This song is dedicated to…retro radio

Remember radio. Fond memories are associated with listening to a small transistor radio stuffed under your pillow at night…tuned to the strongest signal. Waiting, waiting patiently to hear a teenager’s request to the local DJ to have a love song dedicated to a special someone.

Who called in first…and to what radio station…are pieces of trivia that may be darn-well, dagnabbit unretrievable. Nonetheless, an important chapter in radio legend and lore was written that day.

The song “Dedicated to the One I Love” was first recorded in 1957 by the “5” Royales, a rhythm and blues group from Winston-Salem, N.C. America noticed when the song was redone and performed by The Shirelles in 1961. It was promoted vigorously on the “American Bandstand” television show.

Host Dick Clark said: “Legions of female singing groups in the early 1960s were all inspired by The Shirelles.” A softer and gentler version of the song was recorded by The Mamas and the Papas in 1967.

The song is actually about a prayer that is directed to the stars above, but “Dedicated to the One I Love” became an anthem for lovers to express their feelings in the rock’n’roll era.

What’s the favorite, most-requested love song ever? It depends on your generation. Within the “oldies” category, you could go with “Unchained Melody,” sung in 1965 as a solo by Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers and the 1972 rendition by Roberta Flack of “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

Moving forward through the years, some of the top contenders have been the 1976 Stevie Wonder song “Isn’t She Lovely” and “Saving All My Love for You” released in 1985 by Whitney Houston. From the record collection of artist Shania Twain, two of her songs from 1997 rank high on the request list, “You’re Still the One” and “From This Moment On.”

For a more recent catalog, we need to call in an expert on the subject. She is Delilah, the mononymous musicologist and late-night radio show host, whose program is also simply known as “Delilah.”

Delilah has more than 8 million listeners. She possesses a magical gift of finding and playing songs that address each and every situation – “sending out love songs and loving stories to help you connect heart to heart with the special people who’ve been blessed to be a part of your life.”

Her radio show has been airing since 1984. Being the self-proclaimed “Queen of Sappy Love Songs,” Delilah says she has great fun “prying into people’s business and minding their business. It’s what I do best.”

She said the one song she would choose to dedicate to herself is Edwin McCain’s “I Could Not Ask for More,” recorded in 1999.

“Music is the language of the angels. You can hear just one or two chords, one or two notes of a song, and bam – you’re right back there, you’re right back in that moment. Songs say what our emotions can’t. I love that about music.”

Three love songs that Delilah keys on (from the past two decades) are “Make You Feel My Love” (2008) by Adele, “He Heals Me” (2009) by India.Arie and “All of Me” by John Legend (2013). But she has loads more to draw from to share with her listeners.

Nick Murray of BuzzFeed News, asks: “How does Delilah…make these choices, pick the songs – not as a technician but a dedication maestro?” “When I hear a song that lyrically speaks to me,” she said, “it goes into a vault in my mind. If you tell me a story or use a certain phrase that sticks in my heart, I’ll dial in a song that goes with it.”

Murray reported that Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” (1988) is Delilah’s most-requested song of all time, even though she hasn’t played it in years. “I love Bette,” Delilah said. “I’ve seen the movie The Rose 25 times. It’s just a burnout.”

Another song on the shelf in Delilah’s studio is “My Heart Will Go On” (1997) by Celine Dion. “If I heard (that song) one more time I might have jumped off the Titanic myself,” she joked to Murray.

One tune that never grows old is “You’ve Got a Friend” (1971) written and sung by Carole King. Sometimes sung by James Taylor or by both artists as a duet. Play it again, Delilah.

Yum: Spam jumps on pumpkin spice bandwagon

Pumpkin spice Spam goes on sale Sept. 23. It will be available online through the Spam and Walmart websites. Two cans per package. The marketing message is “eat one, give one.” Trick or treat?

Spam, now an “old man” on supermarket shelves, is benefiting from new waves of publicity, giving it exposure to a whole new generation of consumers. The product was invented in 1937, as a “miracle meat in a tin can,” manufactured by Hormel Foods Corporation of Austin, Minn.

Described as the “meat of many uses,” you can eat Span straight out of the can, grill it, bake it, fry it and even microwave it. Spam caught on quickly because it was budget friendly. The nation was still scratching its way out the Great Depression. By 1940, about 70% of Americans had “dined on Spam.”

Austin became “Spam Town, U.S.A.” The Spam Museum there offers free admission. Visit Johnny’s Spamarama for lunch and try the “Spam De’ Melt” (a grilled cheese stuffed with Spam, bacon and sour cream).

