Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania Read online

  Term: ’N’at

  Meaning: Etcetera, a shortened version of “and that.”

  Example: “For the barbecue, we bought hamburgers, kielbasa, buns, ’n’at.”

  Term: Let

  Meaning: Leave

  Example: “When you’re done with the cereal, please let it on the table.”

  Term: Heyna (also henna, ayna, or haynit)

  Meaning: Request for affirmation at the end of a sentence, meaning “Isn’t that correct?”

  Example: “Sure is hot today, heyna?”

  Term: “Ho, butt!”

  Meaning: “Yo, bud!” or “Hey, you!”

  Example: Used when calling out to get someone’s attention in a friendly way. “Ho, butt! How ’bout those Steelers?”

  Term: Wash my hairs

  Meaning: To shampoo one’s hair

  Example: “After wearin’ my sweaty Pirates cap, I decided to wash my hairs, so they weren’t all panked down [flattened].”

  For more Pennsylvania-isms, turn to page 134.

  Man of Steel

  Pennsylvania’s self-made steel mogul Andrew Carnegie was a philanthropist and business genius. But many people cite his contempt for unions and the low salaries he paid his workers as examples of capitalist greed. Hero or villain? Will the real Andrew Carnegie please stand up?

  Child Laborer

  Andrew Carnegie started out poor. His father, Will, was a weaver and a pro-labor radical in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. But during the 1840s, when steam-powered looms began to replace workers, Will Carnegie found himself without a job and unable to support his family. So in 1848, 13-year-old Andrew, his parents, and his younger brother set out for the United States, hoping to improve their fortunes.

  At first, life in their new home wasn’t much better. The Carnegies settled in Pittsburgh’s smoky, soot-filled slums. Will Carnegie went to work in a cotton factory, and Andrew got a job at the same mill as a bobbin boy—he brought the weavers empty spindles and took away the full ones. He hated the job; the work was tedious and it kept him inside for more than 12 hours a day. But he took home $1.20 a week, money that his struggling family needed.

  At 14, Andrew got a new job as a messenger boy in a local telegraph office. He now made $2.50 a week and spent a lot of time running errands, giving him the chance to visit Pittsburgh’s libraries and theaters when he had messages for them. He particularly liked the theater and always tried to take its messages at night so he could stay and watch the shows. These experiences helped instill in him an appreciation for culture and the arts that would last the rest of his life.

  A Mogul on the Rise

  Carnegie impressed his bosses at the telegraph office early on—he could decipher Morse code messages quickly without having to write them down. He also memorized the addresses and people to whom he delivered messages so that he could greet them on the street if he saw them. Before long, he’d moved up again: this time, Carnegie became the personal secretary and telegraph operator for Thomas A. Scott, an administrator at the Pennsylvania Railroad. Of the salary Scott paid him ($35 per month), Carnegie said later, “I couldn’t imagine what I could ever do with so much money.”

  Over the next few years, Carnegie continued working his way up to higher positions—and better pay—at the railroad. Eventually, when Scott was promoted, Carnegie took over his job and became the head of the railroad’s Pittsburgh division. Much of Carnegie’s drive for success was out of necessity: by the time he was 20, his father had died and he was his family’s only wage earner.

  Carnegie also made some smart investments. His first success: $217.50 invested in Pullman sleeping railroad cars gave him a $5,000 return. Later, he made more successful investments in oil.

  Say No to Strikers . . . Round One

  His work at the Pennsylvania Railroad also brought him into contact with capitalism’s ugly side. In 1856, Carnegie learned about an upcoming railroad strike when an informant told him about it and named the unions involved. Despite his own history as a laborer (and his father’s history as a labor supporter), Carnegie told Thomas Scott about the union workers’ plans. The result: Scott fired all of the workers who were planning to strike, and the walkout never happened. Andrew Carnegie got a promotion.

