2012-02-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: • With Ryan Madson and Wilson Valdez now with Cincinnati, Brad Lidge, Gio Gonzalez and Chad Durbin in Washington, and who knows where Roy Oswalt will wind up, you can bet one of them, maybe all of them, will hurt the Phillies this season. Form......
2012-01-29 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Joe Paterno died Sunday at 9:25 a.m. in a State College hospital. His family announced his death. But reports of the demise of the Penn State coaching legend started more than 12 hours earlier on the Internet, not long after a family spokesman had reported the 85-year-old patr......
2012-01-22 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Occasionally this column shares with you some harsh, negative comments from readers. I file them under the heading "You Can't Make Up This Kind of Stuff." But — hard to believe — some readers can be very positive. You also can't make up the following: • "......
2012-01-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: • Yes, I know it's silly to use up time and newsprint on reports and rumors of Lady Gaga visiting Lancaster County with her local boyfriend and buying, or not buying, a home here. But if we didn't cover the silly stuff, there would be no ......
2012-01-08 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Usually when groups invite me to speak, I wind up being asked about: • The future of print newspapers. (Yes, they will be around for a long time, but that's for another column.) • Mistakes in the paper. (We make them, factual and grammatical. And we correct them......
2011-12-31 19:00:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Nothing like starting out 2012 with people we hope will make New Year's resolutions. • In Manor Township, two boys, both 15, got into a fight, then told police their injuries came when they were jumped by other youths. Along with their injuries, they face charges of makin......
2011-12-24 16:00:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You've been around for a lot of Christmases if you: • Got an orange and a box of candy at church for Christmas. • Put up a train yard under the tree. I had an American Flyer. It ran on two rails, not like Lionels that ran on three. Like a fool, I sold it to a co......
2011-12-18 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It is a time of peace on earth, good will to men. Unless you're some of my readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff.
• From a phone call:
"I'm just calling to tell you how totally pathetic your Sunday paper is. It is so devoid of news that if there was a......
2011-12-11 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Charlie Smithgall was on a losing streak going into the November election. The Republican, who had lost races for mayor and county commissioner, was running for city council. With his highly recognizable name, he scared some Democrats. But the former city mayor lost again......
2011-12-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
I figure that in any news item there has to be a Lancaster connection. If Lady Gaga is dating a local guy, shopping at the Giant supermarket near Lititz, going to a local shooting range, and hitting city restaurants, then surely the world does revolve around Lancaster County....
2011-11-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Tom Baldrige, president of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry, had nice things to say about Millersville University when he testified before the state Senate Appropriations Committee in a hearing on the campus earlier this month. That was to be expected, but what......
2011-11-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The police news isn't all gloom and doom. Those who write up the reports also have some fun. In Manor Township, police got a call about a lost sheep running around their neighborhood. Who would you send out to track down a sheep? How about a Wolf? Officer Matt Wolf. Accor......
2011-11-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Return with me now to those good ol' days (we now think) when: • Headline writers used initials or nicknames for leaders, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Ike. • We watched "The Naked City" on TV. "There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them."...
2011-11-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
From letters, postcards and emails that I file under the heading "You can't make up this kind of stuff." • From an email: "Please do not give the Occupy Lancaster protesters any more press coverage than is absolutely necessary. In fact, don't give them any press at a......
2011-10-30 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
A couple of weeks ago, we had a Page One article about landlord William McMichael III, who has gotten on city officials' last nerve with his decaying properties. McMichael also owns properties outside the city, including a building on Marticville Road that once housed a garage......
2011-10-16 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Let's get one thing straight from the beginning. The Phillies' loss in the recent National League division playoffs does not come close to matching the collapse of 1964. If you think so, you weren't around then. I lived it day-by-excruciating-day as a 14-year-old for whom the Phillies were ......
2011-10-09 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
While I was on vacation last week (again), a few friends stepped in and wrote a "trip down memory lane" column about Lancaster. • From Steve Kurtz, who remembers: —Begging Mom for that extra quarter to see a Walt Disney movie ("Toby Tyler," "Old Yeller," etc.),......
2011-10-02 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Spring disappoints us. It isn't like the springs we remember, or think we remember, from our youth. Cold, wet, windy, breaking only to tease us with a soft day before turning nasty again. Summer is hot and wet. Or hot and dry. Sometimes, like this year, it is both. Autumn......
2011-09-25 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: • Last Sunday, I wrote about Hurricane Agnes and how it swept away part of the "Singing Bridge" at Engleside in June 1972. Having crossed the bridge early that morning with the waters rising, I wondered who was the last person to cross be......
2011-09-18 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Yogi Berra would say it was "deja vu all over again." Thursday a week ago, the rains had stopped, the sun was out, but the flood waters were still high. Very high. At the bottom of South Prince Street, New Danville Pike, my normal evening route home, was blocked by traffic bar......
2011-09-11 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Hear the one about the young man from California who came to Lancaster County to meet a woman he was "seeing" online? When it didn't work out and he was stranded here, the 23-year-old stole a car in Manor Township in order to get home. He was caught before he left the county....
2011-09-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It was a few days before Pastor Barry could return the phone call. "The chemo knocks me back," the retired United Methodist minister said the other day. In late 2009, Pastor Barry — the Rev. Barry Wolfe — had surgery to remove a malignant tumor. Doctors wound ......
2011-08-28 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
• I am writing to inquire if it would be ... possible ... to acquire the extra coupon inserts from the Sunday papers every week. I'm trying to ... maximize my savings. • I'm collecting coupons to help the poor. Can you give me the leftovers? • I was w......
2011-08-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The easiest columns I write are the ones in which I daydream about the way life used to be. Today, it gets even easier. I'm turning the column over to three readers who replied to my last nostalgia column with their own lists of things from the past. Following are just some of......
2011-08-14 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
They don't need a calendar in the office at Pearl Street United Methodist Church to know when school is around the corner. The whir of the fax machine at this city church alerts them as it spits out requests for school uniforms for city students. This will be the 10th yea......
