The Corner

Check Please...

Directions to Grandma’s house probably won’t be necessary for many of us this Thanksgiving for once again...the pandemic. With COVID-19’s third wave swamping the entire country, holiday plans have been at best in flux, and at worst, abandoned altogether. This holiday season may look more like Tom Hanks in “The Castaway” than the iconic Norman Rockwell painting.

Among the many things in short supply lately, please add “grace” to the list. It’s a shame this should be so since grace is such a useful tool. The term is often used in a strictly religious context, i.e., “the grace of God,” which is fine but limiting.

How’s that for a clickbait headline? Now that I have your attention, who is reasonable for this dastardly deed? Killing fans of the venerable Grateful Dead? Say it ain’t so, Jerry. The answer could be provided by a new podcast devoted to this “mystery.” The podcast, “Dead & Gone,” we’re told, will delve into the strange number of deaths surrounding the followers of the seminal 60’s band. The goal is to examine the possibility that a serial killer is stalking Deadheads and dispatching to that great big concert in the sky.

If you have lived in the Philadelphia area for quite a while and are a radio listener, then you most likely have heard Steve Martorano at some point. In a career spanning more than four decades, the Chestnut Hill resident (a townhouse near Evergreen Avenue) has interviewed the likes of Jane Fonda, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, BB King, Stevie Wonder, Frank Rizzo, Bill Bradley, Willie Mays, Andy Reid and cops and robbers, to mention a sampling.

Therefore I’ll be brief...

Has there ever been a more appropriate moment to pause and consider our mental health? It is therefore fortunate that October is set aside as “National Mental Health Month.”

"Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It's not stretching the point to apply Tolstoy's famous quote to include families afflicted with the disease of addiction.