The "Lancaster's 'Mr. Downtown' Has Died" Story

Steve's store at 315 North Queen Street in downtown Lancaster, PA.

It was an ordinary day.  Trying to remember when the last time was that I talked with Steve Murray.  Steve couldn't be missed since he was over 6 feet tall and always dressed in vintage clothing.  How he ever found clothes to fit his frame was always amazing to me.  There weren't many people his size who lived in the 1920s to maybe the 1970s.  But, he always seemed to find something different to cover his frame.  

Steve in his vintage clothing.

I never got to know Steve very well, but did stop many times at his shop at 315 N. Queen Street in downtown Lancaster.  Shop was known as Zap & Company and featured vintage clothing and furnishings, estate jewelry, objects d'art and Art Deco lighting.  He had fur pieces from the 1940s, Hawaiian shirts from the 1950s, pins, pearls, cigarette lighters of all types, cocktail shakers, classic movie posters and compact discs, to name a few other items.  He opened his store in 1973 and always seemed to have a few people shopping in the store when I would stop from time to time.  I did enjoy his vintage Hawaiian shirts that he wore all summer.  

Steve with mannequin Hilda outside Zap & Company.

Now, I tell you all this since Steve, The "godfather of downtown retail" died this past Sunday after suffering a brain aneurysm.  Steve was 68 years old.  Steve's Zap & Co. was a treasure trove for period clothing and pop culture memorabilia.  The store was a source of costumes and props for many Hollywood productions, from James Cameron's "Titanic" to TV's "That '70s Show" to Woody Allen's "Radio Days".  

Inside photo of his store.  It was jam-packed throughout.

You just couldn't walk past the store without stopping out front and see what was in the window display.  The mannequins were dressed, and in some cases very scantily, in inventive ways.  The mannequin that stood by the front door, known as "Hilda" greeted customers in her latest get-up which was always picked by Steve.  

Remains of Zap & Company.

I may not have made many trips to the store, but after meeting me in the mid-1970s, he never forgot who I was.  Always greeted me as if I was his best friend.  But, on January 20, 2011 Steve's dream store was destroyed when a fire consumed his entire store.  The reason for the fire was never determined and the biggest asset to the store, "Mr. Downtown", was almost lost in the fire.  He recalls trying to reach for a fire extinguisher that was at the top of the basement steps when he must have fell and smashed the side of his head open.  The firemen found him, at first thinking him to be a mannequin.  

One of the few remaining memories I have.  A business card.

They did mouth-to-mouth and CPR on him and determined if he had been in the building another three or four minutes he would have died.  He was rushed to Lancaster General Hospital where he was first treated, but the severity of his burns was so great that they flew him by helicopter to well-known Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Delaware County for treatment.  Over a third of his body was burned.  

"Mr. Downtown"
You most certainly will be missed!

Both his arms and hands were burned with his right hand sustaining fourth-degree burns; burned to the bones.  Steve was in a coma for six weeks then underwent the first of 15 surgeries.  He had no memory of the fire.  Back in Lancaster shops in the 300 block of North Queen had signs asking people to pray for Steve's recovery.  Flowers and notes were left at the boarded up store at 315.  Steve went through quite a bit of physical therapy during his recovery.  But, his prized store, as well as his pet cat, was gone.  His sister and daughter were his biggest supporters during his recovery.  Today his pride and joy still is a vacant lot with a six-foot high black wooden fence in the place where Hilda one stood.  Oh, Yea!  Hilda did survive, but somewhat charred.  What happens now to the lot remains to be seen.  Whatever it is, it will never be as interesting and entertaining as Zap & Co. used to be.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The "My Hero 'Rocky' Riedel Has Died" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting in my favorite lounge chair, reading the morning newspaper.  Read all the local, national and international news and then turned to the obituary page to see whom I might know who has had their photo in the paper for the last time.  One name, with photo above it, struck a note with me, but I couldn't place his face or name.  As I began to read his obituary I finally figured out how I knew him.  He was my favorite Saturday Morning  sidekick as I watched my mom and dad's small black and white Philco TV with an antennae that had pieces of aluminum foil on it to help with the TV signal.  

Daily Test Pattern on WGAL-TV.

Lancaster, Pennsyl- vania's WGAL-TV had just began broad- casting in the early 1950s and all the kids in my neighbor- hood would tune in Saturday morning about 7:15 a.m and view the Test Pattern that was on probably all night.  At about 7:30 a.m. the National Anthem would be played followed by perhaps ten minutes of local news and then......"Rocky" Riedel, dressed in full cowboy gear, would introduce the "Covered Wagon Theatre".  

LDub dressed in full cowboy gear.