  Pumping Iron

  When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Pittsburgh became one of the Union’s industrial centers, and its factories began making cannons and gunboats. Thomas Scott got a job as a military supervisor and brought Andrew Carnegie along. They were in charge of overseeing the repair and maintenance of telegraph and rail lines, which kept goods and communication moving between officials in the North and the troops on the battlefield.

  When the war was over, Carnegie decided to leave the Penn sylvania Railroad and open his own businesses. In 1865, he founded the Keystone Bridge Company, which concentrated on building iron railroad bridges to replace existing wooden ones. This was nothing new, but Carnegie’s business model was—and it changed the way people sold iron. Previously, one mill produced the original (or pig) iron, another converted it to bars, and still others manufactured iron goods from those bars. Carnegie took over all the processes, eliminating middlemen, improving transportation costs, and bringing in high profits.

  In 1867, he opened the Keystone Telegraph Company. Its main project: stringing telegraph lines from railroad posts so the entire state of Pennsylvania would have access to telegraph communication. By 1868, Carnegie was making more than $50,000 a year, almost 80 times as much as the average worker.

  Creating Carnegie Steel

  In 1868, Carnegie was doing so well that he toyed with the idea of retiring when he turned 35 in 1870. He wrote, “To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery.” Still, he started on a new business venture—this time, in steel.

  In 1872, he built his first steel mill—what became the Carnegie Steel Company—near Pittsburgh. Using his experience in the iron industry, Carnegie transformed the American steel business. He used Britain’s efficient new Bessemer steelmaking furnaces and cut costs by getting rid of middlemen, buying the iron-ore fields that provided raw materials, and buying railroads to transport ore to his steel plants.

  These changes led to big profits for the company, but they also cut costs for consumers, and Carnegie’s low-priced steel helped make the United States the world’s industrial powerhouse. Carnegie steel was used to build skyscrapers, bridges, railroad tracks, and trains all over the country. And Carnegie himself became a celebrity, seen by the public as a self-made millionaire who also seemed to embrace his working-class roots. In 1886, Carnegie even wrote an essay for Forum magazine championing the right of workers to form a union. But that reputation was about to be stained by one of the most brutal conflicts in American labor history: the Homestead strike.

  For the rest of the story, turn to page 78.

  You Know You’re a Pennsylvanian When . . .

  •You drink pop, eat hoagies and chipped ham, and played at the crick as a kid.

  •You stuff your Thanksgiving turkey with “filling,” not stuffing or dressing.

  •You tell people you’re from PA, not Pennsylvania.

  •You have only three spices in your house: pepper, salt, and Heinz ketchup.

  •You’re used to hearing horses’ hooves on the street.

  •You enjoy winter driving because the potholes are filled with snow.

  •You pronounce Lancaster, Wilkes-Barre, and Lebanon correctly.

  •You stock up on milk and bread at the first talk of snow.

  •You know the Penn State cheer . . . even though you never went to school there. (Fight on, State!)

  •You know that the summer street fairs signal the beginning of funnel cake season.

  •You eat dinner for lunch.

  •You can spell Bryn Mawr, Schuylkill, and Monongahela without looking them up.

 
; An Insider’s Guide to Reggie Jackson

  Long before he became Mr. October, baseball’s premier clutch hitter was just a kid from Wyncote, PA. Here’s more about his early years and how he put his name into Major League Baseball’s record books.

  1. His father played in the Negro Leagues.

  For the Jacksons, baseball was more than just a sport; it was also the family business. Reggie’s father, Martinez “Marty” Jackson, was a talented second baseman who played for two seasons in the Negro Leagues in the 1930s with the Newark Eagles before becoming a tailor in Wyncote. Marty instilled in Reggie a love for the game and gave him a little extra incentive to become a star. “I told Reggie that if he didn’t make the team, he’d have to work in my shop,” he recalled. (Marty later carried business cards that read “Marty the Tailor, Father of the Famous Reggie Jackson.”)

