Tuesday, April 04, 2006
TOTS FOR OCELOTS
OLDEST PHILLY SMALL STORY COMPARED TO YOUNGEST OCELOT
By Dave Frederick
My first bylined newspaper story in 1980 unfolded before my eyes in the classroom at Cape Henlopen as the Philadelphia Phillies closed in on their first franchise World Series appearance in 30 years.
“The oldest living Philly is living in the Lewes Convalescent Center,” my prize student Darlene said. “My mother works with him every day and says he’s sharp and really cool.”
I grew up around the newspaper business as my mentor and best friend Dick Dougherty was the sports editor of the Bristol Courier Times in Pennsylvania. “ I know every rat hole and asshole in Lower Bucks County, ” Doc used to say and he was right. Doc could smell out a story the way a beagle could smell out a bologna sandwich between the sofa cushions. This story was a sledgehammer job but no one else had it. Darlene had put me in a position to scoop the entire press corps, both local and national. But I would have to get up off my butt and do it and I was prone to be a lollygagger.
“Lollygagging” was redefined by me late that fall when I asked Darlene, ”Do you think your mother could set up an interview between me and the oldest Philly sometime soon?”
“You should have moved more quickly, Fredman. The gentleman died last week. He was still the oldest when he died but I guess someone else is the oldest now?”
“I guess so, Darlene!”
I decided to interview the surviving son of the “Oldest Philly,” a retired emergency room physician who was an avid outdoorsman and fishing companion of teaching colleague Danny Coffman. Captain Coffman was a respected fishing boat captain in the town of Lewes and he set up an interview with the highly skeptical physician who lived outside the town of Greenwood, Delaware. Let’s call the physician Dr. Sturgeon to protect his identity and mine because I don’t want some paranoid surgeon dude coming after me with sharp instruments.
I brought my 10-year old son Dave along for the interview so I would look like less of a threat. We followed directions through and out of the town of Greenwood as we searched for a hidden driveway on the darkened back roads of Sussex County. After several misses and backtracks I discovered a road going between two brick pillars. The drive meandered though grounds that resembled a small liberal arts college. We finally came up to a house that was the epitome true colonial restoration elegance. “What is this place doing in Greenwood, Delaware? ” I said to Dave, who responded, ”I have to go to the bathroom.”
I knocked on a back door leading into a sunroom and Dr. Sturgoen was quick to answer.
‘Hi, I’m Dave Frederick from the Whale newspaper and this is my son Dave. Man, what a place you have here! I’d have never guessed a place like this existed outside of Greenwood.”
We were led into a richly paneled cherry wood den with lots of deep red leather furniture. Dr. Sturgeon’s wife delivered us sodas and gave me a history of the house that had evidently been moved from several estates in northern Wilmington and reassembled in Greenwood.
Early into the Oldest Philly interview I found myself getting lost in a maze of obfuscating answers. Dr.Sturgoen excused himself and went to a phone to call Danny Coffman. “Some guy and his son both named Dave Frederick are here in my house,” Dr. Sturgoen said, also giving Dan a physical description. “This guy says he’s a sports reporter with the Whale newspaper.”
“It sounds like Dave Frederick,” Danny said. “But he’s no sports reporter but then again I don’t know everything.”
Dr. Sturgeon returned from the phone and started questioning me about my credentials and I showed him my driver’s license. I told him to call Dennis Forney, my editor at the paper, which Dr. Sturgeon did and we got things sort of unraveled and straightened out to the degree that “paranoids” can be assured.
Dr. Sturgeon showed me a picture of his father with President Teddy Roosevelt. I fell for it because I couldn’t place Teddy in historical perspective but then Dr.Sturgoen laughed in my face and told me the photo was a fake, and added “what a kidder” his late father was both in real life and in the clubhouse. My interview was going nowhere in a hurry fast!
Dave still wanting to use a bathroom and so I went with him. I’m standing at the toilet and there hanging on the wall behind is a picture of a young woman standing atop a felled polar bear. She had a rather large rifle cradled across her forearms. Remember that I was born and bred to have a reporter’s instincts so there was no chance I could let the polar picture lay as dead as the magnificent bear itself.
“Who’s that lady standing on top of the dead polar bear in the bathroom? ”I asked. “That’s my daughter, ” Dr.Sturgoen said. “She shot that bear at 87 degrees north latitude in 1978. She’s quite the accomplished big game hunter.”
“That’s amazing,” I said being truly impressed if not overwhelmed. “Where is your daughter now”?
“I don’t want to talk about it, ” Sturgeon said. “I will only talk to you about dad and the Phillies.”
As it turned out his dad once walked through the Phillies Clubhouse in a uniform and I still have no idea to this day whether the old boy played ball or a lifelong practical joke on his family and everyone else.
Suddenly I wasn’t half the man I used to be as a way out of perspective spotted cat pushed through a cat door the size of a coffee table. The great cat jumped onto a leather chair and perched like a vulture, panting and staring at us. “Cat!” Dave exclaimed somewhat regressively for a 10-year old. I was reminded of a lyric from “They Might Be Giants.” “She’s actual size but she looks much bigger to me.”