2011-08-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again to check out some of the messages I get from telephone, email and snail mail. You can't make up stuff like this. • From an email: "If you really want to be balanced, you should alternate Charles Krauthammer and Gil Smart, who I don't think is so smart, on ......
2011-07-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
There's an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished. Meet its personification, Pete Haines, who lives in Eden Manor, a slice of the city out to the east. A swimming pool used to be the center of that small community. Now it's abandoned and, through a developer's quirk......
2011-07-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You've been around a few decades if you can remember: • Getting your Boy Scout uniform at Watt & Shand. • Your family always filled up at the same gas station, or when you traveled, used the same brand of gasoline. Remember Sinclair? I have no idea what's go......
2011-07-10 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You may have noticed that our corrections/clarifications list the last two Sundays — always on Page B2 — has been a bit longer, particularly July 3 when there were six items. This week, there are three. The cynics among you — and I know who you are — ar......
2011-07-03 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Things I ponder:
• There have been a lot of stories in the media recently on men behaving badly. But look at it this way: If not for men behaving badly, we wouldn't have country music. What else could Conway Twitty have done with his life?
• ...
2011-06-26 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Lancaster Newspapers had come to reprint a special section and offer it to the public, starting Memorial Day. Reprints of the December 1945 "Lancaster County Heroes Edition of World War II" flew out the door at $2 each, with maybe 200 left at......
2011-06-19 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Some recent mail, emails and phone calls from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From an unsigned letter referring to the promotion item we sometimes run on the letters page for Gil's Smart's weekly video, headlined "More Gil Smart?" "Are you serious?!?......
2011-06-12 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Lancaster County could have its own reality TV show using some of the people who make the police logs here. Even "Jersey Shore's" Snooki doesn't get into trouble like this: • Manheim Township police cited a 16-year-old city boy for retail theft when he was spotted at a La......
2011-06-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and a question: Is there anyone in this country who wasn't born here, lived here or, at the least, passed through here? Meet Beth Behrs, an actress who made her mark onstage as a student at UCLA and then in the movies, including the straight-to-video "American Pi......
2011-05-29 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
When a woman offered his Columbia Veterans of Foreign Wars post an old, yellowed newspaper, Dwight Kreitz knew it was a treasure. Some of the pages had ink blotches on them, others were wrinkled and cracked — pretty much what you would expect from a newspaper that was mo......
2011-05-22 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
I could tell you that I spend my days pondering lofty issues. That readers beseech me to be the Solomon of these times. But I won't. I can't. Here's a look at what fills my email and voice mail files.
• No. 1: What do you do with the coupons that are ......
2011-05-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
When it comes to bad behavior, you can't give the following folks too much discredit. • Road rage is all the rage around here. —In Manheim Township, a 35-year-old man who believed he was being tailgated by a 60-year-old driver, stopped his vehicle, got out, use......
2011-05-08 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and ... a question: • Would John Donne, an English poet, satirist, lawyer and clergyman of the late 1500s and early 1600s, have written the following if he had known Osama bin Laden? "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."...
2011-05-01 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
As Shane Victorino slid across home plate in a cloud of dust last Sunday with an inside-the-park home run, I could visualize the next day's headline:
"Hawaiian flying!"
But then it struck me like a fastball to the helmet: Is the speedy Victorino, kn......
2011-04-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
I can't always remember where I parked my vehicle, but I do remember: • Chinese finger cuffs. You can still buy 'em. • When wearing a Phillies cap would get you a heap of abuse. Was there ever a Steve Jeltz shirt? • Having to recite a Bible verse every......
2011-04-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
From my snail mail, email, telephone calls and conversations. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From an email: "I read your column every Sunday. Just seems you get a lot of vacation time. Guess your daughter is right about you being ancient with the amount of t......
2011-04-03 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The teacher's letter was scathing. She took us to task for not listing the winners of a regional academic competition and "only" doing a feature story on one entrant. At the top of her letter, she put her own headline saying the winners at her school had been "slighted."...
2011-03-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
When it comes to the police logs, we have a cast of characters who rival any version of "Law & Order." • In Manor Township, a 20-year-old Holtwood man complained to police that his girlfriend (make that "ex") wouldn't give back some of his belongings. When police rece......
2011-03-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In March, my thoughts turn to baseball, yardwork (when nudged) and TMI. Not TMI as in the shorthand for "too much information," but the TMI that means Three Mile Island and the nuclear accident there in March 1979. Ironically, TMI back then meant "too little information."......
2011-03-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Why was the photo of a missing 10-year-old city girl placed on Page B2 on Sunday, Feb. 20? If she had been white, the questioner wondered, would her photo have been in a more prominent spot? Having my editorial judgment questioned is nearly a daily occurrence. I expect it. I w......
2011-02-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and did you hear the one about the two state legislators who went to the Super Bowl on the dime of an energy company? It's not a joke. Sen. Tim Solobay, D-Washington, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson (Steelers country), were hosted ......
2011-02-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time once again to share my snail mail, e-mail, faxes and calls with you. You really can't make up this kind of stuffs. • From a letter writer unhappy with my 150-word guideline for those letters: "Please note that awkward and/or abrupt wording in this letter is made......
2011-02-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when ... • Your family's first phone number had letters in front of it. Our number started with Express — EX. And why can I remember that first phone number and not where I parked the Heap (Jeep)? • ......
2011-02-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Today is a big day for Sally Wisner Ott — Souper Bowl Sunday. Ahem, you say, that's Super Bowl Sunday. No, for the Rev. Ott, it's Souper Bowl Sunday. Sally is executive director of LUMINA, a United Methodist outreach program in Lancaster city ......
2011-01-30 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again for "stupid human tricks," i.e., the police log.
NEEDS TRAINING WHEELS: In New Holland, a man, 43, was arrested for public drunkenness after he was seen "swerving" while riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.
HAVE SOME RESPECT:......
2011-01-23 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Next Sunday you will NOT find the Entertainment and Lifestyle sections in your Sunday News. Please do not call your carrier or the circulation department. Do not panic. The two sections are history, with key elements of both being merged into a new section to be known as ......
