PHILLY PHOLD

140 - Wednesday, May 20, 2009

A short while ago, I received an email from a former roommate with whom I shared an apartment while in college. It was a fantastic treat to hear from him after forty years to renew old acquaintances. His father was the weather man on the local television channel named Dave Kirk and had done the local prognostication for as far back as I could remember. DJ (for David Jay) and I shared a rather small, unpretentious, two bedroom rental not far from the campus. To this day I cannot recall how it was that we ended up together, for our majors were totally unrelated and DJ shared no curriculum courses with me whatsoever – but end up together we did! In order to afford the flat and school, we each were required to endure a near terminal austerity program relegating us to a purely survival mode. It is amazing the deprivation people are willing to embrace in order to achieve an end to which they are committed. Cynthia and I were scheduled to be married the summer after DJ and I roomed together, and every penny we could possibly divert was earmarked for creature comforts still in the distant future. It was Jay who introduced me to another ‘first’ in an ever-growing list of never-done-that-befores – a fast and filling nutrition substitute that could be assembled in a moment which could really take the edge off any growling stomach that demanded sating while on limited funds – have you ever spread Philadelphia Cream Cheese on a single slice of white bread, folding it in half, blanketing the white, smooth protein, inhaling it in three bites, then washing the gooey concoction down with an icy cold glass of whole milk quaffed from a former jelly jar? A thought just occurred to me – a ‘Philly Phold’ is most certainly an acquired taste, inspired by necessity.

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