Every Saturday the feature presentation was an hour-long Western movie with "Rocky" Riedel talking to his TV audience during intermission.  I was always dressed in my blue jeans, cowboy shirt, chaps, neckerchief, holster and cowboy hat, just like my hero "Rocky."  The same "Rocky" Riedel who died Friday, March 9th at his Pequea Twp. home, close to where my wife grew up.  As I read his obituary I was amazed at his lifetime story.  Graduated from high school in 1945, but his parents had to accept his diploma, since he had already joined the Navy to serve as a hospital corpsman in WWII.  After returning home he worked for WGAL Channel 8 doing the evening "Pioneer Playhouse" as well as "Covered Wagon Theater."  

My hero "Rocky" Riedel.  I actually thought
he was a real cowboy.  Imagine that!

He also worked for RCA, General Cigar, drove a bakery truck and was a Fuller Brush salesman.  His music career included his band, "Rocky Riedel and his Raiders", as well as "101 Ranch Boys."  Then I read something really cool telling that he was a stunt rider for the "Cisco Kid" TV show.  Wow, no wonder he was my hero.  But what followed reminded me of another great TV legend, Mr. Rogers.  "Rocky" was called to the ministry where he graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 1959, completed his masters degree at Lancaster Theological Seminary in 1963 and took night classes at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.  

Reverend "Rocky" Riedel.  RIP

My hero "Rocky" Riedel was now Reverend "Rocky" Riedel who served churches until 1992 when he became a substitute for other pastors.  Rev. "Rocky" enjoyed traveling as well as reading about history, planting flowers, painting, and watching TV shows.  How much do you want to bet he loved Westerns.  He is survived by his wife, son and family, daughter and family, 3 grandkids, 6 great-grandkids, his dog Princess and thousands of admiring kids who woke up every Saturday morning, dressed in full cowboy or cowgirl gear, to hear what words of Western knowledge "Rocky" Riedel had to tell us.  His obituary ended telling, instead of sending flowers, to donate to the Salvation Army in Lancaster.  A true Hero!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The "Unprecedented Category 5 Hurricane Set To Strike" Story

TV shot of hurricane Luis from 1995.

It was an ordinary day.  Staring at the TV screen in awe of the power of the tropical storm named Irma.  Weather Channel says: POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE IRMA HEADING TOWARD THE LEEWARD ISLANDS...PREPARATIONS SHOULD BE NEARING COMPLETION IN THE EASTERNMOST LEEWARD ISLANDS.  Scary stuff!  Back on September 7, 2015 I wrote a story about Hurricane Luis that struck the island of Sint Maarten/St. Martin in early September of 1995 as well as the islands of  Antigua, Barbuda, St. Barts and Anguilla.  The 1995 Atlantic hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, classified as a category 4 storm, accounted for 19 deaths, left nearly 70,000 homeless and wrought roughly $3 billion in damages across the affected islands.  Hurricane Luis was the most devastating hurricane to strike the northern Leeward Islands in the 20th century.  When Carol and I began traveling to the Leeward islands in early 2000, we heard many stories about Luis and the havoc it caused.  Well, we may be in the 21st Century now, but having another KILLER storm arrive so soon after Luis is scary; REALLY SCARY.  Across the bottom of the TV screen a trailer tells the story ... LARGEST HURRICANE EVER RECORDED IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN ... UNPRECEDENTED CAT 5 HURRICANE.  

The storm Irma is immense when comparing it to the
size of the little dots on the left which are islands.

I checked my emails and just found one that read: As of now, it appears that we are in the direct path of Hurricane Irma, and our staff is busily battening down the hatches and preparing the resort to weather the storm. Due to its size, intensity and current trajectory, we expect to experience some level of impact, including potentially the loss of utilities, phones and Internet for anywhere between a few days to a few weeks. For that reason, we have set up a special U.S.-based email address, in case regular communications are temporarily interrupted.  We will keep you updated the best we can over the next several days, and greatly appreciate all your thoughts and prayers!  During the past fifteen years we have made friends on many of the islands in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.  On the island of Sint Maarten, Barbara and Deidrick Cannegieter have become good friends that we communicate with on an ongoing basis and visit every year when we head to Sint Maarten.  We hope that they will make it through this historic storm safely.  Irma's sustained winds have intensified over the last few hours to 185 mph.  Hopefully all island residents have had the chance to prepare for this storm.   As of Tuesday afternoon the Princess Juliana International Airport on Sint Maarten has closed until the storm passes.  So where will the storm head?  Too many different scenarios on different TV stations to predict.  Carol and I are scheduled to head to our local travel agency on Friday to pick up our information and paperwork for an upcoming trip to Nassau in the Bahamas.  I guess the best thing I can report about that trip is that we purchased travel insurance when we originally scheduled the trip a few months ago.  Possible that an airplane could get us to the island by October, but will the resort where we are scheduled to visit still be able to accommodate us.  Another UPDATE has flashed across the bottom of the TV screen.  STORM SURGE: The combination of a life-threatening storm surge and large breaking waves will raise water levels by as much as 7 to 11 feet above normal tide levels along the coasts of the extreme northern Leeward Islands within the hurricane warning area near and to the north of the center of Irma.  I'm sure I will be glued to the TV screen for the next day or two, checking on my friends on Facebook and praying for the best outcome for all concerned.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary day.