2011-01-16 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Wouldn't it have been nice if, following the shootings in Arizona, both sides of the American political spectrum had simply kept quiet? Wouldn't it have been nice if both sides had not pointed fingers before all the facts were in? Wouldn't it have been nice if we had sear......
2011-01-09 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: • Smart phones are amazing devices that allow users to do some mind-boggling things (boggling this mind, anyway) from finding driving directions to watching movies. With a smart phone — and we figure 100,000 of you in Lancaster Coun......
2011-01-02 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
If you think daughter Abigail is tough on me, please read on. You can't make up stuff like this. • From an e-mail: "How can you expect all letters to the editor to be 150 words? Subjects and importance should make a difference." I agree. Some letters should be s......
2010-12-26 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You've been around a long time if you: • Went downtown to see Santa climb a firetruck ladder into a window at Watt & Shand and then waited in line to see him. There are a lot of us who remember this event, as well as sticking around and going to a movie or getting a h......
2010-12-19 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
If you're of a certain age, you might remember a time when you asked Santa for a pony. Ho, ho, ho. You knew deep down that your chances of getting a pony were lower than the odds of a man walking on the moon (remember, you're of a certain age). But it didn't stop you......
2010-12-12 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Winning $500 in groceries would be nice for anybody. For Glenda Gantz it was especially nice. She has been unemployed since February 2009, and her unemployment was due to run out this month. Her husband, Jack, works but, as anyone in a two-income household will tell you, ......
2010-12-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Who says newspapers don't appeal to young people? • Two teens in a silver sedan recently stole 19 copies of the Sunday News from a West Hempfield convenience store. Starting their own paper route? • This is what an Ephrata police report had to say about a man, 2......
2010-11-28 02:00:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
I made a mistake last Sunday.
Sorry if that caused you to spit out your coffee. Some of you might say that I made more than one, so let's just say that one stands out above the others.
That mistake would be printing the name of the school previously attended by two of the Gosselin......
2010-11-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time if: — The line, "Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat ... " makes you smile. — You preferred Mary Ann over Ginger in "Gilligan's Island." — You remember a TV show called "Adventures in Paradise."...
2010-11-14 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Faith Aukamp will tell you the "blackouts" are the worst. That's when the military orders no communication with the homefront. That's when there are casualties, and the military doesn't want anyone prematurely delivering news of a death to a family. That's when famil......
2010-11-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and a question: Can you imagine having Tim McCarver and Joe Buck broadcast a full season of your baseball team's games? Announcers like Vin Scully,who is still at it today, and the late Harry Kalas were people you wanted to invite into your home every day. B......
2010-10-31 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You could tell who the Phillies fans were last Sunday morning. They were the ones who looked as if they had taken a one-two punch in the stomach from Mike Tyson. Or the ones trying to put up a brave front about losing the National League crown, only to give themselves awa......
2010-10-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Following are comments received from e-mails, letters and conversations. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • A reader called Sunday News staff member Eric Stark, who edits our TV Week, and said: "I keep seeing the movie 'American President' listed in the TV ......
2010-10-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The catcalls of "cheate-e-r-r-r-r, cheate-e-r-r-r-r" cascaded from the stands in Cincinnati onto Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley as he came to bat in last Sunday's playoff game. Reds fans were miffed that Utley, in the previous game, had spun away from a 101-m......
2010-10-03 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You're going to like John Burness, interim president of Franklin & Marshall College. He's not just occupying an office until a new president is found. "If you're the president, you're the president," he said last week. The 1967 F&M grad is excited about his s......
2010-09-26 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You've got to wonder what some of the people who show up in our police logs were thinking. Take the 38-year-old city man who was arrested for trespassing — at the county prison. It was his second arrest in two days at the prison. He wound up in prison later on a third charge unrelated ......
2010-09-19 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
If you grew up in the 1950s and '60s, you remember the Cold War like it was yesterday. It was a frightening time for children. We were taught to "duck and cover" under our desks when the drill buzzer sounded. And pray. On the homefront the adults talked about buildin......
2010-09-12 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It's b-a-a-c-c-c-k-k-k-k-k! "It" is TalkBack, Lancaster Newspapers' community forum found at LancasterOnline.com. Last time we talked about TalkBack was back in April, when the forum was shut down — with good reason. A f......
2010-09-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time if you: — Camped at Camp Chiquetan as a Boy Scout. — Took your baseball glove to a shoe repairman to get it restrung. — Had a button that proclaimed "I love Elvis." — Had a button that said "I hate ......
2010-08-22 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Readers are never at a loss for comments. You can't make up stuff like this. • A writer on — who else? — Gil Smart: "I read your [recent editor's] column ... and ... your subscribers' comments about Gil concerned me. I guess if I had to have a label put......
2010-08-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It has been a difficult few weeks at Lancaster Newspapers. I wish I had the words to describe the sadness we feel at the loss of two members of our newspaper family, or to console those who grieve. • Much has been said and written about Caroline Steinman Nunan since her death July ......
2010-08-01 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Tell me you don't read the police log, and I'll tell you I don't believe you. But if you don't get the newspaper, here's what you're missing. • Police in New Holland cited a woman, 39, following a domestic disturbance. Police said she struck her husband on the ar......
2010-07-25 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In the office at Pearl Street United Methodist Church, it's summertime but the living isn't easy. Out of this office, hundreds of uniforms will soon be donated to elementary and middle school students in the School District of Lancaster. School is getting close, and Deb Yunginge......
2010-07-18 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: • Republican candidate for governor, Attorney General Tom Corbett, opened his mouth and inserted his foot during a campaign stop in Elizabethtown when he claimed unemployment benefits should not be extended because it will keep people from looking for work....
2010-07-11 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time if: • Tinfoil was called Reynolds Wrap and sometimes your mother cleaned it to use again. • You remember when the escalators were installed at Watt & Shand. • Your mother sprinkled water on clothes before ironing them....
