Great Banana Split Festival & Bank Robbery Anniversary!

Still time to dash to Latrobe to enjoy the 2nd annual Great Banana Split Festival, the highlight of last year being the robbery of a local bank. I thought I'd repost this today because they still haven't nabbed the culprit and I pine for a closure that would involve a chase and the felon slipping on a banana peel. 

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Dang! Looks like my “Good Morning America” segment promoting my book got bumped.

And why not? Who wouldn’t rather see home videos of George Stephanopoulus’s tweener daughters riding in the back of a limo and giggling about attending the VMA’s?

Still, I was disappointed.

The segment was filmed Sunday afternoon and the producers said GMA was going to air it this morning.

My quote: “Thank you, Elizabeth. Great to be here! Yes, my book is ‘Use All The Crayons!’ It’s available for $15.95 at amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other fine outlets that care about bringing joy to all our lives and increasing the solvency of just mine.”

Perhaps the problem was I was about 400 miles from Robin, no one could see me, and my nifty little sales pitch was drowned out by nearly 1,000 other promoters who were waving fruit and shouting America needed to “Go Bananas!”

Yes, should it ever air, that will be the Rodell family in the very lower righthand  corner of your screen helping set the Guinness World Record for most people simultaneously peeling bananas.

And Mom used to wonder if I’d ever amount to anything.

It was the finale to Latrobe’s first Great American Banana Split Festival, a three-day extravaganza celebrating the official recognition that our old Tassel’s Pharmacy was in 1904 the site of the creation of the world’s first banana split by then 23-year-old pharmacist David Strickler.

Highlights included a banana split-themed sock hop, a banana split-themed street festival, a banana split-themed song contest and a bank robbery.

Can you believe it?

I mean the bank robbery not being banana split themed.

Yes, as many of our police on Friday at 11 a.m. were attending to the downtown ceremony where the historical marker was being unveiled, a crafty robber seized on the inconvenient logistics and held up the Citizen’s Bank one mile away before racing away to, I’m guessing, the Great American Crystal Meth Festival.

Oh, how I wish I could report the culprit was apprehended after slipping on a bank parking lot banana peel.

He and his driver got away with an undetermined amount of cash, which is now, like the suspects themselves, covered in gaudy red security ink. Reports say the radio transmitter-controlled dye packs exploded.

The same thing happened to Gale and Evelle Snoats in “Raising Arizona.”

I can’t believe any would-be bank robbers haven’t seen it. It’s a great movie. Very funny and parts of it are like vo-tech school for stupid crooks.

These exploding dye packs are very sound deterrents to criminal activity. They either stain or destroy the money, burn the robber with heat and tear gas elements and leave the getaway vehicles and the robbers themselves covered in indelible Disperse Red No. 9 ink.

Too bad they don’t have an equivalent deterrent to the Wall Street bankers who use clever accounting tricks to rip off banks and taxpayers of untold millions.

Oh, wait. They do. It’s  . . . none!

With reward money on the line, I’m on the lookout and am beginning to frustrate police with numerous citizen’s arrests. Note: for a person to be considered a suspect, more skin than just his or her neck has to be red.

It has me wondering if anyone will take extra precautions next August when Latrobe intends to again celebrate its role in the creation of America’s heirloom dessert.

For ceremonial purposes, I’d at least like to see if  sponsor Dole Fruits will pay to fill the packs with Disperse Yellow No. 9 ink.

Either way, I’m glad no one was hurt. I was in that very bank the previous week at the very time of the robbery

That’s my mother’s bank and I use that branch when I need to administer to her meager funds. Talk about your deterrents to crime.

So, naturally, I spent a good deal of the weekend wondering how I’d have reacted had the crime happened before my eyes.

Would I have tried to be the hero? Not a chance.

I would have run.

After all, turning yellow and splitting was for at least this weekend in Latrobe the civic thing to do.

Related . . .

Monkeying ‘round with bananas

The $45 million ATM withdrawal

The King of the Bank Robbers  . . . This was the 2005 story about America’s most prolific bank robber, Carl Gugasian. True crime fans will enjoy this one.

