Philadelphia is not such a large place after all...

For those of you who don't live in a place like Philly, or as large as Philly (1.5 million as of the 2000 census), it can seem like a big place. Philadelphia certainly has a wealth of history, but to Jess and me, it seems smaller every day. Let me give you a few examples of how, for us, the city has shrunken a little over the two years that we have lived here.

The Michael Smerconish Radio Show

Ever since we moved to Philadelphia, we have been listening to talk radio. We just love it. Jess and I like to always be "in the know" -- on top of the news, current events, and the latest bestseller authors, etc. Well, after a month or so, we started listening to The Big Talker 1210 AM which has a nice variety of hosts. In the morning slot (on our drives to school) is this strange guy named Michael Smerconish. (How do you get popular on radio with that kind of a name??) He is a centrist politically -- that is, he thinks for himself. He agrees with the Republicans when it makes sense to him, and he bashes them when he doesn't. And the same goes for Democrats, Libertarians, or anyone for that matter. With him, almost any topic is open for discussion. Well, one feature he started a month after we started listening is Book Club. At these book club events, Smerconish invites the author and a few hundred of his listeners to an informal discussion about the book. A few months later, one of the books sounded really interesting to both of us: Jawbreaker. It was about the CIA's and Special Force's roles in the war in Afghanistan. Well, we bought tickets to the book club event (which was sold out a few days later) and hurriedly bought the book and began reading it. We only had a matter of 2 weeks or less to read it. Being a part of this radio station event, and being able to share this experience with complete strangers from the listening area (Philly and the surrounding suburbs) made Philadelphia seem little bit smaller.

Random chance meetings

It is surprising how one can run into people one knows in such a city of 1.5 million. At our first Christmas in Philly, we went to the Christmas tree lighting at Rittenhouse Square -- a posh place to live in downtown Center City. Some of the local news and weather personalities ran the event. But out of a few hundred people there, I ran into one of my classmates. And again, one Saturday last year, I was at a medical student event in the Doubletree Hotel in downtown. I again ran into this same friend in the train station. I happened to be taking the train home, and he happened to be taking the train to the airport to pick up some visitors. Deja vu? You be the judge. On another occasion, I ran into a friend from church in Suburban station in downtown. Our church is a good 30 minutes away in Delaware County PA, so this was a random little hello. What are the odds of running into anybody I know in such a big city?

Working in Philly

Last year I worked at Ruby Tuesday in Philadelphia as a server a couple of nights a week to earn some cash while a second year medical student at Temple. This Ruby Tuesday was at exactly the opposite end of Philly as my school, Temple. One day, while walking down Broad Street to get to my car, I ran into one of my coworkers walking the opposite way up Broad Street. Not much else to say about that, except that it seems like you can't ever be alone in such a "large" city. Oh, I almost forgot -- I also ran into a fellow server on the subway once, too. In addition, while working at RT, I became fast friends with another server there. Not only was he a recent inhabitant of Philly (moved from Arkansas a few months prior), but he was also a professional student at a Philadelphia university, working on his Ph.D. in neuropsychology (sort of medical in a way, but different than an M.D. who is a psychiatrist). We had these two things in common. No chance meetings in Philly -- all of them have been planned. We became early morning running partners (until Jess and I moved to another apartment complex), and we spent some time together outside of work having lunch, catching a movie, or just hangin' out at our respective apartments. Who would think that I would find someone like-minded at RT? (Aside: we went to the new James Bond flick yesterday, Casino Royale. GREAT movie!! It is a totally different take on the Bond we all know and love -- a great improvement on the last few stale movies) Now that we don't live so close -- and now that we are both so busy -- we don't get together as much, but having a random friend like this makes Philly seem more like home.)

Smooth Jazz

Another radio story? Yes! Who would know it, Jess and I both love listening to Jazz. I am more of a "purist" (I like listening to the old stuff, the classics) than Jess, but we both LOVED listening to the local Smooth Jazz station, WJJZ 106.1. For two years, we would listen to the sounds of smooth jazz (when we weren't listening to talk radio), while going for a drive, while cooking, and while doing homework. This past August, ClearChannel decided that this station needed a change... we're not sure what they were thinking!! Everyone we knew loved chilling out to WJJZ. ClearChannel decided to change the station to a trendy women's station, complete with Whoopi Goldberg in the morning talk/music hours. We were crestfallen. Philly has a rich Jazz history with many live jazz clubs, not to mention all the jazz artists that have come from Philly. "Philly's 106.1 Feel the Energy," just another pop music station on the FM dial, replaced our beloved WJJZ, with no warning, and no suitable alternative. We felt the need to write an e-mail to the right people to let them know of our disapproval. BREAKING NEWS!! We just found out last night that, 3 months after its disappearance, WJJZ has been brought back by popular demand -- this time under different ownership -- but with all the same music and all the same personalities. It began airing yesterday, November 17th. The New Smooth Jazz 97.5 WJJZ is the new home of our favorite station. Maybe to you all, this may not seem like such a big deal, but I think that Philly seems a little cozier now that WJJZ is back. And maybe I had a part in it by writing to the station? Who knows?

There you have it. Quite a smattering of random stories that I have wanted to write about for a while. In my head, these things all came together with the theme of Philadelphia being a small community, despite being such a large city.