2010-07-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
A trip through my e-mail, snail mail and telephone calls: You can't make up stuff like this. • "I trimmed the attached letter [to the editor] as much as I could without draining it of its substance. Please be gracious to stretch a little." You can have152 words. How i......
2010-06-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
There are good things to be said about the Internet. Some day, I'll think of some. Actually, I like the Internet, and despite the damage it has done to "mainstream media," it is part of the future, along with print. For those of us in newspapers, it's a matter of taming thi......
2010-06-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Her husband jumped into France in the early hours of D-Day, June 6, 1944, with the 82nd Airborne Division. Nine days later, he was killed in action. The widow was upset, but composed, when she finally found her way to me by phone. What troubled her was seeing the "Peanuts" car......
2010-06-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
By now you know the story of how a major-league pitcher forgave the umpire who cost him a perfect game. It was a story that went from heartbreaking to heartwarming. It is a story that will last longer in baseball lore than if Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga had gotten his perfe......
2010-06-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Starting next Sunday (June 13), you'll notice a slight change in the organization of your Sunday News. Put down the pitchforks (phones or laptops). Nothing is being taken out of the paper. TV Week is untouched. Instead, the Perspective section and Business sections will be comb......
2010-05-30 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time if: • Memorial Day was marked on May 30, not the last Monday in May and you still think of that date as Memorial Day. • You wore your cap pistols when you watched Westerns on television. • You sniffed mimeographed test pape......
2010-05-23 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes.Editing letters to the editor gives me some insight into how some people always seem to find loopholes.The Sunday News tries to limit writers to a letter a month at most, unless someone is called on to answer another writer's comment.So how doe......
2010-05-16 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Back in the day, if you wanted to be a reporter, you were first assigned to write obituaries. The information was called in by a funeral director. (We called them undertakers.) You were warned to ask questions about the spellings of names: "Is that 's' as in Sam, or 'f&......
2010-05-09 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time for another round of letters, e-mails and calls from readers, often anonymous. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • Passed along by a colleague in the pre-press department, from her friend: "Who was the moron who put the school news in the Employment section?"......
2010-05-02 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The most interesting part of a newspaper? For my money, it's hard to beat the police log. • A 38-year-old man was caught trying to steal seven pregnancy tests from an East Lampeter grocery store. • Manheim Township police charged a man with harassment after he made more th......
2010-04-25 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
So you want to be an editor? Please read on: • A reader was unhappy with the play given — or not given — to the plane crash that killed the president of Poland. Noting that he was not Polish, he found it "disrespectful." He wrote: "For a country that......
2010-04-11 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The caller was loaded for bear. She wanted to talk about the article in last Sunday's newspaper in which Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Church, said the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland had lost its credibility because of its mishandling of child abus......
2010-04-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes, anecdotes and today's the day I carry on a family tradition by biting the ears off my daughter's chocolate Easter bunnies. (You see, I gave up chocolate for Lent.) • In a recent column, I wrote about a state police sergeant who visited local elementary schools and......
2010-03-28 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In springtime, a young man's fancy turns to baseball. For older men, it turns to coaching baseball. For me, it turns to the reasons I don't coach anymore: I don't want to be a part of programs that too often sour kids on a sport they once loved. Children play baseball (and o......
2010-03-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time if you: • Know what "three on a tree" means. • Remember when the only seat belts were in race cars and airplanes. • Honked your horn and flashed your lights to pass on a highway. • Watched TV westerns li......
2010-03-14 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and why did Angela Funk go on national TV to tell her story when she wouldn't speak to local reporters? Funk — the lover of Denver funeral home operator Michael Roseboro, who was convicted of killing his wife, Jan — was the "star" of the "48 Hours......
2010-03-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It's been a tough winter. Blizzard, after blizzard ... Except ... No blizzards. Not one. Says who? Says me. But more importantly, says Eric Horst, director of the Weather Information Center at Millersville University Like me, Eric is weary of for-profit weat......
2010-02-28 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Following are comments and questions that I'm glad readers passed along:• The TV [Week] is the only reason I purchase the Sunday newspaper. Several times I have noticed errors in your programming. ... If this continues, I will no longer have a purpose for the Sunday News. ......
2010-02-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again to check snail mail, e-mails and postings on various Web sites for words of wisdom from some of my biggest fans. Trust me. You can't make up stuff like this. • From a reader trying to edit a letter to the editor to the requested 150 words. "It may be over 200 wo......
2010-02-14 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You would think people would stay home, out of the cold and snow. But no. Read on for the latest installment of people acting badly, indoors and out. • A 53-year-old woman was arrested for public drunkenness after West Hempfield police found a vehicle half-buried by snow — a turn ......
2010-02-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: Probably the most written about event in local history was the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in March 1979. Few stones, or melted rods, were left unturned, as an army of journalists descended on the plant and its operators for months. But I hear......
2010-01-31 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In case you missed it, Jan. 23 was National Pie Day. But don't miss the fact that January was National Radon Awareness Month. Radon? Ask Linda D'Agostino. She's dying to warn you. Linda, 44, has terminal lung cancer. Part of the cause, she believes, lies in a ......
2010-01-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Michael Carper runs Housing Development Corp. "When people see us coming, they say 'there goes the neighborhood,' " he said Tuesday. HDC develops affordable rental units for workers with modest incomes, something that in some areas of the county is considered a terribl......
2010-01-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time (Part III) if: • You remember when major league baseball games started at 8 p.m. and were over by 10:30 or earlier. • Scandals did not end in "gate." • You have eight-track tapes and record albums in boxes in your......
2010-01-10 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You don't have to read much American history to learn that we have continually let down our guard. That should have changed permanently after 9/11, but once again we're sleeping on guard duty. Nothing points that out more than the attempted bombing of an airliner over Detroit on Chri......
2009-12-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Television's "Law & Order" franchise rips its plots from the headlines. Serious stuff. I find the local police logs just as entertaining and just as strange. • Sometimes, a drunk driver gives himself away. —A 23-year-old Lancaster man was charged with DUI by......