The yin/yang of my good/bad summer

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School resumes for our daughters on Monday and — I don’t care what the calendar says — that means summer is officially over. So I guess it’s time to take stock of how we spent our days.

Me, I have an innate ability to see the good in everything while simultaneously recognizing the bad.

It is my blessing.

And, thus, it is also my curse.

Good: I had a lot of friends/family visit.

Bad: I had a lot of friends/family visit.

I love seeing old friends and family and spent many summer days golfing, sight-seeing or just loafing around laughing with people who mean the world to me. They were times I’ll always remember fondly. But I did very little productive work this summer. That gnaws at me. I wonder I’d be more successful if I were a crabby kind of guy no one would want to visit. But what fun would that be? And idle hours spent with people you love isn’t an expense. It’s an investment in happiness.

Good: We had some very long family drives in the car.

Bad: We had some very long family drives in the car.

A long drive in the car with kids, ages 13 and 8, is like being adrift at sea in a rubber raft, one that stops every 45 minutes for pee breaks and milk shakes. I see being in the car with my family as a real bonding opportunity. I carefully decide which songs or stations we listen to with the essential purpose of bestowing proper musical taste on my daughters. Sometimes I slyly turn the music up incrementally louder so the music will seep in more deeply. But I sometimes turn it up louder to drown out all the bitching that goes along with taking kids on long car drives. Parts of our summer drives were some of the best parts of our summer. And parts of our summer drives made me wish I was the kind of father who’d pour vodka in the kids’ drinks so they’d pass out for hours so Val and I could have some peace.

Good: It wasn’t too hot.

Bad: It wasn’t too hot.

It was cool, drizzly summer so I didn’t have to enrich the sun screen conglomerates too much. I really hate the heat but, geez, give me some sunshine.

Good: Val and I only saw one movie all summer.

Bad: Val and I only saw one movie all summer.

Val and I have always enjoyed going to movies together. But there was only one flick that seemed compelling enough to make us go. It was “Return of the Planet of the Apes.” We both enjoyed it, but agreed it would have been more fun for both of us if we could have had Dr. Jane Goodall seated between us. But didn’t this summer suck for movies? Say what you want about the stumbles of our bumbling auto makers, but no industry disappoints as reliably as the one based in Hollywood.

Good: I played more golf this summer.

Bad: I played more golf this summer.

This was the summer where I finally got back on track about taking golf more seriously. I love playing golf, but the more golf you play the more frustrating you realize it is to play golf. So the idea of playing golf wars with the sensible side of my brain. Golf is expensive and time consuming and very difficult to attain proficiency. I don’t care. I love playing golf and hope to be a pig about it with whatever remaining time the weather permits.

Good: I had my most lucrative and successful talks this summer.

Bad: I had my most lucrative and successful talks this summer.

There is no downside to being a paid motivational speaker. To sell 250 books up front and secure a nice speaker’s fee is a crowning achievement of my career. That happened twice this summer and led my confidence to soar. But it did the same for my hungers. I don’t have anything else booked and it’s driving me out of my mind. But it’s also motivating me. The great thing about my “career” now is you never know who’s going to call with some exciting offer. I just need to work to make sure these offers have an opportunity to flourish.

Good: I wrote some of my best blogs in June and July.

Bad: I wrote some of my best blogs in June and July.

It’s like all the people who read my blog went to the beach together in early summer without the electronic devices they need to read my blog. Readership was off in July, too, before a great August rebound. But what do I do with all those dandy summer posts no one seemed to read? I wish I was one of those disreputable bloggers who doesn’t care about posting on the sneak stuff that’s run before. I never do that without notice. And I never will.

Good: I was immersed in many great books this summer.

Bad: I can’t think of any counterpoint to this one. The older I get the more I wish I had more time to just read. And nap. 

Good: Our oldest daughter began growing up.

Bad: Our oldest daughter began growing up.