  2. He was scouted when he was just 11 years old.

  Reggie Jackson began playing softball in his backyard when he was 7 years old, and by the time he was 11, he had become so skilled that his reputation as a ballplayer spread beyond Wyncote. That year, while playing in a sandlot with his friends, a scout from the New York Giants approached him, gave the boy his card, and told him to look him up in a few years. Their relationship never advanced beyond that initial meeting, but the brief encounter helped inspire Jackson to pursue a career in professional baseball.

  3. He went to high school with a future Israeli prime minister.

  Jackson attended Cheltenham Township High School, the same school that graduated Israeli prime minister—and fellow southpaw—Benjamin Netanyahu. (Netanyahu’s family lived in Pennsylvania for a few years in the early 1960s.) Jackson was a senior when Netanyahu was a freshman, so the two likely had very little interaction. But Mr. October was a classmate of Netanyahu’s older brother, Yonatan. (Other Cheltenham Township High School alumni: poet Ezra Pound and comedian Bill Cosby.)

  4. He attended Arizona State University on a football scholarship.

  Jackson was a phenomenal halfback on Cheltenham’s football team. His combination of speed and power attracted plenty of college scouts, and he eventually accepted a scholarship to play football at Arizona State University. But the team wasn’t a good fit, and when coach Frank Kush tried to convert him into a defensive back after his freshman season, Jackson decided to quit and play baseball instead.

  That proved to be a good decision. Jackson soon became the first college player to hit a ball out of Phoenix Municipal Stadium, the team’s home field, and by 1966, he was named College Player of the Year by the Sporting News. Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley was so impressed with Jack-son’s exploits that he selected him second overall in the 1966 Major League Baseball amateur draft and offered him a $95,000 signing bonus. Jackson accepted the offer and left college to go pro.

  5. He gave rapper MC Hammer his nickname.

  A youth named Stanley Burrell worked as a batboy for the Oakland Athletics from 1972 until 1980 and was around during Jackson’s tenure with the team. On meeting Burrell, Jackson mentioned that the boy bore a striking resemblance to Hall of Fame outfielder “Hammerin’” Hank Aaron, and Jackson began addressing the youngster as “Hammer” for short. The nickname stuck, and Burrell combined it with MC (Master of Ceremonies) later when he began performing at local clubs and bars around San Francisco.

  Career Stats

  •Jackson played for 21 seasons with four major league teams: the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (1967–75 and 1987), the Baltimore Orioles (1976), the New York Yankees (1977–81), and the California Angels (1982–86).

  •He batted .262, hit 563 homeruns, and drove in 1,702 runs.

  •He was a 14-time All-Star (1969, 1971–75, 1977–84).

  •He was the American League Most Valuable Player in 1973, and he led the American League in home runs four times (1973, 1975, 1980, 1982).

  •He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993.

  •He holds the record for most career strikeouts with 2,597 (a dubious achievement, but his only career record).

  Rocky Road

  Yo, Adrian! Here are some facts about the most famous movie ever to be set in Philadelphia.

  •Sylvester Stallone wrote his first draft of Rocky in three days, though he rewrote it substantially before production. The original ending: during the climactic fight, Rocky decides he hates boxing, throws the fight, and quits the sport forever.

  •Stallone’s inspiration for the movie: a New Jersey boxer named Chuck Wepner who fought his way up through the lower rungs of boxing in the 1960s and 1970s to earn a title fight against Muhammad Ali in 1975. Wepner ultimately lost after 15 bloody rounds, but his gutsy performance brought him national attention.

  •Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, working with the United Artists studio, offered Stallone $350,000 for the rights to produce Rocky. But Stallone wouldn’t sign off unless he got to star in it, too. The compromise: Stallone would take the $350,000, provide rewrites through production, and accept “scale”—minimum wage—for acting: $350 a week.

  •United Artists gave Winkler and Chartoff $2 million to make the film so they’d have enough money to hire a big star. When they learned that Stallone (who wasn’t a big star at the time) would play the lead, they cut the budget in half.