2009-12-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The phone rang after Harry Pfrommer got home from church. "I didn't know you had passed away," the caller said. "Of course I haven't passed away. You're talking to me, aren't you?" Harry replied. The caller was having a little fun with Harry afte......
2009-12-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
A lot of strange things come to me through e-mail. Trust me, you can't make up this kind of stuff. • "According to a poll of Pennsylvania adults, about 17 percent ... experienced an injury or know someone who was injured while opening gifts during past seasons." You p......
2009-12-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You know you've been around a long time if: • You still call the parking garage at Duke and King streets the Watt & Shand garage, fully two name changes behind. • You attended a Red Roses baseball game. • Your mother always made you wear a suit to church....
2009-11-29 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
I always swallow hard whenever we revise TV Week. Promise of change may have gotten Barack Obama elected president, but it doesn't do anything for my approval rating (if I actually have one that registers) when it comes to TV Week. Many readers are devoted to "the TV book"......
2009-11-22 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In last Sunday's column on letters to the editor, I touched on misinformation in letters that is often picked up from the Internet and passed along as fact. Last weekend this e-mail landed in my inbox (and probably thousands of others) and is purported to have been "written by a ......
2009-11-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The reader wanted an answer. Why had his letter to the editor been cut by more than half? He sent back the original letter, underlining every sentence and word that had been trimmed. The writer, a regular whom I enjoy hearing from, noted that the number of words in the original was not "......
2009-11-08 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
As the clock ticked toward 12:40 a.m. last Sunday, Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera entered the ninth inning of Game 3 of the World Series. With one out, the Phillies had scored a run to cut the New York lead to 8-5. Part of me, the fan part, wanted to see Philadelphia mount a big rally t......
2009-11-01 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Some of the most interesting news, and often the strangest, can be found in our police logs. Take a look. • In East Lampeter Township, a college student was reported to have driven into a shopping cart in a parking lot. He was arrested for underage drinking and taken back to his school,......
2009-10-25 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again to check the e-mail box for readers' comments. You can't make up this stuff. • "I feel Gil Smart is a blubbering idiot. I will never visit or read your newspapers ever again since I watched him spouting off about protesters and Fox News. I now see you are a liber......
2009-10-18 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Around Strasburg, Bill Phifer wears a blue baseball cap with a white "B" on the front. On his sleeve, he wears his feelings for the team the cap represents — the Brooklyn Dodgers. As a boy, he would lie awake at night and be able to tell from the crowd noise at nearby Ebbets ......
2009-10-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Deb Yunginger took a leap of faith the other day. With some 330 students in the School District of Lancaster still waiting for uniforms, she placed a $2,000 order with a clothing wholesaler to provide for a fraction of them. She was relieved when unexpected donations covered that bill....
2009-09-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time to look in on our local ne'er-do-wells for whom crime, or bad behavior, does not pay. • After a dispute with his girlfriend, an East Lampeter Township man took some of her clothes out to his apartment patio and burned them, He was cited for dangerous burning. • If you......
2009-09-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
• The march in Washington was more newsworthy than the pup mills deep in doo in your Sunday News. Can see why your readership is waning —you do not report the news. You just report your agenda.• I remember as a young boy we were told about how real news was ......
2009-09-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again to look at comments from letters, e-mails and Internet postings. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From a post on TalkBack (LancasterOnline.com's community forum), after I noted that a man charged with two......
2009-09-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The caller was direct. "I just thought that was completely tasteless ... absolutely unnecessary ... the man did a great deal of good in his lifetime ... that was horrible." The subject? The editorial page cartoon last Sunday that showed a St. Peter type on the phone assur......
2009-08-30 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
We've moved some features around and revised two sections in the Sunday News today. The Books pages, which had been in the middle of the Perspective section, have a new home in the Living section (Pages 6 and 7 today), providing space not only for more book reviews, but for more news abo......
2009-08-23 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
There's a famous Norman Rockwell painting that shows a man speaking at a public meeting. In Rockwell's 1943 view of what's right with America, the man stands tall. He is informed. Sticking from a pocket of his worn jacket is a rolled-up copy of a report. Around him you see othe......
2009-08-16 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again to test the IQ of our local lawbreakers. (The "I" does not stand for intelligence.)
• Aren't you a little old for this kind of carrying-on?
When a Manheim man, 66, thought that a 36-year-old Manheim woman had cut him off in traffic on Ro......
2009-08-02 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes:
Her fame is real
In a recent column, I said that the claim to fame for Chris Noel, working to keep a veterans' shelter open in Florida, was acting in the Elvis Presley movie "Girl Happy" which came out in 1965. Ms. N......
2009-07-26 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Gerry Stoltzfoos grew up in a Beachy Amish family on a dairy farm at Gap. He finished the eighth grade; his family saw high school as "a waste of time." In his late teens, seeking a more evangelical approach to his faith, he earned a GED diploma and went on to Valley Forge Christian C......
2009-07-19 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
One of my favorite faux headlines comes from The Onion, a rather rude publication that parodies the news. It reads, using the date Nov. 22, 1963, and the tag "Late Edition":
Kennedy Slain By CIA, Ma......
2009-07-12 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes. • Starting July 26, listings for some of the additional digital channels now carried by three local stations will be added to TV Week. Those channels will be: WGAL 8.2, known as "This TV"; WHP 21.2, "mytwentyone"; and WHTM 27.2, "Retro." This is in......
2009-07-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
No doubt about it, we need a brighter class of lawbreakers around here. • From the "D'oh!" department: A man was charged in June with robbing two local banks. Police found his fingerprint on a holdup note left behind at one of the banks. • If you have something......
2009-06-28 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
One reason for writing this column — besides refereeing verbal bouts between readers and Gil Smart — is to give readers an inside look at what is happening at the Sunday News. Come Monday, a tradition ends at Lancaster Newspapers. The Lancaster New Era will no longer land on po......
2009-06-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes, anecdotes and the latest from those who can't help but pass on what they see or receive on the Internet: "How do a group of Syrian anti-American protest leaders create the most impact with their signs by having ... slogans printed in English? "Answer: &quo......
