Pam Doodan and Dave Williams say their vows at the Cancer Treatment Center of America.

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The first day of spring is all about new beginnings. I can think of no sweeter way to observe the birth of the re-birth season than by sharing these lovely wedding photos of David Williams and his new bride, Pam Dooden.

The couple tied the knot this afternoon at The Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s campus at 1331 E. Wyoming Ave., in Juniata.

I know - a hospital is a strange place to say “I do.” Except that CTCA, says Dave, is responsible for his still being alive to utter the words to Pam, to whom he’d been engaged for three years.

So the hospital’s fifth-floor chapel became their wedding chapel today.

The couple lives in Elizabethtown, PA, near Harrisburg, where Dave’s local doctors basically told him there was nothing more they could do to treat the cancer that was ravaging both his lungs. He then heard about CTCA, he says, and began treatment here in December.

Three months later, his prognosis is still uncertain, but he is still here, his symptoms are under control and he has something he says didn’t have in the dark days of December: Hope.

That’s why he and Pam, his fiance of three years, decided to hold their wedding at the hospital rather than some place closer to home. They found the staff at CTCA – from the van drivers and physicians, to the nurses, therapists, dieticians and kitchen staff– to be so caring and supportive, they seeemd more like family than hospital workers. And they didn’t want to exclude them from their big day.

So they traveled to Philly for the day, their biological families in tow, with plans to return to Elizabethtown for a party, after their small reception at CTCA following their ceremony.

“The people here have given us hope,” Dave told me, tearing up, just before he and Pam exchanged vows in a brief, beautiful and emotional ceremony attended by about 50. “I didn’t have hope before I came here. Now I do.”

Mazel tov, Dave and Pam. Thanks for allowing me to join the crowd of weepy well-wishers who witnessed your promises today.

May your 25th wedding anniversary be as joyous.

(And thanks to the good folks at CTCA, who provided the photos you see here.)

See this fun sign?


In these fragile, foreclosure-y times, it would be easy to assume it was mounted on this Fishtown house by someone having mortgage issues with Bank of America.


But, no, the sign’s been hanging on Avi Oslick’s side wall at Earl St. and Girard Ave. since those halcyon, pre-bank-mess days of November 2007. 

Avi, a Fishtown contractor and property manager, installed it after BofA refused to honor a stop-payment order he placed on a $2,500 check he’d given a scam handyman.
 In frustration, he hung this 2-foot-by-20-foot banner on his house – which sits in clear view of the BofA branch on Girard Ave.

It generated a flurry of panicked response: 
BofA’s marketing department contacted Avi about it, and – oddly – a cop showed up at his door, inquiring whether Avi planned to take down the sign.


When Avi told him no, he says, the cop replied, “Sounds good to me.”


Despite lots of local and national initial press - though none from the Daily News (man, how did we miss this one?) - nothing has been resolved to Avi’s liking.  So Avi, who works as a contractor and propepty manager in the neighborhood, says the cheeky sign will hang in perpetuity, where it continues to delight and surprise passersby.


To read the whole tortured story, visit Avi’s fun website, devoted entirely to hating BofA.

"The hole was wide open when I left for work at 9 am," says Moyer St. resident Alberta Bertolino. "By 4:30pm, my neighbor texted me and said, 'You'll never believe it - they're filling in the hole."

Yesterday, at about 6:46 a.m., I wrote a blog post about a gigantic sinkhole on the 400 block of Moyer St., in Fishtown. It had opened up on Feb. 4th, and residents were told it wouldn't be fully repaired until June.

Less than 12 hours after my post hit this website - voila! - city workers had filled the thing in.

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

But rest assured, everyone: I only use my powers for good.

This sinkhole has been open since Feb. 4th and may not be filled until June. That's right - June.

On the best days, parking is a bear in Fishtown. So imagine how bad it's gotten for the poor residents on the 400 block of Moyer St., which has lost about 20 parking spots because of this sinkhole.

It opened up on Feb. 4th, when two water main breaks sent water gushing into the neighborhood – and into the basement of at least one unlucky homeowner.

The hole was originally the length of an SUV. Now, it yawns from curb to curb, stretches the length of  three house-fronts and plunges at least 20 feet deep. The initial breaks washed away all the dirt, grit and sand that used to hold up the street. Now, looking into it, you wonder what's holding up the houses alongside it.