PS - As I finished this story I had a few posts added to my Facebook page from friends in Sint Maarten/St. Martin.  All were magically eerie!!  Purely, the calm before the storm.  

From Barbara

Taken from a camera in Philipsburg, Sint Maarten

Another from Barbara and Dee's back yard.

Beach time before the storm.

The "When Tuberculosis Was A Scary Disease" Story

The Rossmere Tuberculosis sanatorium located in Manheim Twp.
It was closed in 1957 and was eventually demolished.

It was an ordinary day.  Leafing through the book "From The Beginning", which was written by C. Nat Netscher and designed and laid out by ... wait a minute, that's my name.  It was back in 2003 that Nat approached me with the idea of writing a book that would tell the history of Manheim Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  He would write the book and I would lay out and design the pages for it.  

This snow scene from 1961 shows the Rosemere sanatorium
in the upper-lefthand side behind the one floor Helath and
Welfare Center.  The space is now the Community Services Ctr.

At the time I was working with Jostens Publishing Company to do the Middle School yearbook, so I asked if they could publish the book for us.  What I'm looking at is the result of that endeavor.  Every now and then I pull out the book and look at different sections of the book.  Today I chose Chapter 12 - Health and Safety.  Stories about the police force in the township as well stories on the volunteer fire companies and the ambulance society.  Then I turned the page and saw a photo of the Rossmere Tuberclosis sanatorium which closed in 1957.  At the time I lived about a mile from the building and didn't think much about it.  Actually, I was in Junior High at the time and didn't even realize there was a sanatorium nearby.  Didn't really know what tuberclosis was or how it affected you.  So, in order to tell you about the picture I placed on page 212 of Nat's book in 2003, I need to give you some basic information about Tuberculosis -- or TB as it's commonly called.  It is a contagious infection that usually attacks the lungs, but can spread to other parts of the body such as the brain or spine.  In the 20th century it was the leading cause of death in the United States while today most cases are cured with antibiotics after a 6 to 9 months treatment.  It is spread through the air and is very contagious, but not easy to catch.  There are two forms of TB: Latent TB which your immune system stops from spreading and Active TB which can spread the disease to others.  

Citizens visit the Tuberculosis Society's chest X-ray van in
front of St. James Parish House in downtown Lancaster, PA.
The date is October 1954 and the van spent the next 10
years screening people in Lancaster County for TB.

A few famous people who suffered from the disease who you might recognize are authors Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allen Poe as well as musician Frederic Chopin.  In the nineteenth century the concept of keeping TB patients isolated in a sanatorium started when Edward Livingston Trudeau started the first sanatorium in the United States.  Infectious persons were isolated from society and treated with rest and improved nutrition.  The National TB Asso., later known as the American Lung Asso. came into being in 1904.  In 1908 the French scientists Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin grew bacillus in several mediums to decrease their virulence and increase the capacity to produce immunity.  This led to the now famous vaccine called BCG that was introduced in 1921.  

This photo was taken at Lancaster's JP
McCaskey High School in the city.  It was
taken in 1951 when the 10th grade class
was scanned for TB by the American
Lung Association of Lancaster.

In 1944 antibiotics were used against TB for the first time with the discovery of streptomycin.  More effective drugs came along in the 1950's and treatment with rifampicin followed.  One thing I do remember was the TB Society X-ray truck that came around to different locations for screening to see if they could find anyone who might have the disease.  If I remember correctly they might have been at my high school to do chest X-rays on the students.  Anyway, the Rossmere TB sanatorium pictured here came about when the Rossmere Hotel was converted to a TB sanatorium in 1925.  Men were housed in a separate wing with children in another and women in what was at one time the ballroom.  On the second floor were living quarters for nurses and the superintendent while the third floor housed the dietician and the domestics.  When weather permitted, some patients slept outside on the porches since fresh air was therapeutic for people with TB.  Luckily I never knew of the sanatorium until it was demolished or needed the services of it.  TB was a disease that still exists today, but not as it did in the early 1900s.   It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.     