“Cat, my ass!” I yelled. “That’s a South American ocelot if I never saw one, which I never did! But I watched ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’ religiously and I believe that to be an ocelot. A pet ocelot?”
“You could say pet, ”Dr. Sturgeon said. “Just don’t pet him and tell your boy to stay up on the couch. Ocelots get braver as the prey gets smaller.”
A baseball interviewer’s son becomes potential prey in a family room in suburban Greennwood. Dave’s mother will kill me if he gets eaten by an ocelot. There would be no way I could go home with that kind of news.
I began to check out the room ignoring the ocelot’s stare down. There were several big cat heads that were either professionally mounted or got stuck in an elevated cat door and died.
“Excuse me, Doc. I know I’m not supposed to ask you any animal questions but if I’m not mistaken isn’t that a black leopard’s head mounted on your wall”?
“I shot that leopard in Uganda about 10 years ago, ” Doc said. “And that spotted leopard in Tanzania the following year.”
“If I’m not mistaken, Doc, the big cat down along your left wall bears a striking resemblance to a tiger. I’m sure it was a nice shot but aren’t they endangered?”
“The government of Kashmir commissioned me to hunt down and kill that man eater back in 1972, ” Dr Sturgeon said. “It took a month but we finally found him but not before he had killed 12 people.”
“The government of Kashmir has your freaking phone number? ”I asked. “Call Dr. Sturgeon if a man- eating tiger is tearing up your neighborhood. Where do you advertise? The big game hunters’ yellow pages?”
“I think this interview is now over,” Dr. Sturgeon said. “Do you need anymore information on my father?”
“No, I don’t! I want to do the Big Game Hunters of Greenwood story! It’s just a better story! What’s that’s ocelot’s name and how come he’s starting to hiss at me?”
“He doesn’t like you, ”the Doc said rather matter-of-factly. “We just call him The Big O.”
“Is that because he has a large O under his tail or are you an Oscar Robinson fan? ”I asked.
“Who’s Oscar Robinson? ” Doc countered.
“Never mind, Doc! How about getting The Big O under control until we prey skulk on outta here?”
A three paragraph “Oldest Philly Except For The Fact He’s Dead” story appeared in the Whale under my byline. The story was thinner than an ocelot on a vegetarian diet.
The Big Story Hunter struck out on The Big Game Hunter story! And Sir Ocelot is still roaming the fields of Greenwood ripping apart surprised prey whose last words “No Way!” were never published!
By Dave Frederick
My first bylined newspaper story in 1980 unfolded before my eyes in the classroom at Cape Henlopen as the Philadelphia Phillies closed in on their first franchise World Series appearance in 30 years.
“The oldest living Philly is living in the Lewes Convalescent Center,” my prize student Darlene said. “My mother works with him every day and says he’s sharp and really cool.”
I grew up around the newspaper business as my mentor and best friend Dick Dougherty was the sports editor of the Bristol Courier Times in Pennsylvania. “ I know every rat hole and asshole in Lower Bucks County, ” Doc used to say and he was right. Doc could smell out a story the way a beagle could smell out a bologna sandwich between the sofa cushions. This story was a sledgehammer job but no one else had it. Darlene had put me in a position to scoop the entire press corps, both local and national. But I would have to get up off my butt and do it and I was prone to be a lollygagger.
“Lollygagging” was redefined by me late that fall when I asked Darlene, ”Do you think your mother could set up an interview between me and the oldest Philly sometime soon?”
“You should have moved more quickly, Fredman. The gentleman died last week. He was still the oldest when he died but I guess someone else is the oldest now?”
“I guess so, Darlene!”
I decided to interview the surviving son of the “Oldest Philly,” a retired emergency room physician who was an avid outdoorsman and fishing companion of teaching colleague Danny Coffman. Captain Coffman was a respected fishing boat captain in the town of Lewes and he set up an interview with the highly skeptical physician who lived outside the town of Greenwood, Delaware. Let’s call the physician Dr. Sturgeon to protect his identity and mine because I don’t want some paranoid surgeon dude coming after me with sharp instruments.
I brought my 10-year old son Dave along for the interview so I would look like less of a threat. We followed directions through and out of the town of Greenwood as we searched for a hidden driveway on the darkened back roads of Sussex County. After several misses and backtracks I discovered a road going between two brick pillars. The drive meandered though grounds that resembled a small liberal arts college. We finally came up to a house that was the epitome true colonial restoration elegance. “What is this place doing in Greenwood, Delaware? ” I said to Dave, who responded, ”I have to go to the bathroom.”
I knocked on a back door leading into a sunroom and Dr. Sturgoen was quick to answer.
‘Hi, I’m Dave Frederick from the Whale newspaper and this is my son Dave. Man, what a place you have here! I’d have never guessed a place like this existed outside of Greenwood.”