Resident Alberta Bertolino tells me that the city has had a lot of workers at the site, but their presence is sporadic. She also says she was told the site wouldn’t be fully repaired until – get this – June.

By then, we should be smack dab into hot weather – you know, the kind that our kids won’t be able to counter with a nice dip in a public pool, since the city will be shutting so many of them this summer.

Since Fishtown’s pool is at risk for closure, here’s an outside-the-box idea: Why not fill this cavernous sinkhole with chlorinated water, stick a diving board at one end, a lifeguard at the other, and call it a Philly swimming-pool success story?

I know – stupid idea, right? But that’s the kind of stupid idea that stupid situations inspire.

And this is one stupid situation.

Aquatics instructor Peg Fredlund, laid off by the Rec Department, continues to coach kids she was once paid to train.

And now, in honor of today’s re-opening of Pickett Pool, I present to you Peg Fredlund, one of my new favorite people.

I mentioned Peg in a column last week about how, back in January, budget woes forced the city’s Recreation Department to close down four of its six indoor pools. One of those pools, Pickett, was home of several swim teams, including the Polar Bears, whose members were coached by Peg, a 16-year employee of the Rec Department.

When the department laid off Peg and 17 other aquatics staffers – who staffed those four shuttered pools – she was in the midst of coaching the Polar Bears for a big meet next month at the University of Delaware.  The kids, just average swimmers, were eager to improve their skills so they’d do Pickett proud at UDel. And Peg was thrilled by their determination.

Then came the layoffs and the closings, leaving the Polar Bears with no Rec Department coach and no pool to practice in.

“I had to keep the team together,” Peg told me. “They’d been working so hard.”

So she convinced her boss at Juniata Fitness Club, where she works part time, to let the kids train in the club’s small pool on Saturday mornings, before member arrived. And that’s where she has been working with them – without pay – ever since.

“If you met these kids, you’d understand why I’m doing it,” she said. “They’re great kids.”
Peg’s commitment to the kids is a constant topic among Pickett Pool parents, says Gerald Wright, whose two daughters learned to swim under Peg’s instruction.

“She has tremendous dedication,” says Gerald, who first contacted me about Pickett demise, hoping that public attention might get the place re-opened.  (Good people in the Rec Department decided last week to re-open two of the four shuttered pools; parents are so grateful, they don’t even mind that the re-opened pools’ hours have been scaled down from six days a week to two.)

“We’re talking about how we might compensate Peg for her work, now that we’re not so focused on getting Pickett re-opened.” says Gerald. “She deserves to be paid.”

Today, when Pickett re-opens, Peg - who remains laid off - will be there coaching, for free, the kids she once coached for a paycheck.  Proving that the best civil servants are more than civil and servile.

They’re angels.
 

Detail on the T-shirts being sold in memory of Police Ofc. John Pawlowski, as a fund-raiser.

Now available for purchase are those memorial T-shirts that Matt McIntyre promised to produce in honor of slain Philly cop John Pawlowski.

Matt, you might recall from my column about him last month, is a Northeast Philly resident who works full-time at the Kimmel Center as a stage carpenter and part-time as an un-paid fund-raiser for the families of fallen Philadelphia police officers.

Known as "That T-Shirt Fund-Raiser Guy," Matt's title isn't one he ever planned for or wanted. But what began as a simple effort, back in 2006, to sell T-shirts as a fund-raiser for the family of slain cop Gary Skerski has sadly morphed into a bigger operation, as  the city has since buried another six officers killed in the line of duty.

Matt tells me that the shirts that honor Pawlowski are Union/American-made, navy blue with a gold-and-white print. A large version of the print is on the back of the shirt; a smaller image is displayed on the front left breast. 

Long sleeve shirts go for $20.00 each; short-sleeve,  $15.00. After costs, 90% of the profits will go to the Pawlowski family, 10% to the FOP Survivors Fund.

Matt's among the nicest, most naturally generous people I've ever had the pleasure to meet and write about. May his big heart never, ever again be called into action on behalf of a cop's grieving family. 

To purchase a shirt or learn more about how to order, contact Matt directly at unionmatty@aol.com.