Josie will turn 14 next month, but this was the summer she really began exerting her independence. And for the first time ever she began telling me to buzz off. She was done with Daddy. Shows we used to watch together bored her. Games we used to play were all of sudden “too childish.” And she at times began behaving like a surly teenager. I guess I should have seen this coming when last September she became a teenager, but I was blindsided. It was like Mick telling Keith he didn’t want to be part of The Stones anymore. So I recovered by spending more quality time alone with darling Lucy, 8, and it’s been a real joy. We had so many happy times together, it only increased my determination to pioneer a controversial parenting technique that involves only loving the kid who’s being nicest to me. I call it conditional love.

Good: Summer went really fast.

Bad: Summer went really fast.

I love living in an area with four distinct seasons. I love the approach of each new season as much as I love saying farewell to the one it’s replacing. This summer was fun but, man, I’m glad it’s over. Bugs, humidity, screaming neighbors — “Endless Summer” to me isn’t a Beach Boys album. It’s my idea of hell.

So bring on fall! I eagerly await your crisp air, your autumnal colors and hours and hours of extra yard work.

I will love you right up until I don’t.

UnRelated  . . . The best of June/July!

Use rice if phone drops in toilet

Taking my BRF (Bitchy Resting Face) out for a walk

Fame & the night me & Bruce Willis rocked the red carpet

“Sing me a song, you’re the bartender!”

A back ’n’ forth on palindromes

On chicken fingers, breasts & tenders

The attempted suicide on Solomon Temple Road

"The Simpsons" will live forever; Sam Simon won't

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I don’t know why I just spent about 40 minutes scrolling through the channel guide to record about 30 hours of “Simpsons” reruns. I already know each of them all by heart.

I guess I’m doing it for our daughters.

I want to see one of my favorite shows all over again through their eyes. I want to spend the weekend reveling in some of the sharpest and most subversive humor in the history of American entertainment.

Wait. I lied.

I’d rather be watching it with about three or four buddies and a keg of beer.

Watching with drunken buddies would be the ideal way for me to watch “The Simpsons,” the show that FXX channel will be round-the-clock broadcasting for the next 12 days straight. That’s 552 episodes — 25 seasons — and one feature-length movie.

Amazing. Up until about four days ago I didn’t even know I had an FXX channel. Now, FXX will be about all I watch for the next 12 straight days.

One of these days I’m going to have to study the channel guide and see what else is hidden among the 930 or so channels I never bother to watch.

I’m convinced “The Simpsons” colossus will never end. It’s too embedded in the American comedy DNA.

The 26th season begins in September and will include episodes by writers who weren’t born when the show began, writers who’ve probably never seen some of the seminal episodes I’m recording for the girls this week.

Shows with stories like the one about Homer’s bypass, the one where Homer buys Lisa a pony, or where the boys from Moe’s form a barbershop quartet.

I could go on and on. What Simpson’s fan couldn’t?

But I’ll instead divert and tell you about what might be my favorite Simpson’s story.

It’s the story of Sam Simon.

He’s dying, dying very publicly, in fact. He just signed a deal to allow Fusion Network — and I’ve never heard of that one, either — exclusive rights to film his death which could happen any week now.

Simon, 59, was diagnosed in 2012 with terminal colorectal cancer. Doctors said he had 6 months to live.

No telling if one of the experts was Dr. Nick Riviera.

Simon helped create “The Simpsons” in 1989, but in 1993 left over a personal dispute with show-creator Matt Groening. Simon negotiated executive producer credits for the show's entire run and home-video rights, at the time a little known potential revenue stream.

So today he earns about $20 million each and every year for a show with which he’s had nothing to do for 21 years.

He’s played in the World Series of Poker, dabbled in boxing, been married to actress Jennifer Tilly and for three weeks in 2000 was married to Playboy Playmate Jami Farrell. He’s spent the last years of his life lavishing his fortune on worthy philanthropies devoted to improving the lives of defenseless children and animals.

I just read this very morning he bought a California chinchilla breeding ranch for $50,000.

What do you do when you’re an animal lover after you’ve bought a chinchilla ranch?

You free all the chinchillas.