We were led into a richly paneled cherry wood den with lots of deep red leather furniture. Dr. Sturgeon’s wife delivered us sodas and gave me a history of the house that had evidently been moved from several estates in northern Wilmington and reassembled in Greenwood.
Early into the Oldest Philly interview I found myself getting lost in a maze of obfuscating answers. Dr.Sturgoen excused himself and went to a phone to call Danny Coffman. “Some guy and his son both named Dave Frederick are here in my house,” Dr. Sturgoen said, also giving Dan a physical description. “This guy says he’s a sports reporter with the Whale newspaper.”
“It sounds like Dave Frederick,” Danny said. “But he’s no sports reporter but then again I don’t know everything.”
Dr. Sturgeon returned from the phone and started questioning me about my credentials and I showed him my driver’s license. I told him to call Dennis Forney, my editor at the paper, which Dr. Sturgeon did and we got things sort of unraveled and straightened out to the degree that “paranoids” can be assured.
Dr. Sturgeon showed me a picture of his father with President Teddy Roosevelt. I fell for it because I couldn’t place Teddy in historical perspective but then Dr.Sturgoen laughed in my face and told me the photo was a fake, and added “what a kidder” his late father was both in real life and in the clubhouse. My interview was going nowhere in a hurry fast!
Dave still wanting to use a bathroom and so I went with him. I’m standing at the toilet and there hanging on the wall behind is a picture of a young woman standing atop a felled polar bear. She had a rather large rifle cradled across her forearms. Remember that I was born and bred to have a reporter’s instincts so there was no chance I could let the polar picture lay as dead as the magnificent bear itself.
“Who’s that lady standing on top of the dead polar bear in the bathroom? ”I asked. “That’s my daughter, ” Dr.Sturgoen said. “She shot that bear at 87 degrees north latitude in 1978. She’s quite the accomplished big game hunter.”
“That’s amazing,” I said being truly impressed if not overwhelmed. “Where is your daughter now”?
“I don’t want to talk about it, ” Sturgeon said. “I will only talk to you about dad and the Phillies.”
As it turned out his dad once walked through the Phillies Clubhouse in a uniform and I still have no idea to this day whether the old boy played ball or a lifelong practical joke on his family and everyone else.
Suddenly I wasn’t half the man I used to be as a way out of perspective spotted cat pushed through a cat door the size of a coffee table. The great cat jumped onto a leather chair and perched like a vulture, panting and staring at us. “Cat!” Dave exclaimed somewhat regressively for a 10-year old. I was reminded of a lyric from “They Might Be Giants.” “She’s actual size but she looks much bigger to me.”
“Cat, my ass!” I yelled. “That’s a South American ocelot if I never saw one, which I never did! But I watched ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’ religiously and I believe that to be an ocelot. A pet ocelot?”
“You could say pet, ”Dr. Sturgeon said. “Just don’t pet him and tell your boy to stay up on the couch. Ocelots get braver as the prey gets smaller.”
A baseball interviewer’s son becomes potential prey in a family room in suburban Greennwood. Dave’s mother will kill me if he gets eaten by an ocelot. There would be no way I could go home with that kind of news.
I began to check out the room ignoring the ocelot’s stare down. There were several big cat heads that were either professionally mounted or got stuck in an elevated cat door and died.
“Excuse me, Doc. I know I’m not supposed to ask you any animal questions but if I’m not mistaken isn’t that a black leopard’s head mounted on your wall”?
“I shot that leopard in Uganda about 10 years ago, ” Doc said. “And that spotted leopard in Tanzania the following year.”
“If I’m not mistaken, Doc, the big cat down along your left wall bears a striking resemblance to a tiger. I’m sure it was a nice shot but aren’t they endangered?”
“The government of Kashmir commissioned me to hunt down and kill that man eater back in 1972, ” Dr Sturgeon said. “It took a month but we finally found him but not before he had killed 12 people.”
“The government of Kashmir has your freaking phone number? ”I asked. “Call Dr. Sturgeon if a man- eating tiger is tearing up your neighborhood. Where do you advertise? The big game hunters’ yellow pages?”
“I think this interview is now over,” Dr. Sturgeon said. “Do you need anymore information on my father?”
“No, I don’t! I want to do the Big Game Hunters of Greenwood story! It’s just a better story! What’s that’s ocelot’s name and how come he’s starting to hiss at me?”
“He doesn’t like you, ”the Doc said rather matter-of-factly. “We just call him The Big O.”
“Is that because he has a large O under his tail or are you an Oscar Robinson fan? ”I asked.
“Who’s Oscar Robinson? ” Doc countered.
“Never mind, Doc! How about getting The Big O under control until we prey skulk on outta here?”
A three paragraph “Oldest Philly Except For The Fact He’s Dead” story appeared in the Whale under my byline. The story was thinner than an ocelot on a vegetarian diet.
The Big Story Hunter struck out on The Big Game Hunter story! And Sir Ocelot is still roaming the fields of Greenwood ripping apart surprised prey whose last words “No Way!” were never published!
