Copper thieves hit Harry’s home

Copper thieves broke into BJ Alums founder and late BJ retiree Harry Liggett’s house and “took most of the copper wiring,” Harry’s son, Bob Liggett, reports.

Organized and well-equipped copper thieves prowl vacant homes with “For Sale” signs.

Posted Bob:

“I wish you rot in hell. You are a coward bastard. I really am upset about this. Pray that I never find you!!!!!”

The Firestone Boulevard home where Harry and wife Helen reared a family and lived for decades was put up for sale after some intensive improvements by nephew Eric Poston and others. 

Harry died in January, Helen in 2010.

Copper thieves cost the owners $1 billion a year in this country. Copper is selling for about $3 a pound on the open market. The five leading states for the thefts are Ohio, Texas, Georgia, California and Illinois.

Copper is used for optics, plumbing and anything electrical. Utility substations, street lights and cemeteries have been hit by the organized copper-stealing mob.

In another example of Darwin’s theory on survival, dozens of copper thieves have been executed while trying to steal the metal.

Rosens thisclose to moving into their new home in Green

It took former BJ district manager Bob Rosen three days to sell his Green  home and buy a retirement-sized house only 1½ miles away in Green – although the mailing address is 2082 Wise Road, North Canton, OH 44720.

Cindy and Bob Rosen

But there were “a very long six weeks of long days and short nights” before, “in 36 hours, we will be finally moved in to our new home!”

That would make Saturday the second homecoming day.

Bob writes:

"Tomorrow (Saturday) the movers will be moving all of our furniture.

“We will not have use of the Internet other than on our cellphones for a while but anyone that is extremely happy with their Internet provider please let me know. A big thank you goes out to all of our friends and family that are helping move a mountain of boxes today!”

The other half of the 1963 Akron South graduate’s “we” is wife Cindy Rosen.

Their daughter, Wendy, also lives in Green.

You can congratulate Bob and Cindy on their Facebook pages – Bob Rosen or Cindy Rosen.

SNL’s Jan Hooks dies

Actress and comedian Jan Hooks, 57, a regular on “Saturday Night Live” 1986-91 with occasional appearances through 1994, died in New York on Thursday. She impersonated Bette Davis, Ann-Margret, Sally Kellerman and Jodie Foster.

 

Jan Hooks

Hooks played Carlene Dobber for two seasons on "Designing Women," replacing the character played by Jean Smart. She sometimes provided the voice of Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon, the wife of convenience store owner Apu, on “The Simpsons” cartoon series.

Born in Decatur, Ga., Hooks moved to Florida during high school in 1973 when her father was transferred there for his job. She attended the University of West Florida in Pensacola, but did not earn her degree because she fell in love with acting.

Remember the West Akron Baseball League T-shirt that retired BJ reporter Jim Carney wore to the Black Keys’ “Saturday Night Live” appearance in New York City?

Well, they really caught on. 

More than 1,600 Black Keys-WABL T-shirts were sold. That brought a donation check for $40,327.35 from the Black Keys, which is Jim’s son, Patrick Carney, and his former Firestone High classmate and current music partner, Dan Auerbach.

Posted radio station 91.3 The Summit:

“With the donation, WABL is able to keep league fees under $100 for each player and continue to upgrade equipment, plus make significant field improvements. In addition, they're putting aside some of the funds to an operating reserve for a potential future WABL baseball complex!

“A super-huge THANK YOU to Dan & Pat of The Black Keys for stepping up to the plate! As always - Thanks for being Akron-Proud!”

Scary Sara and Malicious Mark at their (witch)craft again

Leave it up to Mark Dawidziak, current PD and former BJ TV/movie critic, to come up with a clever way to announce his 32^nd wedding anniversary with a photo worthy of a thespian couple.

Wrote Mark alongside the photo:

“This mad experiment began 32 years ago today. The chemistry still works.”

Former BJ managing editor Stuart Warner, who left the PD for the warmer climes of Arizona with wife Debbie Van Tassel, chimed in:

“Congratulations. You got married two weeks after we did.”

John Olesky, who inherited this blog from the late, great Harry Liggett, added his smart-ass remarks:

“Oh, my, Mark, so you looked THAT old on your wedding day! Or did the thought of your wedding night with Sara do that!”

