was evicted from The Pond, which to me still feels as misguided as if someone had moved to evict Elvis from Graceland.

The Pond was the perfect bar for tipsy BSers like me. Just a great group of regulars. Every day the same dozen or so Regular Joes would gather for a daily guzzle. And — get this — seven of the Regular Joes were conveniently named Joe!

I remember the day my exasperated wife asked what the hell we talked about on those endless days of perfectly pointless bullshit.

“We talk about sports, we talk about politics and we talk about how different our lives would be if we went to a bar where women went.”

But I wasn’t a free agent for long. Not 1, 2, or 3, but 4 Latrobe bar owners called and offered me working space. It was like an Amber Alert went out for drunken local writers.

My friend Micah came through with the most appealing offer.

He had room for me in The Tin Lizzy.

Who could say no? I’ve written about it, owner Buck, and all my friends here many times. So I don’t speak for any of the vested parties here. I’m just one of the guys who happens to spend a lot of time here.

These are some of the questions I hear …

TL FAQs

Q: Is The Tin Lizzy open?

A; Yes, very much so. So open that there is one point in each day, that one of the three bars is practically vibrant. The trick, for now, is sensing which one is really hopping at the right time. But it only takes one person and one bartender to make it happen. Note: Hours and days for each bar differ, but you can get a drink in the Main Bar Monday thru Saturday from 7 a.m. thru (hours vary).

Q: What’s the deal with carding even the gray beards every time you come in?

A: That’s a question for the LCB. I will say this, if some pain-in-the-butt LCB regulation is enough to keep you from supporting this landmark business, one that’s for long stretches of the past 250 years meant a lot to our mothers/fathers/aunts/uncles and assorted oddball relations, then shame on you.

Q: How’s the food?

A: In the past 6 months I’ve had some of the best meals I’ve ever had in the building. And it was The Tin Lizzy where chefs Dato and Jaffre got their start. The menu is being tinkered with, but nothing that’s come out of Chef Cornell Taubert’s kitchen has ever disappointed me.

Q: Is the owner ever cranky?

A: The only diplomatic way to answer that question is with another question: “How cranky could he be and yet still be the recipient of the prestigious‘Employee of the Month’ award for more than 40 years straight?”

Q: Is TheTin Lizzy haunted?

A: I used to say I don’t believe in ghosts, but I never stay in The Tin Lizzy after dark when I’m all alone. Now I say, “Yes, it is! By the ghost of Arnold Palmer!” Then I just start making shit up.”

Q: Do you give tours?

A: One of my favorite things is when someone who’s read and enjoyed one of my books tries to sneak up the stairs and timidly taps on the door to say, “We don’t want to disturb you …” like I’m performing brain surgery on an undecided voter. I say, “Hell, I’ve been disturbed since 1992. C’mon in!” I consider it a privilege to give tours (’92 was the year I quit my last job).

Q: Do you have a favorite bar/bartender?

A: Yes, I do. He was Zack. He was 33 when he died in 2020. I miss him very much. I can say he was my favorite because, well, he was, and because when you die as young and as pretty as Zack sadly did you attain a sort of sainthood no mortal bartender can begrudge. And I can’t pick one former bartender because she threatened to stab me. True, she was having a bad day and dealing with the sassy provocation of her finding my car parked in her parking spot (this was back when I could afford a car). But it’d be unwise for me to encourage that sort of conflict resolution.  So who’s my favorite? The one standing in front of me. Which is my favorite bar? The one I’m sitting in.

So, yes, The Tin Lizzy is open. Yes, you can get a great meal there and, yes, you’ll be welcomed by a lot of smiling faces. Just be careful you don’t park in my parking spot. 

You wouldn’t want to anger a motorist whose driver’s license says he’s almost six feet tall.

Meeting a writer? Be very afraid

Has this ever happened to you? Someone tells you they write books and you’re not sure how to react. Here’s a tip: Be very afraid. You’ve just met a person of ruthless determination. 