The "A Father's Unbearable Grief" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Struggling with my thoughts today as I write this story.  This past Thursday I wrote a story of a young man who took his own life while in prison for the murder of three people; his best friend and his best friend's parents.  Throughout this terrible tale which began on May 12, 2007, I often thought about the parents and siblings of the boy who committed the crime, Alec Kreider.  I can remember Alec from his time in the Manheim Township Middle School and even though I never experienced him as a student, I do remember him from photographs I took of him for the school yearbook.  But, I never got to know the parents of Alec.  I'm sure they were just like myself and my wife in that they wanted the best for their son as he grew from childhood to become an adult.  But, in this case that didn't happen.  I feel sorrow for not only the boy but his parents.  He confided in his father about a month after the murders that he was the one who had committed them.  How awful his father must have felt.  I still get chills and tears in my eyes just thinking about it.  And, to have to turn your own son into the police ... well, I'm not sure I could have done that.  But, his father Tim did the absolute right thing.  I'm sure he has thought about that every single day of his life since that fateful day of June 16th, 2007 when he told the authorities about his son.  The few days that elapsed from the time his son told him until the day he talked to the police must have been unbearable, just as that month was for Alec when he told no one of his terrible deed.  Well, today I got to visit the internet site titled "Refuse To Drown" and read the father's heart-wrenching story which led from the day his son told him of the murders till the day he was notified of Alec's death.  The Blog post tells the story of a young, troubled boy who loved animals and enjoyed spending time with his family.  What follows is the text that Tim wrote in his blog.  Tim's website: "Refuse To Drown- A Father's Unthinkable Choice" can be found at: www.refusetodrown.com and you may care to visit it.  Tim has co-authored a book about his experiences which no one should have to ever go through.  May both Tim and his son Alec be at peace now!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

On January 20, 2017, in a small quiet cell, alone and desperate, the life of my son Alec Kreider came to a tragic end. There are many who will say and believe that he got what he deserved, good riddance or it’s about time.  Alec committed a horrible crime and took so much away from an innocent family and that certainly is part of who Alec was and part of his story.  It simply isn’t the entire story. There was another side to Alec.  He was a loved son, grandson and brother.  He wasn’t always angry, desperate and lost in the wasteland of depression and anger.  He was a beautiful baby boy born with ears too big for his head and eyes that didn’t quite work right.  But he was still beautiful to us. Eventually, he grew into his ears and after a couple surgeries and eye glasses he learned to deal with his eyes.  He became a small child with a huge grin, big dimples and bright eyes behind those eye glasses.  He loved to play with legos and his nerf guns.  He played in the snow, ran in our yard and road in his big foot truck.  He was an innocent child simply enjoying life.  Like almost all small children, he was scared of the dark and “monsters” under his bed and would wake me to tell me he had a bad dream.  He loved animals and would curl up on the floor with our family dog or chase him around the house.  One time when our kids wanted to watch a “scary” movie, we rented The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Alec was maybe 10 or so and after the movie I asked him if he thought it was scary.  He said not but when I went upstairs to tuck him in, every light in every room in the house was on. I guess it was a little scary.  He had a bright and quick mind, which at times made him a challenge.  He wasn’t one to take “because I said so” as a good enough reason to do something.  He was determined and strong willed.  Attributes that should have served him well in life.  There were so many hopes and dreams for his future and the life he would have.  The possibilities seemed endless.  As he grew older he became a handsome young man who valued honesty and integrity and he simply didn’t understand why so many things in the world were so messed up.  He so wanted things to be better and different.  One of my fondest memories is when we watched a John Pinette video together.  John Pinette was a comedian and Alec, his younger brother and I watched and laughed so hard our sides hurt.  They were big belly laughs, we were, at that time, happy, enjoying life and for the moment free of any worries or concerns.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the journey, a darkness fell over Alec. It was something he struggled with every day.  All he wanted was for the pain, hurt and anger to end.  He tried so hard but yet the darkness would not leave him.  The bright eyes of his early childhood became dim and darker.  That small child with the big dimples and the joy for life was lost deep inside the anger and desperation he felt.  He was not the “monster” so many want to simply right him off as.  He did something monstrous, but that is only part of Alec.  To label him as such and not make an effort to understand the deeper story is the easy way to discard him and his life.  Alec loved and wanted to be loved.  Alec desperately wanted his life to be different.  He had hopes and dreams for his life and future and they were lost to the darkness and where it led him.  He was hurting and unable to conquer the inexplicable darkness that was a constant part of his every day.   He didn’t understand or know why he felt the way he did and why, no matter what he did, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t able to overcome the darkness and anger.  Alec wanted, with all of his being, for his life to be different, to be free of the torment he endured and had lived with for so long.   I encouraged him constantly to not give up, to keep trying, to believe that things could and would get better.  Some days he was hopeful and other days he was hopeless.  Unfortunately, the hopelessness proved to be too much to endure.  Alec was my son, his life did matter, he was loved and he will be missed.  May he finally rest and be at peace.