2009-06-14 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again for comments received in letters, e-mails, online postings, phone calls and conversations. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From an e-mail this past Sunday morning: "Shame on you for getting the date of Flag Day incorrect. Flag Day is June 14 , not June......
2009-06-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Cue the "Dragnet" theme. The stories you are about to read are true; the names have been deleted to protect the embarrased from the double jeopardy of having their names in the newspapers again for their odd misdeeds. Taken from police files: • A Lancaster man, 35, and woman, 25, were char......
2009-05-31 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Paul Wright gets to the point about the Urban League of Lancaster County: "We're struggling." Grants have disappeared. Only five paid staff members work out of the office at 502 S. Duke St. Wright, a board member, can't make it any clearer. "We desperately need help.......
2009-05-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
John Sanders doesn't want to be portrayed as a "desperate soul," but he has been out of work since Feb. 11, when KB Toys and his job as district manager disappeared. The 54-year-old, married father of three grown children worked 32 years for the retail toy company that had two sto......
2009-05-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The ribbing started the moment the staff learned I was hitting 40 years with Lancaster Newspapers. Photographer Vinny Tennis stuck up a picture of himself posing as a Geico caveman (no makeup needed) with the caption: "Marv has been here so long his first photographer was a caveman."...
2009-05-10 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again for letters, e-mails, calls, faxes and online posts from the readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff. (Well, you could if you tried real hard.) • From an e-mail about a monument in Bayonne, N.J.: "I had never heard of this before ... .Why didn't the press report it?"...
2009-05-03 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Time again for some remedial work on writing letters to the editor. Some of you do a superb job of observing the 150-word-limit sign that runs on the letters page every Sunday. Others blow right by it. The idea behind the limit is give letters a tighter focus and to get more of the......
2009-04-26 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes, and did you see that a Philadelphia study group has suggested that to modernize the city's government and save money row offices should be eliminated? Wouldn't it be great to look into something like that for our historic but creaky Lancaster County government? Oh, y......
2009-04-19 00:02:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Unless you've been shanghaied by pirates (not the ones from Pittsburgh) off the coast of Africa, you know that Harry Kalas died Monday. The Phillies' announcer collapsed in the press box at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., before a game. Tuning in to the pre-game show, I saw his......
2009-04-12 00:02:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Some letters, e-mails, postings and phone calls from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From a letter: "Smart is not Smart. Pitts is the Pitts. Dowd cannot compose a sentence without insulting someone or something. Funnies are not funny, and 90 percent are ridic......
2009-04-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Amadeo Zazueta is moving to Lancaster this spring to take a new job. Like many young men in a new town, he needed a place to stay. He got lucky. He will live with a Lancaster police detective's family. You'll meet Zazueta this summer. He will be working at Clipper Magazine Stadi......
2009-03-29 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and anecdotes:
Weathering a storm
In the wake of William Ayers' controversial visit to Millersville University, we got a letter from a Willow Valley Square resident who lived in a Chicago suburb during the time of Ayers' involvement with the ......
2009-03-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Sunday News staff writer Paul Franz's article on last Saturday's Harrisburg Tea Party was picked up by the Drudge Report Monday. The article, about one of a number of protests brewing around the country......
2009-03-08 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
I have people. People who forward e-mails to me about supposed outrages perpetrated by their favorite targets: Congress and the media. The Internet is an astoundingly fast way to get out information. It's also an astoundingly fast way to put out misinformation. Newspapers make ......
2009-03-01 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
People hit the ceiling. How could the college at Millersville invite him. A war raged, and this anarchist (traitor, druggie — pick one, or all of them) and his band had spread violence and civil disorder. Worst of all, he was unrepentant. Letters filled local newspapers d......
2009-02-22 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Officer Josiah King has the day off Tuesday, but he's behind the wheel of a Lancaster police cruiser. When you have a wife, a small son, twin boys on the way and a new house, you work all you can. The young officer who joined the force in 2005 is on overtime for the state's "D......
2009-02-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Linda Steigauf was upstairs Feb. 4 in her home on Westfield Drive when she heard the noise. "I first thought it was an explosion of some kind," she said last week. No explosion. The Steigaufs had a late visitor to their West Hempfield Township home. When Linda got downstairs......
2009-02-08 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Every Saturday morning I get a Top 20 list from my friends in the interactive media department here telling me what Sunday News articles were the most read over the past seven days on LancasterOnline.com. The list is a good indicator, I believe, of what is also being read in print. Wanna b......
2009-02-01 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and which team is more popular here, Eagles or Steelers? TV ratings show it's the Eagles, but is it my imagination, or do we see — year round — more people wearing Steelers shirts, hats, etc., than Eagles gear? Maybe Steelers fans only own one shirt. I......
2009-01-25 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Over the past three years, I've gotten smiles, knowing nods and some groans when I've shared the comments of daughter Abigail at the end of columns. Abigail is special. So is your young child. They are special because of the times they live in. Their generation is very differe......
2009-01-18 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It was early Saturday evening, but already a caller had a complaint about the next day's Sunday News. That does happen occasionally because some readers receive the "pre-run" Saturday, delivered by carriers trying to lighten their Sunday load. That package, printed Thursday and Fr......
2009-01-11 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
It's time for another round of catching up on e-mails sent by sharp-eyed, and sharp-witted, readers.
Where's your Faith?
• From a reader (male) who thought a photo revealed too much of a beautiful country music star: "The TV Week cover with Fai......
2009-01-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In the previous seven Sundays, the Sunday News printed installments of a series, "Drunk ... and Driving." Staff writer Jon Rutter takes a break from it today, but he's not finished with the series, which opened with a snapshot of drunken driving on county roads from Oct. 26 to Nov......
2008-12-28 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
In a business ruled by the clock, WGAL-TV's early-morning news ran a little longer Wednesday. Matt Lauer and the "Today" show had to wait. Dick Hoxworth was saying his goodbyes. With his family — wife Sue, son Jonathan and daughter-in-law Tera — watching from the ......