Hormel says the basic Spam recipe is a blend of simple ingredients. Begin with a ground pork shoulder and ham mixture, and add salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite.

The mixture is inserted into the familiar 12-ounce metal cans; lids are applied through a vacuum-sealing process. The cans are then cooked in a giant “cooker” that holds 66,000 units at one time, according to Karin Miner, a regular contributor to Mashed, an online destination of food lovers.

To mix up its batches of pumpkin spice Spam, Hormel is not injecting any real pumpkin in the mixture. The company says it can make the product taste like pumpkin spice by adding cinnamon, clove, allspice and nutmeg.

Throughout the years, Spam has been a dagnabbit punching bag – a product that has been spoofed, scoffed at, maligned and disparaged…but Spam has survived and thrived.

Meghan Jones of Reader’s Digest magazine reported that the Spam brand could be an “abbreviated version of ‘shoulder of pork and ham,’ or short for ‘spiced ham.’”

Miner suggested that Spam is an acronym for “something posing as meat.” Some jokester once opined that Spam stands for “squirrel, possum and muskrat.” Company officials just laugh it off. They are resolved to keep the origin of the name “a secret.”

As background, George A. Hormel established a slaughterhouse and meatpacking facility in Austin in 1891, and by 1901, the company was processing whole hogs, beef and sausage in Austin.

Spam helped the Allies to win World War II, as soldiers remained fit and well-fed by “feasting” on Spam; the product didn’t need refrigeration and had a long shelf life, Miner reported.

She said former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs: “It tasted good. Without Spam, we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army. We had lost our most fertile lands.”

American GIs termed Spam as “ham that didn’t pass its physical” or as “meatloaf that missed basic training.”

George Hormel’s son, Jay Hormel served in World War I. In response to complaints from U.S. service members during World War II, Jay Hormel would say: “If they think Spam is terrible, they ought to have eaten the bully beef we had in the last war.”

Bully beef (corned beef) in a tin and hardtack biscuits were the main field rations of the British Army in World War I and shared with the American troops in Europe.

Erin DeJesus of Eater.com, an online food and dining network, said Hormel’s wartime role continued in Korea and Vietnam. Today, major markets for Spam include South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam (a U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean) and Hawaii.

Hormel’s international “Spambassador” is a chap named Chris Stephens, a delivery truck driver in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, in the United Kingdom. He eats Spam every day and has been doing so for more than 60 years.

“I love the unique flavor and would eat multiple cans a day but my wife has put me on a diet recently, so I’ve cut down to one tub per day,” Stephens said.

Stephens said he enjoys traveling, but he only selects hotels that offer frying facilities, so he can get his daily fix of Spam. “Give me Spam above the best beef or lobster any day,” he declared.

‘Bubba’ is a revered college football name

President Gerald Ford’s good friend Peter Secchia jovially referred to the president as “Bubba.” Secchia explained: “I used to joke around with the president because he was a football player at the University of Michigan, and I went to Michigan State.”

Ford would ask: “Peter, why do you call me Bubba?’ Secchia replied: “Football players are all Bubba.”

Secchia had to back-pedal on that statement, however, and was more than glad to do it, once Charles Aaron “Bubba” Smith of Orange, Texas, walked into Spartan Stadium on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing in the mid-1960s.

As a 6-foot-8, 285-pound defensive end, Smith was a menacing giant during that era, and he instantly became college football’s one and only “Bubba.”

As Jerry Ford led the Michigan Wolverines to national titles in 1932 and 1933, Bubba did the same for the MSU Spartans in 1965 and 1966.

The very first former U.S. president to suit up and play college football in 1911 was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a demon on the gridiron, playing for the Army Black Knights while attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Eisenhower was a two-way star, the premier running back on offense as well as a linebacker on the defensive side. He was known as the “Kansas Cyclone” for his speed.

Near the end of his sophomore season in 1912, Eisenhower severely injured his knee in a game against Tufts College of Medford, Mass., and his playing days came to an end.

Fortunately, West Point chose not to discharge Eisenhower on grounds that he would be physically incapable of military leadership. He graduated in 1915 and became a highly decorated U.S. Army general.

President Eisenhower said: “I believe that football, perhaps more than any other sport, tends to instill in men the feeling that victory comes through hard work, team play, self-confidence and an enthusiasm that amounts to dedication.”

In the early 1930s, former president Richard Nixon was a backup lineman at Whittier (Calif.) College, a small college named after poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The team was aptly nicknamed the Poets.

Nixon “was undersized for a tackle, but he was too uncoordinated and slow-footed to play in the backfield,” wrote his biographer Evan Thomas. Dagnabbit.