The friendship between Mark and John goes back a long way, from the day he showed up from Tennessee to replace David Bianculli as TV critic under TV Editor John’s wing. Mark is the best TV critic the BJ has had in the past half-century.

Mark and Sara are founders and co-CEO of the Largely Literary Theater Company which performs Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain all around the Akron area.

They are the ghouls of 13^th Street in Cuyahoga Falls, right across from another scary place: Bolich School.

If you want to see the photos of the fall foliage trip to Canada’s Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick by John and Paula, click on

https://picasaweb.google.com/111741206573856893163/MaritimeFallFoliage2014#

We visited the house that was the inspiration for “Anne of Green Gables” in Cavendish (which was Avonlea in the novel), the Bay of Fundy which has the widest low-high tide range in the world (46 feet! Going from no water to water up to your neck in 27 minutes!), Peggy’s Cove which draws artists and photographers from all over the world for its incredible scenery and ate lobster on a boat that went from trap to pot to icey cooldown to our mouths in minutes and the birthplace of the Canadian Confederacy in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

We went to the Oklahoma game in Mountaineer Field, which WVU lost, to a Pittsburgh airport motel, then flew to Halifax, Nova Scotia by way of Philadelphia for nine days of fun in the Maritime Provinces.

If you've taken a trip lately, email the details and jpeg photos with full IDs to John Olesky at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com  The spikes in hits to this blog show that your former BJ co-workers ARE interested in seeing and hearing about your life events.

Former BJ managing editor Mizell Stewart, vice president/content of the newspaper division of E.W. Scripps, attended the celebration of life of his wife’s uncle, “Little Melvin” Underwood, a blues singer and songwriter, who died at 78.

Little Melvin’s best-selling record was “Looped.”

He’s described as being between Roy Brown and Louis Jordan, but when I listened to the song that Mizell suggested via YouTube, it reminded me of Fats Domino doing “Blueberry Hill.”

Mizell’s post:

Last night, we celebrated the life of Valerie’s uncle, Little Melvin Underwood, a blues singer and songwriter who passed away last week at 78. He was a great friend of B.B. King and a mentor to up-and-coming artists including Grammy nominee Mighty Sam McClain.

Melvin’s talents brought him all of the excitement of life on the road and helped him overcome the many difficulties he encountered along the way. Best of all, those difficulties brought him into a close relationship with Jesus and a church family who surrounded and nurtured him.

We are grateful to all of them, to his caregiver Candy and to everyone who supported his return to performing in his twilight years. Here’s some Little Melvin with which to start your day!

(to hear Little Melvin, click on)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sINqna4mak 

And then there’s this assessment of Little Melvin by Bruce Eder of AllMusic:

Anyone reading this can be forgiven for not knowing much about Melvin Smith. Indeed, if more than a few thousand listeners even remember the name of "Looped," his most popular recording of the early '50s, that would be amazing.

In a 15-year recording career, Smith never charted a record nationally; he wrote songs, but not one of them was a hit in any form for him or anyone else; he never sang with any bands that became famous; and he wasn't an influence -- so far as anyone knows -- on any major rock or R&B acts that followed in his wake.

None of that, however, means that his music isn't worth hearing or as enjoyable as any other R&B of the same era.

Stylistically, he stood somewhere midway between Roy Brown and Louis Jordan, and aside from Piano Red, he was just about as strong an R&B singer as RCA had on its roster during the early '50s. It wasn't his "fault" that he never had a hit, and it is to RCA's credit that they stood by him through three years and 32 recorded sides.

Smith was born in Atlanta in 1936, the son of Samuel and Minnie Smith, fourth in a family of nine children. Samuel Smith, a truck driver, abandoned the family in the mid-'40s, and all nine children were raised by their mother, a hotel chambermaid.

Melvin began listening to music at an early age, and among his favorite singers growing up were Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris and Jimmy Witherspoon. By the time he was in his early teens, Smith was winning talent contests in the Atlanta area and singing regularly with a group called the Arstell Allen Sextet.

In early 1951, a group of RCA-Victor executives came to Atlanta in search of talent to expand their R&B roster. They were referred to Smith, then 15 years old, and were suitably impressed.

On January 11, 1951, Smith had his first recording date, fronting saxophonist/bandleader Clyde W. "Blow Top" Lynn and his House Rockers on four songs. Their first single, "Reliefin' Blues" backed with "School Boy Blues," was released to little notice in March of that year.