He’s arranging more humane conditions for the animals until all 425 can be adopted by people who’ll have no intentions of making fancy garments out of the critters.

A frequent guest on Howard Stern’s show, my favorite Simon story involves the time he went to a luxury automobile dealer for floor mats. The details are elusive, but the gist is correct.

The first salesman he encountered was rude and condescending and didn’t want to be bothered with something so picayune. 

So Simon sought a second salesman, and from this person he impulsively ordered a new top-of-the-line luxury car — let’s say it’s a Ferrari — loaded with all the options and came back an hour later and paid cash.

It’s the greatest eff-you money story I’ve ever heard and leads me to believe there are hundreds just like it.

Most of “The Simpsons” characters you’ll see on the show are Groening creations. He’s the show’s true creator. But those there at the beginning say the show’s indelible sensibilities and absurdist genius are all because of Simon.

Those are just some of the reasons that led “60 Minutes” to declare in a 2007 Simon profile that he’s “perhaps the perfect Renaissance man of this baffling, uncertain age in which we live.”

Thanks in large part to Simon, “The Simpsons” will live forever.

It’s just a shame Simon won’t.

Related . . .

When all you can eat ain’t

Giving away my book a blue chip idea

A theory on conspiracies

A farms and a cure for baldness

When NSA intel gets really stupid

Ice Bucket ambivalence

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I think our next ice bucket challenge should be to take all that water and transport it to drought-stricken California.

I don’t know whether I should feel either lucky or just unpopular that nobody’s challenged me to dump a bucket of ice water on my head to help promote ALS awareness.

I think lucky.

I don’t like being goaded into doing anything, especially something that might involve nipple stiffening.

It’s not that doing publicity stunts on video is beneath me. It’s just that I prefer publicity stunts to promote awareness of things like “Use All The Crayons!”

The origins and results of the Ice Bucket Challenge are truly wonderful.

I saw a tear-jerker piece about it on SportsCenter. The report said it started with 29-year-old Pete Frates, a former Boston College baseball player who was diagnosed several years ago with what is commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

What’s uncommon is that Frates seems to have also shared many of Lou Gehrig’s Virtues, as well. And let’s talk about those for a moment.

Did you know he was the first player in baseball history to have his number (4) retired? And he was nicknamed “The Iron Horse” for playing in 2,130 consecutive games, a record that stood for 56 years until it was surpassed by the great Cal Ripken.

And he was beloved, a true gentleman during an era when that really meant something.

The last we saw of him was his retirement on April 30, 1939. I played the YouTube video of his iconic “Luckiest Man on the face of the Earth” speech for my 13-year-old who was wondering why no one had asked me to be part of the ice bucket fun.

I wanted her to know that there’s some real heart behind all the fun.

Gehrig was dead two years after his diagnosis, two years after his retirement from being the All-Star starting first baseman for the World Series champion New York Yankees.

He was 37.

Frates, who is also beloved, will be lucky to make it that long. The savage muscular disorder has robbed him of the ability to speak, eat or move without assistance.

What struck me about the report was Frates saying when he learned he had the disease, he saw that basically nothing had changed about its treatment since the days of Gehrig.

The ice bucket challenge could help change that. Donations haven’t just spiked. 

They’ve exploded.

ALS Association says it raised $1.7 million during this two-week fundraising cycle last year.

This year the amount is more than $13 million.

Magnificent.

So I’m hesitant to jump on the backlash bandwagon, while announcing I’ll politely decline any challenge to participate in this or in any of the copycat stunts surely brewing in the offices of other worthy charities.

And that’s what worries me.

Because this is just the beginning. 

Every philanthropic organization in the country is right now scheming some fresh way to get you and I do something silly and embarrassing and post it on Facebook.

It’s going to be like we’ve time-traveled back to a time when we can expect Ralph Malph to insist we meet them down at Arnold’s because he and the “Happy Days” gang want to see how many people they can pack in Potsie’s VW to raise money for Tourette’s. 

I’ll be pressured to get a mohawk for fibromyalgia or don a Speedo for SCARF Syndrome. Maybe someone’s going to ask me to stuff a squirrel down my pants to fight jock itch.

