tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32813926632117111242024-03-18T20:18:51.519-07:00Herb Mandel: A Brush With LifeHerb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-41230858082613555322006-04-08T14:42:00.000-07:002013-12-17T14:43:23.709-08:00Street Singer's HeyDay<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">During the summer months we would be playing on Delhi Street having all kinds of kid fun when a solitary figure of a man would appear walking up the street with a guitar slung over his shoulder. As he walked he would start playing his guitar and sing the popular songs of the day including, "Martha, Rambling Rose of the Wildwood."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As he approached, windows and doors would open and people would sit on their doorsteps or just lean out on their window sills to listen. As he finished a song, they would toss coins to the street and he would sing another, then another popular song of the day.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The kids would scramble to pick up the coins and, with a smile, hand them to the Street Singer.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This would go on for 15 to 30 minutes before the street singer would wave to everyone with a smile, thanking them for the coins, and continue his walk to another side street in the neighborhood to repeat his performance.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This was a great way to bring cheer and happiness to those who heard him in those Depression years of the 1930s.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This was such a popular event that their was a popular song written about the Street Singer which led to a popular radio program of the day: "Arthur Tracy, The Street Singer."</span><br />
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Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-73279080548917085072006-04-07T14:39:00.000-07:002013-12-17T14:40:06.425-08:00I Chose Art Over Tabloid Journalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I was 12 and attending Ferguson grade school in Philadelphia, I read about a man being bitten by a dog. Well, as a novice in the newspaper industry I was bitten by this story, so I decided to write my own one-page newspaper and use the dog biting incident as my feature headline story.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I laid out the page and revised the story by headlining, "Man Bites Dog." I hand-lettered the page along with some sidebars, and admired my handiwork. A real publication masterpiece.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I presented the page to my English teacher for approval and support. My English teacher admired my work and praised my writing accomplishment.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">However, without a press to print and reproduce my newspaper, I set it aside and decided on pursuing my artistic talents instead, leaving newspaper writing and publishing to an established source. In those days the Philadelphia Bulletin was one of the leading papers in our area, as their catch phrase implied, In Philadelphia nearly everybody reads the Evening Bulletin."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While in high school I reexamined the newspaper industry, as a paper carrier for the Bulletin, and later became a branch captain and finally a branch manager with the circulation department. But that, unfortunately, was the end of my short career as a newspaper man, in lieu of beginning my art studies at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, which today is the University of the Arts.</span>Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-12709358298765458812006-04-05T14:37:00.000-07:002013-12-17T14:38:20.140-08:00Window Ice Box a Money-Saver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">You may not remember the days before the refrigerator and the ice box, when we used a window ice box. This was a time most households used a window icebox to store foods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The window ice box was an ingenious device to preserve perishables in a galvanized tin box, fixed in or near the kitchen window. It was fixed outside the window, soyou could open the window and then the door of the box, to put food items in or out as needed. It cost nothing to operate.</span></div>
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We had one at our house in Philly, and it was standard equipment in most houses. The cold weather, maintained by Mother Nature, preserved meats and other perishables, leftover foods, milk and butter and anything that might spoil at room temperature.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Of course, it was only usable during winter months and collected snow and ice around it, provided by the winter weather at no additional expense to the family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In those days, I was delegated the job of paying our three or four dollar a month electric bills, by walking to the local Philadelphia Electric Company office several blocks from where we lived. This was a far cry from the bills we get from PECO today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">As the weather got warmer, the box was cleaned out and made ready for next year, until the refrigerator was invented and became the popular preserver of perishables.</span></div>
Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-76055795028522565542006-04-05T14:34:00.000-07:002013-12-17T14:34:46.890-08:00Musical Interlude, Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Have you watched those big live orchestras in concert or on television? Have you wondered where all those musicians came from, especially violin players? Well, as they say, from little acorns grow giant oaks. . .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I was about 8 years old, a man rang the doorbell of our house on 10th Street in Philadelphia. He was looking for young boys or girls to take music lessons and I was a prime candidate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All questions resolved, I started taking lessons with Professor Barrington on the second floor room of his house somewhere around 9th Street and Lehigh Avenue. He rehabilitated my father's old violin that he brought with him from Germany and restrung the bow with a full mane of horsehair.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Every week on Tuesdays I would walk from my house to the professor's house, paying my $2 lesson fee and wait for my class to begin. There were usually two or three other student violinists waiting and we would go upstairs to his studio and take lessons as a group.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Professor would play the lesson first, then students played, and the professor played, and the students played. The professor pasted a fingering diagram on the neck of our violins to guide us with fingering positions to play the notes in our lesson book and, with practice, we learned to play scales.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When we conquered the scales, we played tunes like "Pop Goes the Weasel," and if we took enough lessons and practiced regularly we played more difficult music.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I joined the school orchestra at Ferguson grade school and played from sixth through eighth grade. By ninth grade, I gave up the idea of playing with the Philadelphia Orchestra to concentrate on my art and drawing skills. But some of the other students continued playing in high school and may still be playing, perhaps in the Philadelphia Orchestra violin section, as "giant oaks."</span>Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-56039337790802527752006-04-05T14:16:00.000-07:002013-12-17T14:35:10.734-08:00Half Ball -- A Lost Sport?<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One of my favorite games played and watched in many neighborhoods in Philly when I was youngster was Half Ball.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We would buy a "pimple ball," that is a hollow rubber ball, at a local general store, and cut it in half with a pen knife. Most all of us carried a small pen knife for various reasons, like playing Territories or whittling or carving scrap wood or tree branches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The game was played on a side street, like Colona Street, or where there was a factory, like French's mustard factory, on one side of the street, which became our virtual ball field. Hitting the ball to the first floor level was a run to first base, a hit to the second floor got you to second base and so on. The roof was a home run, which was great, but our half ball would then be lost.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We used the sawed-off handle of a broom as a bat. We chose up sides, then the pitcher, standing on the opposite curb of the street, would toss the ball to the batter. Three strikes was an out, or if the ball was hit and bounced off the second story of the factory, it would be a two-bagger, unless a fielder caught it before it hit the ground which would be an out. Get the idea? It was ideal for the cityscape because you didn't need a big field in which to run -- it was all about the hitting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We would play half-ball for hours until dinnertime, or until we ran out of half balls because they'd landed on the mustard factory roof. No, we didn't break factory windows with the half ball. But it was just as exciting a game to hit one on the roof, or scramble to catch a triple that the wind sometimes caused to have an erratic drift on its way down. For us, it was almost as good as the real thing in a real ballpark.</span><br />
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Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-40758673890700204892006-04-02T14:14:00.000-07:002013-12-17T14:14:56.281-08:00The Umbrella Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The 1930s was the era of one-man entrepreneurs like the umbrella man. Every family had two or three umbrellas in the house for use on rainy and sunny days.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">These umbrellas lasted for years of service, except for some minor repairs, and were hardly ever thrown away. However, there wasn't an umbrella repair shop anywhere in the city that I recall.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The "fixer" was usually a man who walked the streets throughout the neighborhoods during the spring and summer months and he would periodically walk down our street in Philadelphia, calling out from under his open umbrella, "fix your umbrella, fix your umbrella all kinds, big or small, fix your umbrella."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Most people would recognize his sing-song voice and would come to their door with a broken umbrella as he approached.