2008-12-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Frank Zitz needed a horse. It had to be white and wearing its winter coat. It had to be big, big enough to not look out of place carrying a big man — in size and legend — George Washington. The horse also had to be dead, as in recently dead. Zitz runs Frank J. Zitz and Co.......
2008-12-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
You hear it this time of year: "Grandpa wanted to see one more Christmas, and he did." Many of us have stories of those who clung dearly to life until a holiday passed. Then, they passed on. Mark DeBord is in a business to see it. He operates the Kearney Snyder Funer......
2008-11-30 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The readers write: • From an e-mail on columnist Gil Smart's reasons for voting for Obama: "What could be worse than voting for a person because of the color of his skin? And your paper allows this person to continue his racism?" I don't know where to start t......
2008-11-23 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
After an election, there's usually a lull in letters to the editor. Not this year. Readers continue to write about the outcomes of Nov. 4, particularly the election of Barack Obama as president and, locally, the defeat of the home-rule charter. But what really stirs writers her......
2008-11-16 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
A great amount of my time is spent refereeing matches between Gil Smart (on the left) and some readers (on the right) and explaining to other readers why a crossword puzzle and its clues don't match.
Love/hate
From e-mails:
"I am appalled ......
2008-11-09 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and are you as glad as I am that this election is over?
Keeping score
"Congratulations, the Sunday News ... [has] succeeded in helping to elect Sen. Obama." That didn't take long. This message hit my e-mail at 1:06 a.m. Wednesday....
2008-11-02 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
The Sunday News won't tell you today why you should vote for Barack Obama or John McCain. Or Bob Barr. Or Ralph Nader. The Sunday News does not endorse candidates. I remind you of this because local columnist Gil Smart writes on Page P1 that he will vote for (surprise!) Mr. Obama....
2008-10-26 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican candidate for vice president, spent the night in Lancaster last weekend before wowing the home crowd at the ballpark. But finding out where she stayed, or if she did anything else while she was in town, wasn't easy — even after her campaign had moved on....
2008-10-19 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Notes, quotes and how 'bout those Phillies? A lot of people who went to bed late Monday night with the Fightins losing Game 4 of National League Championship Series were shocked when they picked the paper off their driveways the next morning to find out their team had won. Isn't this fu......
2008-10-05 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS, Editorially Speaking
Worried about the meltdown on Wall Street? The wars in the Middle East? Think times are tough? You could turn to the history books to see how Americans overcame obstacles in the past, or you could go to a reunion of the Manor High School Class of 1943. Members of that class were child......
2008-09-28 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
One purpose of this column — besides giving you glimpses into the anonymous mail I get — is to let you know when changes are coming in your newspaper. Starting next Sunday, the Automotive section will be renamed Automotive Weekly and printed as a tabloid. It's a good change......
2008-09-21 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Notes, quotes and anecdotes:
Apolitical
I am not a political person. Instead, I find the process, local and national, to be on the level of slapstick. Inconsistency reigns. Try this test: If your favored candidates were running on the other party's tick......
2008-09-14 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
I enjoy hearing from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff.
Picture this
From an e-mail:
"Your picture [Sept. 7] of Sarah Palin and stories shows what a left-wing newspaper you are. Of all the pictures of her smiling, you had to fi......
2008-09-07 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
The silly season — my description of political campaigns — is on us again. That means it's time to remind writers of letters to the editor of the ground rules. The rules aren't any different than any other time of the year, or for other subjects, but burning political p......
2008-08-31 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
In a recent column on earth-shaking issues, I wrote that the term Southern End has come to mean everything south of Lancaster, which it just isn't. I claimed the Southern End begins at the Enola Low-Grade Line. Being magnanimous, I asked readers what they thought. The Rev. Mic......
2008-08-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
When it comes to letters to the editor, we can't always print exactly what readers write. Letters must be factual. Opinion is one thing, facts are another. Sometimes letters don't tell the complete story. In a letter last Sunday, a writer took issue with a church that held a g......
2008-08-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Time for another installment of comments from readers. You really can't make up this stuff.
Where's Gil?
An e-mail from a reader in New Holland on Gil Smart's recent column on personal responsibility:
"What did you do with Gil Smar......
2008-08-10 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Notes, quotes and anecdotes: • After reading about Lancaster General Hospital refusing to further cut hospital bills for the Plain (who don't carry health insurance), a reader wrote to tell us about the recipe book she had just received from the LGH Wellness Center. On the cover i......
2008-08-03 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Twenty years after he made his pitching debut in the Solanco Church League, Dave Stokes will pitch at Clipper Magazine Stadium Thursday night. His name won't ring many bells with fans, because the 38-year-old isn't a baseball pitcher — he pitches fast-pitch softball and does it qu......
2008-07-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
For nine Sundays (with one more to go), we have devoted a great deal of time and space to explaining the home-rule charter, article by article. Formulated by the Government Study Commission, this is an important document. If voters approve it in November, it will mark the first major changes in......
2008-07-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
It has been our policy — one handed down by past Sunday News editors — to rarely attach an editor's note to a letter to the editor. An editor's note makes it look as if the editor has to get in the last word. I don't get the last word at home, so why should I have i......
2008-07-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
For those of us who work in newspapers, our bible (the one with the small "b" ) is the AP Stylebook. I await the book, updated each year at this time by The Associated Press, as eagerly as I used to wait for Christmas catalogs as a child. The stylebook, in print and online, is a ......
2008-07-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Time for another installment of those ever-popular comments from readers. The following are taken from e-mails and one conversation. You can't make up this kind of stuff.
Re cycling laws
From an e-mail in which the writer got really revved up over last Sunday'......
2008-06-29 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Karen Dinkel was weary of chasing the young woman who had racked up more than 50 parking tickets. The 22-year-old, facing an arrest warrant, said she would take care of things, but then made herself scarce. The city's warrant coordinator turned to a source she doesn't like to use: ......
2008-06-22 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Notes, quotes and an impression: Most of us saw our major-league sports dreams end in the midget leagues, but nearly everyone thinks they know sports better than the people who report it. After I became sports editor of the Intelligencer Journal in 1977, I heard a speaker at a seminar put ......