Of course, maybe I’m just being a typical downer, someone too cynical to realize all the joy and good these stunts are bringing to a world desperate for levity.

If that is the case then I apologize for throwing cold water on something that’s all about throwing cold water.

Maybe I’m just one of those guys who doesn’t need to do the ice bucket challenge to prove he’s all wet.

Related . . .

Movember getting hairy for mustache men

My YouTube book promotion (greatest ovation ever)

My YouTube book promotion II

Many world problems; at least chips are great!

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I think we can all agree that the world in general really sucks right now. There’s divisiveness, racial hatred, injustice, rampant want and war galore.

It’s very sad.

So let’s take a moment to rejoice that there’s at least something positive happening every day to further mankind. Or at least fatten him up.

All hail the potato chip!

There’s never been a better time to be alive for those who enjoy potato chips. American eat 1.2 billion pounds of chips every year.

I think I ate about 15 percent of the total just this weekend.

Recent flavors I’ve enjoyed include sea salt & cracked pepper, Italian herbs & Asiago Cheese, red hot, ranch, jalapeño & horse radish, and Old Bay.

The diversity is incredible.

It’s a pity we can’t be as appreciative of the diversity of races and religious beliefs of people as we are about the chips we consume.

The funny thing is until about a year ago I’d never even been chip guy. I’d always been pretzel man, Bachman Pretzel Man, to be specific.

They were my old man’s favorite and growing up we always had a big bag up above the refrigerator. I loved them, too. I remember sitting munching on them with a big icy glass of Coke, Dad in his recliner with a Budweiser in his hand and a barrel sized-container of his salt-encrusted favorite in his lap.

Then shortly after the 2004 death of my Dad, Bachman’s seemed to disappear. It’s almost as if Bachman sales dropped so dramatically after his death the company was forced to slash production.

And wouldn’t that be ironic: over-consumption of an unhealthy snack contributes to the death of its No. 1 customer whose death contributes to an unhealthy decline in company fortunes.

Must be a salty circle of life analogy in there somewhere.

But I became depressed. Over the death of the old man, yeah, sure, but where were my Bachman’s?

I couldn’t find them anywhere so I started seeing other snacks. I tried all the other pretzels, but I could never find any that matched Bachman.

And I began to drift to chips.

It’s been an epiphany.

Cape Cod makes some great chips. Very crisp and flavorful. And I’m still a sucker for Pringles even though it annoys me when I want original Pringles I now need to visually sift through more than two dozen ridiculous chip flavors that have included pumpkin and peppermint white chocolate.

Yuck.

What do they think they’re making? Lifesavers?

Since 1967, they’ve never been able to improve on Pringle-flavored Pringles.

I guess my favorite right now would have to be Gibble’s Red Hot, which goes perfect with a little artery-clogging tub of French Onion dip. 

Like so many great snacks, Gibbles are made right here in Pennsylvania, with most of them being made near York, the self-billed “Factory Tour Capital of America,” and the place where so many chips, pretzels and Funions are produced.

Yes, if the great midwest is the nation’s Bread Basket, then Pennsylvania is its Waist Basket.

I’ve for years in vain pitched a story about SNAXPO, the annual international gala of product trends of the $6 billion-a-year snack food industry. At the conference, thousands of dedicated men and women get together (this year in Orlando March 28-31) to discuss ways to get an already over-fed America to demand more bagged crap.

It’s amazing. All many of us do all day long is snack, snack, snack. Yet, the SNAXPO keynote speakers will no doubt exhort their audience that they must do better.

It’s fascinating because I think we’ve already reached snack nirvana so these people must be zealots.

Certainly, they read the news and see what sad shape the world is in, not to mention the shapes of their top consumers. Yet, they devote their entire professional existence to making things like potato chips so good we find them and nothing else irresistible.

Or maybe I’m looking at it backward. Maybe we should emulate the single-minded snack food industry.

Maybe we all need to do whatever we can to make the world a better place by all doing what we do best in the hopes we can one day vanquish all the vexing troubles that today seem so monolithic.