Former president Ronald Reagan played three years on the varsity at Eureka (Ill.) College. He was known as “Dutch,” and helped anchor the Dukes’ line as right tackle in the early 1930s. Reagan went on to star in motion pictures. “Just win one for the Gipper” was one of Reagan’s most famous lines from his film career.

While president in 1982, Reagan returned to the Eureka campus for an alumni event. A reporter asked him about the miracle touchdown he scored to “save the game” against Normal (now Illinois State University).

“We were one point ahead, as I remember,” Reagan said. “And there were just seconds to go. I’d been in the entire game, and Normal was passing, throwing bombs all over. So, I decided to charge against my man, and then when I felt it was going to be a pass, duck back into the secondary and see if I could help cover for passes.”

Reagan amped up the dramatics: “I saw everyone sucked over to one side of the field, and this Normal fellow was going down the other side of the field all by himself. I took out after him, and pretty soon, as he was looking back, I knew the ball must be coming. I turned around, went up in the air and got it.”

“But by this time, as I say, having been in the entire game, I knew that there wasn’t anything left in me.” It was a lineman’s dream…intercepting the pass…about 75 yards from the goal line with a clear field down that sideline. But Reagan’s legs gave out; he couldn’t run and was easily tackled to the turf.

“I told the reporter: ‘That was my touchdown that was never made, my lineman’s dream.’”

You might say, the four college football playing U.S. presidents arranged by their “presidential numbered jerseys” – Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Reagan – all lined up on the right side of the ball (as opposed to the left)…as all were Republicans.

Join campaign to stomp out ‘mentee’ as a word

Among the favorite words we love to hate is “mentee.”

The origin goes back to ancient times. “Mentor” pops to life out of Greek mythology. Mentor was a loyal friend and adviser to Odysseus, King of Ithaca. Mentor helped raise Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, while Odysseus was away fighting the Trojan War.

Mentor became Telemachus’ teacher, coach and counselor, building a relationship based on affection and trust. Today, mentoring today is the process by which one guides others.

You’ve got to appreciate the humor of mentor-less Megan Flanagan of Minneapolis, Minn., who is a certified personal trainer, nutrition coach, distance runner and blogger via MegInspire Fitness. She said she started hearing the word “mentor” while in college – mentor this, mentor that…“you don’t have a mentor? EVERYONE needs a mentor.”

“Excuse me? Why do I need one? Where do I get one?”

“While I’ve had plenty of inspiring role models, coaches, teachers, bosses and babysitters, I have never referred to or viewed any of them as a mentor,” Flanagan said. “They’ve just been… well, role models. Or whatever their title was at the time.”

Alas, Flanagan had no one to ever meet up with for coffee and deep life talks…no one to call her a “mentee.” Dagnabbit it all: Deprived of a mentor, how could she possibly amount to anything as a human being?

“Perhaps it’s time I stop doing things my own way and embark on the quest for mentorship,” she said. “Maybe there’s a mentor out there for me somewhere….”

Why is it that the term “mentee” strikes me as unflattering and a tad condescending. “Trainee,” “pupil” and “learner” are other potential word choices, depending on the situation.

“Protégé” is another option, but it’s too narrow, according to Erin Brenner, co-owner and publisher of copyediting.com. She wrote: “Although related, the two words (mentee and protégé) do not mean the same thing. A protégé is someone who is sponsored and promoted by a person who is more experienced and influential. The relationship tends to be long term, with the pair working closely together or frequently checking in with each other.”

Mentoring is more advisory and generally of a shorter duration, Brenner said.

There’s a lot of mentoring occurring in academia, and some professors are excellent mentors. Others fall into the category of “toxic mentors.”

Dr. Scott E. Porter, an orthopedic oncologist with Greenville (S.C.) Health System, wrote an essay about medical school mentoring for Orthopedics Today magazine. He said: “Mentoring can be thought of as the formal transfer of life skills, career skills and people skills from a more knowledgeable person to someone who is typically younger and less knowledgeable. Some would say it is an invaluable part of one’s professional maturation.”

“A problem in many mentoring programs is the presence, to some degree, of a forced relationship between the parties involved,” Dr. Porter noted. “Often, mentoring relationships are begun sight unseen…and conducted to simply check a box on a form.”

“There is a paucity of programs that teach one how to mentor. Clearly, some individuals have the innate ability to be an excellent mentor and others do not,” Dr. Porter said.

He said that “generational differences” play a factor in that the attending physicians who may be in the best position to give of themselves may also be ill-equipped to easily relate to millennials.”