2008-06-15 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
At 50, Rick Bowman is quick to tell you that he's caused some of his own problems. But trouble has sometimes literally come down the road and shown up at his door. The tall, bearded Bowman lives and works at the bottom of the steep hill that runs up to Marticville. He's a comm......
2008-06-08 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
The article on last Sunday's front page showed how the city is trying to speed up the mind-numbing process of getting condemned houses on the market. It also referred readers to LancasterOnline.com for a graphic that mapped all 100 condemned properties. Simply click on a property and inform......
2008-06-01 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Notes, quotes, anecdotes and a question: What state would you guess has the least knowledgeable drivers? According to GMAC Insurance's annual survey, New Jersey drivers know the least about driving laws, scoring 69.9 percent (70 is passing). The smartest drivers live in Kansas and aver......
2008-05-25 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
In the 1947 movie "Magic Town," Jimmy Stewart plays a pollster who discovers a small town that reflects American opinions dead-on. The national media must also see something magical in Lancaster. Before the primary, you could go to Central Market to buy produce and give your opin......
2008-05-18 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
If the price of gasoline is hurting us, we have strange ways of showing it. No, I'm not going to preach about driving less, pedaling a bicycle to work, car-pooling or giving up your SUV. My wife clings to the wheel of her SUV like the NRA sticks to its guns. We live where four-wheel-dr......
2008-05-11 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
It's another round of letters, e-mails, online posts and calls from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff: • From an e-mail: "On the front page [May 4], we have [a headline] "Uneasy lies head of Disney princess." What the heck does that even mean? ... No......
2008-05-04 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Questions asked, answers questioned: • Are you as happy as I am that the Pennsylvania primary is over? • Now that the Lancaster Post is publishing, will our critics stop calling us the "monopoly newspapers"? (Answer: Not likely.) • Does it make you as nervous ......
2008-04-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
If a frown could wound bad drivers, oh my. Yes, you, the woman in the SUV, talking on the cell phone, who ignored the children trying to cross the street. And you, the man behind the wheel of a pickup truck, who drives like it's your first time in the city, hanging a left and forcing p......
2008-04-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
We often do a poor job of telling you what's in this newspaper or on LancasterOnline. Did you know that "Jumble," which is in the Intelligencer Journal six days a week, was added to the Sunday News a couple of months ago? One reader, who called to ask if we would consider pri......
2008-04-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
The readers (bless you) always write. You can't make up this kind of stuff: • An e-mail reply to my comment last Sunday on Dr. Laura Schlessinger being wifty when she said on the "Today" show that wives bear some responsibility for wandering husbands: "Dear Mr. Adam......
2008-04-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Things to ponder: •If the city goes to angled parking on some streets, will residents need to put out more stuff to hold their spaces after snowstorms? •Why do we say and write "hundreds braved the elements" when we're talking about a little rain or cold? When did s......
2008-03-30 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
It has been a while since we've talked about letters to the editor. But it's time for another revival service. Writers have a history of backsliding when it comes to length of their letters. After I set a 200-word limit several months ago, most of you ignored me as if I were an Old......
2008-03-23 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Another round of letters, e-mails and online postings from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From a snail mail: "I think everyone over 60 should not pay school tax unless they have a child in public school." I disagree. As a 57-year-old with a 12-year......
2008-03-16 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
One of the aims of this column has been to give readers insight into how a newspaper is put together. The process is not an exact science, and there are times it becomes "all the news that fits," a takeoff on the N.Y. Times motto, or "all the news that we're able to fit in by......
2008-03-09 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Following are comments from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff. • From a reader's e-mail on my crusade to strike the meaningless term "valid license" from the lexicon: "If you forgot to renew your driver's license ... it changes from a 'valid&......
2008-03-02 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Things that make me wonder: • Why do coaches who break the rules and corporate execs who run businesses into the ground get huge buyouts? • Why can the dog go back to sleep after she gets me up at 4 a.m to go out, but I can't? • Besides my daughter, who buys that st......
2008-02-24 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
From a post on LancasterOnline.com's TalkBack to our story last Sunday on the county commissioners deciding to "do over" a meeting:
Just so I understand the LNP position correctly: A violation by Dic......
2008-02-17 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Following is another installment of comments from readers. You can't make up this kind of stuff.
Good grief!
• From an e-mail: "Why bring back 'Hagar [the Horrible]'? It is such a boring comic. I swear it repeats itself on an eight-week cyc......
2008-02-10 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Never took a music lesson until the other day, when I got one from two experts. Down on the first block of North Prince Street, the interior of the $21-million-plus Pennsylvania Academy of Music is shaping up. It's a dream come true for Michael Jamanis and Frances Veri, the husband-and......
2008-02-03 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Notes, quotes and my declaration of surrender: The cartoon "Hagar the Horrible" will return in a couple of weeks. Gone will be "Ollie & Quentin," which never hit its stride on Sundays. Also, its artwork was just too small. (Even in the the old comic-page size, the c......
2008-01-27 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Questions answered, answers questioned: • Men's neckties grow wider or narrower, but how come old ties in your closet never make it back into style? • Why is it that children can't wait to get out of school, but then spend after-school hours playing school? • Wh......
2008-01-20 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Anytime I believe I'm doing something right, readers set me straight. You can't make up this kind of stuff.
The countdown
From an e-mail: "I noticed that today's [Jan. 6] Sunday News contained the last of your ... countdowns on the terms of our ......
2008-01-13 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
We have added two comic strips today — "Family Tree," by Signe Wilkinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Daily News, and "Quentin and Ollie" by Piers Baker. Both strips debuted nationally last Monday. "Family Tree" &md......
2008-01-06 00:01:00
MARV ADAMS
Things that cause me to wonder: • When did auto makers start offering turn signals as options? • How did Adam Sandler get to be a movie star? • Has Bill O'Reilly ever had any doubts? About anything? • Why are liberals so forgiving of liberals, but not con......