I guess the lesson here is it’s up to all of us to just keep chippin’ away.

Related . . .

Being bullish in meat lover’s paradise

Twinkie bankruptcy: Time to nut up or shut up

Dining on dines to end world hunger

My new roommate just moved in!

Sunday Encore! "Don't hate me 'cuz I'm beautiful"

I, for the life of me, can't figure out why this one isn't in my Top 10 most read. It pops up from somewhere around the world at least once a day. I don't know if people google "Ines Sainz" or that memorable line, "Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful." Even though it's not a stats page Top 10, it's probably one of mine. 



I never hated women because they were beautiful. I used to try to sleep with them because they were beautiful.

For years, it was my habit to approach beautiful women in dark bars and ask them straight-faced and in my most sincere voice, “Was it as difficult for you growing up beautiful . . . as it was for me?”

It was this question that led me to conclude that beautiful women share one other appealing characteristic: They love to laugh. Hard.

I’m maybe the last sensitive guy on earth who understands that, yes, it is difficult for a woman to be born beautiful.

Certainly, beautiful women have their god-given advantages.

They can sleep with any shallow man they choose. They can coast through life on their dazzling smiles. Doors closed to the homely swing wide open for them.

Wait a second. Which side am I arguing?

Oh, right.

It ain’t easy being beautiful.

I mention all this because of the furor over the way members of the New York Jets treated bombshell Mexican reporter Ines Sainz in the locker room. Apparently, some of the Jets whistled and made adolescent comments when she was interviewing QB Mark Sanchez.

It was so bad Jets owner Woody Johnson personally sought out the comely Sainz to apologize for his team’s inappropriate behavior -- and, yes, the bones in my fingers are practically splintering to keep from typing a lame joke about a man named Woody Johnson thrusting himself into a discussion about sexual harassment.

Woody Johnson! It’s the greatest unintentional porn name since Andy Roddick.

This set off a predictable round of hand-wringing about whether Sainz’s fantastic looks, tight outfits and playful questions provoke such a reaction in a room full of naked, smelly men who can’t catch poorly thrown passes or skillfully block men like Ray Lewis.

First of all, let’s consider Sainz. I saw her picture and immediately made a snap judgement based purely on her looks. It was: Not my type.

She looks like someone Tiger Woods would date, which means she looks like a hooker or someone who’s undergone extensive plastic surgery to make people think she’s a hooker.

Then I heard her being interviewed on one of the morning shows and did an about face. She seemed comfortable with her beauty and didn’t take herself too seriously.

I appreciate that in a woman. I’m married to a lovely woman who is shy about her beauty. It’s very sweet but like a lot of pretty women the fair Valerie lacks confidence in her looks.

I wish she could see herself as I’ve always seen her. She’d be blown away.

Me, I don’t suffer from such trifling modesty.

Believe me, you don’t want to spend a day mirror shopping with a guy like me.

It’s clear Sainz is the kind of woman who can handle herself in any social situation and that puts the 300-pound meatheads who play professional football at a disadvantage.

I tried to think what I’d do if I was naked, in that locker room and had a status and physique that might be attractive to a woman who in 1997 was Miss Universe.

Here’s what I came up with: Nothing.

I’ve been in locker rooms as player, coach and reporter for huge chunks of my life. It’s not a sexy atmosphere.

If Sainz was in any of them, sure, I’d note to myself her beauty, but I wouldn’t act on it. I wouldn’t clown around and make junior high jokes about her. It’s just not the place for such hi jinx.

Heck, that’s what blogs like this are for.

That some Jets players acted the way they did diminishes them more than even their sloppy Monday night loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

You mean professional football players in New York City needs to making leering comments at busty reporters to get their jollies?

What? Have all the groupies simultaneously danced back to their stripper poles?

I just don’t get it.

Maybe I’m just stupid. That’s yet another pejorative ascribed to women who labor under the burdens of being born beautiful.

People just automatically assume beautiful people are balloon-headed dunces.

Happens to me all the time.