“Mentoree” may be a better choice to define the person being mentored, and it is widely accepted as the word used in Australia.

Mentoree is also the preferred term used at Leadership Design Group, a “whole life mentoring” consulting firm based in Parker, Colo., near Denver, reported Tim Murphy, whose job title there is CE/EO: Chief Excellence/Executive Officer.

Can we improve on “mentoree?” Here’s a vote for “stagiaire.” Stagiaire is a nice French word that is used to identify “an amateur cyclist temporarily riding for a professional team.” He or she gains experience by working with the elite riders. Sounds like a form of mentoring to me.

Stagiaire. Let’s run that by Megan Flanagan; I’ll bet the athlete in her wouldn’t mind being called a stagiaire one bit.

President Ford earned his stripes in Chapel Hill

Gerald Ford’s early training, which helped prepare him to become the 38th U.S. president (1974-77), included two “tours of duty” in Chapel Hill, N.C.

He arrived on campus for the first time in the summer of 1938 as a student to take classes at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Ford grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich., and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1935. He was an outstanding football player there and after graduation, he accepted coaching jobs at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., hoping to also go to law school there.

But, dagnabbit! Those Yale administrators frowned on the idea of Ford being a fulltime employee as well as a law student. Eventually, they agreed to allow Ford to enroll at Yale.

Harry Shulman, a Yale law professor, handled things. Shulman was a visiting professor at UNC in the summer of 1938, and it was agreed to allow Gerald Ford to start law school at Chapel Hill, then “transfer” to Yale.

Roland Giduz, editor of the Carolina Alumni Review, wrote about President Ford’s “Carolina connection” in 1975. Technically, UNC cannot claim Gerald Ford as “an academic alumnus,” but his “presence on campus” has historical significance.

Ford was described by UNC law school faculty members as “mature and serious of purpose.” Giduz noted that President Ford mentioned two classmates by name – Harry McMullan Jr. of Beaufort County and William F. Womble of Winston-Salem.

World War II brought Gerald Ford back to Chapel Hill in a teaching capacity.

Ford was a young lawyer in Grand Rapids when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He promptly enlisted and was commissioned in the U.S. Naval Reserve on April 13, 1942. After attending flight instructor school at Annapolis, Md., Ford was assigned as one of 83 instructors at Navy Pre-flight Training School in Chapel Hill.

UNC President Frank Porter Graham pledged that the university would offer “all its resources to the nation for the defense of freedom and democracy.” Graham campaigned hard to have the university’s newly built Horace Williams Airport designated as one of the Navy’s four sites to offer the pre-flight training programs. It was, and in all, about 18,700 Navy cadets trained on the UNC campus during the war years.

The young Navy flight instructors found housing within the community. Ford was matched with recent UNC graduates Earl Baker Ruth and Bill McCachren. They moved into a rented cabin near the airport.

Ruth and McCachren had played basketball together at Charlotte Central High School and were recruited to attend UNC. They were standouts on the Tar Heel basketball teams of the late 1930s, coached by Walter Skidmore.

Ford attained the rank of lieutenant in March 1942 and was sent to sea two months later aboard a newly commissioned light aircraft carrier, the Monterey. The ship was assigned to duty in the South Pacific. In 1944, she suffered damage when a fire broke out, requiring the vessel to return to the United States mainland for repairs. Ford was released from active duty on Feb. 23, 1946.

As an attorney in Grand Rapids, Gerald Ford was elected to the first of his 13 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1948.

Meanwhile, after Ruth was discharged from the Navy in 1945, he settled in Salisbury and joined the faculty at Catawba College. He went on to earn his master’s and doctorate degrees at UNC. Ruth won a seat in the U.S. House in 1968. Ford, as the House Minority Leader, was quick to welcome his old Navy chum and fellow Republican to Congress.

Ruth was elected for two succeeding terms. A “series of political events” led to the swearing in of Gerald Ford, as the U.S. vice president, under Richard Nixon, on Dec. 6, 1973.

One of the first congratulatory wires to Ford was sent by George Barclay, a former All-American football player at UNC. As an offensive guard, Barclay, lined up next to Ford, the center, when the two participated in 1935 East-West All-Star Shrine Bowl football classic.

They became friends there in the trenches on the gridiron. Barclay’s advice to Ford was: “Just keep centering the ball straight back!”

In 1975, President Gerald Ford appointed another old friend, Earl Ruth, as governor of American Samoa. Tough duty, but someone had to go to the paradise capital of Pago Pago in the South Pacific tropics. The Samoan people said: “Talofa, governor,” meaning “welcome…with love.”