That person stares down one blank page and vows, “I’m going to fill this vast emptiness with so much compelling and original thought that readers I’ve never met will not only absorb every word, but they’ll greedily want to devour every single page that follows.” He or she will repeat this process until he or she has vanquished the next 350 pages. 

Don’t be fooled by the writer’s benign appearance. The writer is a mass murderer. He or she has silenced all the voices that nag, “You’re wasting your time. Your ideas suck. Why don’t you get a real job?” And these are just the voices the writer hears inside his or her own head. 

The writer is relentless. Once he or she vows to finish the book, a grim singlemindedness takes over and the writer becomes impervious to distractions he or she mocks as frivolous. These duties may include things like childcare, residential upkeep and the relationships others consider so vital to mental well-being.

The writer is Messianic. He or she believes God ordains that the book must be written because its publication will lead to justice, understanding, social equality and MLB playoff games that conclude before midnight.

So show a little respect next time some stranger says he or she writes books.

Hell, there are things those writers could teach the aspirants to SEAL Team 6.

 

AI & newborns: when change is inevitable

 (606 words)

There weren’t many but there were enough of them that I had the sarcastic retort holstered and ready to be drawn.

It was 24 years ago and Val was about to deliver our first baby. We were unaware of the sex, but in what is now one of the lamest “Spoiler alerts!” that child was a female, born September 25, 2000. We named her Joslyn Rachel Rodell.

But right up to the moment she was born, she was a vast unknown, a vast 7-pound unknown. So many questions.

Boy or girl? Curly or straight haired? Savior or Satan?

That last one became a category after a handful of friends would greet the otherwise joyous news as if we expectant parents were being sent to a Siberian gulag for stealing a peach.

Their eyes shone with gleeful prophesy; their tone was one of vengeance spared not.

“So you’re having a baby. Ahhh …” Now, cue the cackle: ‘Boy, are your lives gonna change!’”

It became for me a hanging curve.

“Whew, boy, am I glad to hear it — ‘cause up til now, our lives have really, really sucked!”

It’s for lines like that that sarcasm was invented by, I think, a war-weary French soldier in response to Napoleon’s 1815  rally cry of, “We take Waterloo and the world is ours. Who’s with me!”

See, our lives had not sucked. Au contraire. We enjoyed travel, attending concerts, fancy dinners, and quiet nights at home reading or watching movies.

It was a very happy time.

So we found out the very first night our antagonists had been correct. Our lives really did charge.

They got better.

Much better. It’s impossible to gauge how happy being the father of darling Josie — and Lucinda Grace in ’06 — have made me.

Today, man, it’s been 24 years, bolstering my contention that time doesn’t fly. It drives a Maserati drunk down the Autobahn with a brick strapped to the gas pedal. 

But, oh, those 24 years. Old pictures pop up here and there and I see me smiling with those little girls in my arms and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of a happier human.

Me!

The joyful memories are indelible. I’ve always been a happy fellow, but having our kids changed everything. They made it so much better.

I was thinking of those changes because I’ve allowed myself to descend into melancholy over the doomsday scenarios involving the inevitability that one day soon Artificial Intelligence would really, really change the world.

It would improve our existence or, whoop-sie-daisy, end it.

We can make a strong argument that our time is up. There’s war, climate change, ancient tribal hatreds, and on and on and …

Good riddance!

But what if they’re wrong? What if the reverse happens and AI ushers in a golden age where debilitating diseases are vanquished, leisure activities are allowed to flourish, and we all see ourselves and one another through appreciative new eyes.

I hope those are the benign kind of changes that surprise us.

So let’s not give into despondency over changes and consequences none of us can see.

Because being a living, breathing human being is still pretty sweet thing. 

Despite our world of woe, we can still enjoy watching a nail-biter at PNC Park, a fine meal on Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington, and a night of romantic snuggling that’ll lead to the creation of one of those tiny, messy, wailing organisms the killjoys say will really change things.

Change is coming.

With so much division we need to understand that us being all wrong can still turn out all right.

I say we embrace change.

Because up til now, things have really, really sucked.