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A bundle of umbrellas and parts as well as his special tools were strapped to his back and a happy smile would cross his face. He would greet his customers, unstrap his knapsack-workshop, sit on the doorstep and fix the umbrella for 25 cents or more, depending on how much work was involved. Then he would show the customer the repaired umbrella, opening and closing it, then accept his money, repack his knapsack and be on his way with a melodic voice singing, "fix your umbrellas, big or small, fix your umbrellas."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This merchant of umbrella repairs inspired a song, "The Umbrella Man," which became a popular tune of the day.</span>Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-10840814608467842632006-03-30T14:10:00.000-08:002013-12-17T14:11:56.928-08:00My Future Was Sketchy From the Beginning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My fame as a Philadelphia artist came when I was about 10 years old.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At that time I was a regular attendee at the Viola Theater located on Germantown Avenue every Saturday during the summer. It cost 10 cents for a ticket to the show, which lasted about three hours and included the main feature, a serial episode, like "Flash Gordon in the 25th Century," a comedy short like "Laurel and Hardy," and three or four cartoons -- plus coming attractions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At some point in the middle of these films, the house lights would come up and a guest artist (cartoonist) would come on stage and talk about a famous cartoon character while he did a sketch of the character on a large flip chart pad.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The artist then gave the kids in the audience an assignment to bring a drawing with them the following Saturday. He would judge the drawings and would award a prize for the best drawing. He would hold up several drawings for audience approval and award a prize of a pound-box of Whitman's Assorted Chocolates to the winner. This went on for a whole month of Saturdays and as luck and fortune prevailed, Herb Mandel was the winner every Saturday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On the final Saturday award ceremony, the artist complimented me on my drawing skills and allowed me to speak to the audience on his microphone about my ambitions to be an artist when I became an adult. Of course, all my friends and schoolmates congratulated me and I would share my winnings with them.</span>Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-62523341928776502712006-03-28T13:57:00.000-08:002013-12-17T13:58:07.857-08:00The Ice Man Cometh ... No More<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When I was a youngster, before electric refrigerators were in use, most families lived with iceboxes to store their perishable foods and leftovers. These boxes needed a regular supply of ice, which could be purchased from the ice man, who made regular rounds of our neighborhood in a horse-drawn wagon. You could buy a block of ice for 10 cents, 15 cents, 20 cents or larger depending upon the ice storage compartment size in your ice box.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It was a treat for the neighborhood kids when that horse-drawn ice wagon parked on our street. People would put a placard in their door or living room window to let the ice man know what size block was needed to be cut from the large 100-pound blocks of ice stored in the wagon.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Little ice chips would spray off the big block when he chipped the ice with his ice pick. He would leave the wagon to make deliveries, which he carried on his shoulders holding them in place with ice tongs on a leather shoulder pad. That's when all the kids, who were watching and waiting, moved in on the ice wagon to scavenge for chips of scattered ice, which were perfect for crunching or savoring as they melted in our mouths.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As the ice man returned from making his delivery, he'd holler at us and we'd scatter in all directions -- but never too far, because we knew he was going to cut more ice blocks and we would have another opportunity to scavenge for ice chips. The ice man wasn't really angry at us, it was really just part of the game, to chase us from the wagon. It was a great summer-long event for the neighborhood kids every time the ice man would park on our street. It's one summer activity kids today will never experience. Too bad.</span>Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-27081260479867393772006-03-25T13:53:00.000-08:002013-12-17T14:12:17.697-08:00Musical Genius: 99% Perspiration, 1% "Pop"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: start;">I took violin lessons when I was about 8 years old, which brought me some local and fleeting fame at Hardranft Elementary School in Philadelphia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: start;">We would have periodic assemblies at the school, which called for the opening of the blackboard panels which separated about four or five classrooms, transforming the space into our auditorium. My teacher knew I was taking my lessons and at one of our musical assemblies, which featured those students who played instruments, I was scheduled to perform on my violin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: start;">My contribution was to play one song, "Pop Goes the Weasel." Well, my time came and I played the song, which included plucking the "E string" to sound the "pop" in the song.</span></div>