My summer job: Latrobe tour guide

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 “Help! My daughters cast a spell that turned me smaller than an Arnold Palmer golf ball and there’s a grasshopper coming to eat me!”

I wish I could have shared that line with you earlier this week, but I’ve been busy playing tour guide.

That’s what happens when you live in Latrobe when the Pittsburgh Steelers are in town for training camp.

The picture was taken behind the front desk of the Marriott SpringHill Suites hotel, a place I’ve spent so much time the staff is starting to ask me when it’s my turn to bring donuts.

It happens every summer. Out-of-town buddies plan a Latrobe pilgrimage to see the Steelers, play golf and meet Arnold Palmer.

They expect me to arrange all this.

I try my best.

The Steeler camp, man, that’s a cinch. They let anybody in.

It gets tricky when they want me to arrange golf at Latrobe Country Club and introduce them to Arnold Palmer. They think we’re so buddy-buddy I can invite myself over to Palmer’s house for drinks after a freebie round of golf.

They are mistaken.

If I were that close to Palmer I’d devote my entire existence to conniving a way to get him to alter his will so I’d get a healthy cut of it for my greedy little self.

But sometimes that’s the way it works out. Just this week I had a friend from Florida visit. We’d met a couple years ago on a Mississippi golf trip. We hit it off and made plans to stay in touch.

He’s Andy Reinstetter and has what most consider a dream job. He travels the globe golfing for free. 

His AndyGolfTravelDiary blog does well enough that he can usually secure free golf from top clubs and lodging from sympathetic hotel GMs.

He once had a traditional corporate job and one day woke up and said, “Screw this, I’d rather golf.”

He doesn’t earn much loot, but he’s one of the most cheerful and self-fulfilled gentlemen I’ve ever met. And he’s the biggest golf nut I know.

How big? During the day when I toured him around Latrobe he wore knickers and carried a hickory shafted golf club everywhere we went.

Needless to say, I didn’t take him to The Pond.

We spent Wednesday night at the Marriott and met Jimmy Robinson, a former NFL wide receiver who showed us the knuckle-busting Super Bowl ring he won coaching the ’11 Green Bay Packers.

He was so friendly I barely begrudged him for beating the Steelers that year to win the ring.

We couldn’t golf the next day because the club was hosting a political fundraiser U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, but I was able to get Andy a full tour of the Palmer offices, the warehouse and clubhouse.

And, yes, he got to meet Arnold Palmer.

And U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy!

I was personally thrilled to meet Murphy because how often do any of us get to in person berate a House Republican? He was all by himself on the putting green (the other golfers had already started their rounds).

And I did, indeed, give him hell.

He started right in with the friendly chat and cut him off and said, “What are you, a moderately conservative Republican, doing to earn the support of someone like me, a moderately liberal voter, who thinks Tea Party conservatives are the biggest obstacle to sensible governing?”

He told me he’s concentrating on issues important to our district and that he, a practicing psychologist, is on the forefront of improving America’s mental health.

I told him that’s what I do, too!

I told him about my book. We exchanged cards. I’m going to send him a copy of “Use All The Crayons!” and a request that he put me in touch with mental health groups that need lively speakers.

I told him helping me would be a practical two-fer: He’d be improving America’s mental health while simultaneously boosting the humble fortunes of one of his district’s most beleaguered taxpayers.

Andy was taking the notes the whole time. He does a lot of that. That and taking pictures. He’s going to do a segment about me and his visit to Latrobe.

I’m very flattered.

He left Wednesday, about six hours before the arrival of my nephew and his girlfriend. Their three-day tour concludes Saturday.

That should be it until next summer when it’ll start up all over again.

I’m, for now, glad it’s about to end. I didn’t earn any money the last two weeks spending so much time pretending I’m a Latrobe tour guide.

I’m eager to get back to again not earning any money pretending I’m a Latrobe writer.

Related . . .

Welcome Steelers & fans back to Latrobe

My hands are beautiful to behold

Arnold Palmer gave me noogies on Monday

Can’t hate the Packers, but . . .