Smith's career was in high gear, with regular shows outside of Atlanta spaced in between odd jobs and school whenever he could fit it in -- he was finally expelled from school sometime in 1951. By the end of that year, he was known as "Little Melvin" and was singing with Tommy Brown's Maroon Notes. In the meantime, he recorded four more songs with Lynn and his band in the spring of 1951.

The first resulting single, "Rampaging Mama" backed with "Real True Gal" (the latter co-written by Smith), also failed to chart. By January of 1952, Smith was back in the studio with a new band, in a session that generated the critically well-received but poor-selling Smith-authored "California Baby"/"Everybody's Got the Blues."

RCA was still convinced that Smith had what it took to succeed, however, and in late March of 1952, they brought him to New York for a recording session with some of the top players of the period, including jazz legend Tyree Glenn on trombone, Taft Jordan on trumpet, Eddie Barefield on sax and leader Howard Biggs at the piano. The result was Smith's most critically acclaimed single, "Looped," which managed to become a regional hit and elicited a rival cover version.

Somehow, "Looped" never broke out, and Smith and RCA were left to look back on another promising failure. The session did bring Smith to New York, however, and some very enjoyable and lucrative club dates. These were good times for Smith, despite his stagnant recording career, singing before bigger and more appreciative audiences than ever before.

Unfortunately, RCA saw the need to make some changes in Smith's sound, and his next sessions featured the presence of a trio of backup pop singers whose voices were too prominent for the song's own good. The single "Sarah Kelly (From Plumnelly)" flopped. Smith's recording career continued with RCA for another two years without any success, and he was finally dropped by the label in early 1954.

Smith was only 18 years old, however, and hardly done singing. He had moved to Philadelphia the previous year, and for the next decade, he fronted a quintet called the Nite Riders, whose membership included pianist/composer Van Walls ("Chains of Love"). He was signed to Apollo Records and later recorded for Sound/Teen, Swan, Cameo, and Sue Records. Smith and the group reached the pinnacle of their success in the late '50s, playing an extended engagement at the Wagon Wheel club in midtown Manhattan, and also enjoyed considerable popularity in Canada and Boston.

Smith continued working into the 1970s and early '80s with a variety of bands. In his late forties, at the beginning of the 1990s he decided to quit in favor of a federal civil service job while he still had his health and some good memories of a few great times and records of which he was proud. 

BJ publisher: We’re not moving

My sources tell me that publisher Mark Cohen, a Cincinnati native, held a meeting with employees and said that the BJ will NOT be moving, as former BJ staffer Abe Zaidan reported in his blog, which was quoted in a BJ Alums article.

Said the source:

“They have looked at some places but found the cost too expensive. The plan is, when and if a buyer is interested, then they will rent from the new owner.”

Once the site of a Music Hall, the Times-Press took over the 44 E. Exchange Street property in 1930.  Scripps-Howard  sold it in 1938 to John S. Knight. McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder, then sold the BJ to Black Press of Canada, whose owner/CEO is David Black.

The reports we get are that the BJ occupies only the third, top floor of the building. Efforts to rent out the first and second floors and the mezzanine apparently have been fruitless.

With a newsroom staff that went from 250 in 1996 to less than 60 today, and a printing press that was sold so that the Canton Repository prints the BJ (since 2013), there just isn’t much need for more than one floor for today’s BJ.

Cohen replaced Andrea Mathewson, the BJ’s first female publisher, in 2013.

To see the earlier article about a possible BJ move from the East Exchange Street building, click on http://bjretirees.blogspot.com/search?q=BJ+moving+within+months%3F

Sara Showman, Mark Dawidziak

Mark & Sara are waging war again

Former BJ and current PD entertainment critic Mark Dawidziak and wife Sara Showman will present their Largely Literary Theater Company’s “Shades of Blue and Gray: Ghosts of the Civil War” at the Willoughby Public Library at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, the Beachwood branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19, and the G.A.R. Hall in Peninsula at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23.

There’s no charge to see the shows.

Performed by Showman (from the South) and Dawidziak (from the North), the show blends literary selections with ghost stories from Ohio and other states. Poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson and a terror tale by Ohio native and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce are included.