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Little did I know how fortuitous it was when I plucked the "E string" because it brought an endless round of applause and laughter from my schoolmates. My encore was a second playing of "Pop Goes the Weasel" and again, the "pop" brought forth joyous laughter and applause throughout the assembly.</div>
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So that was my first five minutes of fame as a musician in the third grade. Of course, there were other musical interludes in my early school years to come . . .</div>
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<br />Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-45071303632696830752006-03-24T13:51:00.000-08:002013-12-17T13:52:10.135-08:00Illuminating Memories of Days Gone By<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Something that only the older generations will remember and which we will probably never see again is the Old Lamplighter making his rounds.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When I was growing up in Philly in the 1930s, there was a ritual which happened every night, at about 5 o'clock. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A little old man would travel the side streets and alleys of Philadelphia, carrying a four-foot ladder and a zinc coated bucket containing various paraphernalia, like rags, brushes, water and other odds and ends, which were used use to clean the street lamps and light them before darkness set in.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Lamp Lighter would set up his ladder against the lamp post, the only way to reach the glass chimney-like fixture surrounding the gas wick mechanism at the top of the post, which had to be cleaned. He also adjusted the flow of the gas jet before replacing the glass chimney, after lighting it with a flint stick.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When the lamp was reassembled, he stood back to admire his handiwork before moving on to the next lamppost on his list.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">These lamps were installed on the sidewalk of the side streets and alleyways which would otherwise be pitch black for the residents and pedestrians living in the area. They would remain lit all through the night hours until daylight, then they would mysteriously go out until the Lamplighter returned the next evening to follow the same ritual. There was a song written about this ritual, "The Old Lamplighter," which was popular in those days and still leaves a nostalgic memory for me and those of us who remember those days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie0oE0SiNZ2kCMERk5f75cpTvshIIc8nYhq0WBsVjcG1yFcNLVPqadgo5yOv2x0RVlhXdr7lxmTB6LDtMcCSFiAuDEQEgDpduXLRAHFfF9hrxIcvqpwjxbyQG-Ax5yLao_QZjsL1X1ZpE/s1600/lamplighter.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie0oE0SiNZ2kCMERk5f75cpTvshIIc8nYhq0WBsVjcG1yFcNLVPqadgo5yOv2x0RVlhXdr7lxmTB6LDtMcCSFiAuDEQEgDpduXLRAHFfF9hrxIcvqpwjxbyQG-Ax5yLao_QZjsL1X1ZpE/s640/lamplighter.0.jpg" width="436" /></a></span></div>
Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281392663211711124.post-12544847675702701192006-03-24T13:47:00.000-08:002013-12-17T13:48:52.590-08:00A Rose by Any Other Name . . .<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like many women back in the pre-Depression years, my mom gave birth in the upstairs bedroom of our house. That is where I was born. The occasion was a happy one, even though I'm told everyone was hoping I would be a girl baby -- my two brothers were already approaching their teen years back in 1925.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When my parents couldn't agree on a name for their wonderful little baby boy, the family assembled to join in making a decision. In my case, aunts and uncles, brothers, Mom and Pop, all gathered with their suggestions. In order that everyone would have a fair opportunity to bestow their chosen name upon me, they wrote their suggestions on slips of paper, folded them, and dropped them into my pop's Fedora. Pop shook his hat for a proper mix and then coaxed me into picking the winning name from the hat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I don't really remember this grand event, but I was told I finally picked the winner, which is how I came to be named Herbert -- just Herbert, no middle name -- rather then Hans or Adolph or Fritz or Herman or any of the other suggestions in the hat. The picture above is how I imagine the occasion, which became family lore, a moment of proud family history on the day of my birth, October 29, 1925.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijsR6B5v8yH0sRUVhpYIqXDGxWd1DwETzhlWedYPf_jNSQNg4xzJYG3BB2X81qY4lwD5yZyogx5DcnDrrV-ugrdkAYfs6A6EzGFM_-Bkta-2R6UIv8teTQVc3u53AETJuKbjxzgJrR_YY/s1600/I+am+Herbert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijsR6B5v8yH0sRUVhpYIqXDGxWd1DwETzhlWedYPf_jNSQNg4xzJYG3BB2X81qY4lwD5yZyogx5DcnDrrV-ugrdkAYfs6A6EzGFM_-Bkta-2R6UIv8teTQVc3u53AETJuKbjxzgJrR_YY/s320/I+am+Herbert.jpg" width="313" /></a></span></div>
Herb Mandelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09006075028127405651noreply@blogger.com0