  •The role of Rocky’s coach Mickey was played by Burgess Meredith (best known as the Penguin on TV’s Batman). But Stallone wrote it for Lee J. Cobb, who turned it down because he felt the role was beneath him. Second choice: Lee Strasberg, who wanted three times the $25,000 salary he was offered. Stallone’s pick for Adrian: Carrie Snodgrass (Diary of a Mad Housewife). She also wanted more money than the film could afford, though, even turning down the part when Stallone offered her his entire salary. Susan Sarandon was also rejected (because she was “too beautiful”), so the part went to Talia Shire.

  •Shooting lasted just 28 days. (Most movies take about 90.)

  •The scene where Rocky and Adrian have their first date at an empty skating rink was written much differently at first. It was supposed to be packed with people celebrating Thanksgiving, but the production couldn’t afford to pay 300 extras. So Stallone rewrote the scene to have Rocky and Adrian sneak into a closed rink. (It was shot in Santa Barbara, California, not Philadelphia.)

  •The meatpacking plant where Rocky trains by punching sides of beef: Shamrock Meats in Vernon, California.

  •Skating rink and meat lockers aside, most of the film was shot in and around Philadelphia. The restaurant scene where Rocky gets $500 in training money from his loan shark boss was filmed at Pat’s King of Steaks on Passyunk Avenue. The scenes of Rocky running through the city were shot on the sly, without permits. And the reactions of bystanders (including the produce stand guy who throws Rocky an orange) are all real.

  •For the prelude to the climactic fight scene between Rocky and Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), producers tried to get several former boxing champions to sit in the audience. Only one showed up: Joe Frazier, who lived in Philadelphia.

  •United Artists didn’t like the first cut of the film, so the studio considered releasing it directly to television. But eventually United Artists gave in, released it to theaters—and Rocky earned more than $117 million at the box office. (That’s the equivalent of $389 million today.)

  •The movie was a massive hit by the time the Oscar nominations were announced in February 1977, so the fact that Rocky was nominated for some awards was not surprising. What was surprising: it got 10 nominations, a tie with Network for the most. Among the nominees were Stallone for screenwriting and acting, Shire for Best Supporting Actress, John G. Avildsen for directing . . . and the biggest prize of all, Best Picture. In all, it won three Oscars: Best Film Editing, Best Director, and Best Picture, beating out favorites Network and All the President’s Men.

  •Nine months after the film’s release, its theme, “Gonna Fly Now,” credited to the film’s composer Bill Conti, hit #1 on the pop chart.

  •Stallo
ne wrote all five Rocky sequels (Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, and Rocky Balboa), and directed all except Rocky V.

  •Rocky’s “real” first name: Robert.

  •The movie’s most famous scene—Rocky running up the front stairs of a building—was shot at the Philadelphia Art Museum, where Rocky climbs 72 steps.

  •Visiting the museum’s steps to imitate the “Rocky run” is (unofficially) Philadelphia’s most popular tourist attraction.

  •In 1983, the city erected a nine-foot, 1,300-pound bronze statue of Rocky (with his arms raised) at the base of the museum’s stairs. Stallone himself commissioned the statue.

  The “Commonwealth” Thing . . .

  If you look closely at the official documents and legal processes of Pennsylvania, you’ll see that it’s not only a great state; it’s also something called a “commonwealth.”

  Origin of the Term “Commonwealth”

  A “commonwealth” is a political entity with a government that operates for the common weal (the common good), rather than to benefit the rulers (kings, emperors, etc). This was a revolutionary idea in the 17th century, particularly for the British, even though from 1649 to 1660, England itself was a commonwealth, rather than a monarchy. (The Brits beheaded Charles I to do it.)

  The term was commonly used during the American Revolution because it signified that a state’s residents saw themselves as having a government legitimized by the people, rather than by a monarchy.