Willoughby Library is at 30 Public Square, Willoughby. The Beachwood branch is at 25501 Shaker Boulevard, Beachwood. The G.A.R. Hall is at 1785 Main Street (Route 303), Peninsula.

Mark and Sara started the Largely Literary Theater Company in 2001. They also do shows tied to Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens.

For Thrity, silence is NOT golden

Author Thrity Umrigar, former BJ reporter, is speechless. And not in a good way.

Writes Thrity:

“For over three days now, I have had no voice at all. Zilch. Can't speak. And I'm too sick to write either. It's really funny -- since the new book came out in August, I've been talking all the time. And suddenly, nothing. There's either a joke or a lesson in here somewhere.”
Thrity’s 6^th novel is “The Story Hour,” set in her native India as are the other books by the babe from Bombay. Thrity’s previous novels are “Bombay Time” (2002), “The Space Between Us” (2007), “If Today be Sweet” (2008), “The Weight of Heaven” (2010) and “The World We Found” (2012), and her memoir, “First Darling of the Morning”  (2008).  

Life down on the farm has been good for former BJ photographer Tom Marvin. So has 26 years of marriage to Kay Ann Shaffer Marvin, a Coshocton gal, as of Sept. 30. 

They met while working in the Ridgewood school district – Tom as transportation supervisor and Kay as school secretary – before his 2001 retirement.

Tom and Kay live on their Guernsey County farm near Kimbolton, Ohio and Salt Fork Lake State Park.

Tom and Kay have been to every state and have taken their camper on 3,000-mile trips, with Tom strumming his guitar at nights around the campfire. The last state was Alaska, where, Tom writes, "We took a slide-inn truck camper and traveled 41 days seeing nearly everything in Alaska."

Tom and Kay have seven children between them.

His are Steve Marvin, a bank assistant vice president who lives in Cambridge, Ohio; Brian Marvin, who lives in Worthington, Ohio and is a Reynoldsburg police detective; Misty Bellon, a registered nurse living in Eunice, Louisiana, who is married with a son, Nick; and Beth Marvin Stevens, a Los Angeles attorney, from Tom’s marriage to former BJ staffer and retired Hoover High School English and journalism teacher Pam McCarthy.

Kay’s children are Tim Wilson, an electric company forester in Florida; Debi Geese, who lives in Fresno, Ohio and is married with two children; and Brett Wilson, a contractor in Coshocton.

Former Monroe Township trustee Tom and Kay have eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Former BJ tech Mark Kovach lives on an adjacent farm to Tom and Kay.

You can congratulate Tom via email at his new address, tmarvin7471@gmail.com or phone him at (740) 498-7471 or drop him a note at:

Tom Marvin

74321 Birch Road

Kimbolton, OH 43749

Tom has the same sentiment that orders have forward to me about the BJ Alums blog: "Nice to read about our old friends."

Indeed, Tom. That's why the number of hits on this blog spike when there's an article about a former BJ employee.

New York Times newsroom job cuts jump to 330

The New York Times will eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs – 7.5% of its remaining staff after previous attritions -- as well as a smaller number of positions from its editorial and business operations, offering buyouts and resorting to layoffs if enough people do not leave voluntarily, the newspaper announced on Wednesday.

NYT eliminated 100 newsroom jobs in 2008, another 100 in 2009 and 30 more at the beginning of 2013. That leaves about 1,330 in the newsroom, including those who handle digital efforts or are video journalists.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the newspaper’s publisher, and Mark Thompson, its chief executive, said NYT Opinion, a new mobile app dedicated to opinion content, was shutting down because it was not attracting enough subscribers.

Newspapers across the country have slashed positions this year. The Wall Street Journal cut dozens of jobs this summer, USA Today eliminated 70 positions in September, and Freedom Communications carried out layoffs in January at two smaller local newspapers, The Orange County Register and The Press-Enterprise of Riverside.

Digital advertising is expected to grow 16% in the third quarter, the best quarterly performance since 2010, and digital subscriptions are expected to increase by more than 40,000, the largest number of quarterly additions since 2012.

But the company’s profitability is lower because revenue hasn’t kept up with increased costs.

After the announcement, the company’s stock closed at $12.30, up $1.08, or 9.6 percent, after closing Tuesday at a 52-week low.

To read the entire New York Times article, click on http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/business/media/new-york-times-plans-cutbacks-in-newsroom-staff.html?emc=eta1&_r=0