Three Broadway Hits: At Park News, Jimmy's Cafe, and Off Broadway Diner, It's Always Showtime!

These Broadway shows have it all. Raucus comedy. Drama. Bravado. Heartbreak. Humanity. Improv to surprise and delight.  I saw it all firsthand while Barbara and I were grandchild-watching in Berkley, Mass.

No, we're not talking about THAT Broadway. We're talking about Broadway Avenue in nearby Taunton where at Park News, Jimmy's Restaurant, and Off Broadway Diner the shows go on every day and have done so for decades.

Mind you, these three don't think of themselves as entertainment showcases. In their eyes, they are just local businesses serving their customers on Broadway, Taunton's  downtown main street. Nevertheless, as a walk-in outsider, I saw, however unintended, slice-of-life theater.

When I first walked into Park News nearly four years ago for my New York Times, I not only got my Times but stepped into human drama and back into history. The place was just like the old days when newspapers reigned supreme.

The stars were a remarkable couple, Tommy Clark and his wife Anna, who shared with me, a perfect stranger, how deeply attached they were to Park News. They told me how much things have changed, how they were selling fewer newspapers, how keeping the place was a struggle -- but that they were going to keep it open come hell or high water.

They opened up to me about their innermost feelings about the business and each other.

I was so moved I couldn't help doing a story about them. Click here to see a picture of Tommy and Anna  and to check out that story. The following is a short excerpt:

Tommy says that marrying Anna was "the best thing I ever did." He met her in Park News. She went to high school down the street and would come into the store every day and buy some candy.

Then he went away to the service for two years. When he came back, Anna came into the store and said, "You're not married?"

He said, "No."

"Six months later, we were married," Tommy said.

That was in 1948, before the advent of television, when newspapers were king. People came to Park News for news, to get the latest on what was happening. Since then, while raising five children and being blessed with eleven grandchildren, Tommy and Anna Clark have sold a lot of newspapers.

But gradually, as people got more news from TV and, more recently, as a full-blown Internet age has taken hold offering news 24/7 with a couple of mouse clicks -- and much of it for free -- Park News has been selling fewer and fewer newspapers.

This time when I went into Park News, however, I did not see Tommy and Anna. There was a woman behind the counter.

"Hi," I said. "I'm looking for The New York Times."

"Oh," she said. "Let me look." She hurried to the front of the store. "Got it," she said triumphantly and came over and handed it to me with a smile. "You're in luck. They gave us only one copy and you got it."

"In other words, you knew I was coming in and you saved it for me."

She smiled. It was genuine.

"I don't know if you know it, but when I was here a few years ago, I met the owner and his wife and wrote a story about them and Park News. Are they still running it?"

"I'm their daughter. No, I never saw that story. They don't read newspapers or go online."

Then she said that she was sorry to have to tell me that her dad, who has MS, was no longer able to work in his beloved shop. Nor, she said, could her mom keep working the way she was. Her health was also failing.

"I left my job to work here," she said. "My husband and I are doing our best to keep the shop open for my dad. It's his life. If it closed, it would break his heart."

I could see why. Tommy Clark had owned and operated Park News for 63 years, since he was 18. He told me that he had "been on Broadway longer than Mickey Rooney" and that he wanted to "die right here on the floor."

When I came in for my paper the next day, Maureen -- we were already on a first-name basis -- was teary-eyed when she handed me The New York Times.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, wiping her eyes. "I read the story you wrote.  I read it to my parents and you should have seen the three of us crying our eyes out. I printed out a copy for us to keep."

For the rest of the week, Maureen  saved The New York Times for me. A couple of times I got the only copy. And, like I did with her Mom and Dad, we talked, we shared, we became friends. On my last day, Maureen walked out from behind the counter, came over to me, and hugged me tightly.

Eyes moist, she said, "Thank you, George, thank you."

After I get my Times, I go two doors down to Jimmy's Restaurant for coffee and a read. Like Park News, Jimmy's has also been there forever. Like Tommy Clarke, so has Jimmy. Three waitresses have been at Jimmy's all their working lives, two of them over 30 years.

Like Park News, Jimmy's is a social and entertainment center. Everybody talks to everybody and there are no private conversations. There is one open, running conversation open to all. Patrons gossip, skewer dumb politicians, give health updates, announce the latest deaths. The nonstop talk is anything anybody wants to bring up.


One issue had really gotten under customers' skins, the new parking meters outside.

"The cops are giving out a hundred tickets a day," said one waitress.

"They're towing cars all day," said another waitress.

"Stupid," said a customer.

"It costs twenty dollars for the ticket and a hundred and thirty-five to get your car back," said another customer. "It's nothing but a money-making scheme."

"Hey, I can't get towed can I?" I asked.

"Nah, you're all right," said a customer. "They don't start ticketing and towing until nine a.m."

"Good, that's what I thought. I'll be out of here well before nine."

I get bold and go up to Jimmy working the grill. "How long have you had this place, Jimmy?"

"Thirty-five years. I've been standing here in the same spot for thirty-five years and this is right where I'm going to die."

Amazingly, Jimmy said the same thing that Tommy Clark had.

"Mind if I take your picture?"

"No, go ahead." He posed unsmilingly. Jimmy, I gather, can be crotchety. It's a big part of the ongoing entertainment.

Back at my seat, Eileen, gives me yet another coffee refill. All I order is raisin toast and black coffee.  After the fifth or sixth refill, I ask, "You're not getting ready to throw me out are you?"

"Nah, make yourself at home, honey," she says as she pours yet another free refill. Eileen is shown at right chatting with regulars.

So I relaxed and enjoyed the show. For five straight days, I heard, "More coffee, honey?" And when I left after a couple of hours of reading the Times and sipping coffee, it was "Bye, George" or "Bye, honey."

On our last day in town, on a spur of the moment I decided to check out the Off Broadway Diner, almost right across the street from Jimmy's. I had noticed it before but had never gone in.

It looked more modern than Jimmy's. I wondered: How long had it been there? Who owns it? Was it a social center like Park News and Jimmy's? Could it be as welcoming and entertaining?

I went in. I don't know why, but I went straight to two gentlemen sitting together at the far end of the main counter. "Hi," I said, "I'm visiting in town. How long has this place been here?"

The younger one smiled and, pointing at the older gentleman, said, "Ask him, he's the owner, John Sousa. He's my father-in-law. I'm Dinis Louna. I work here and so does my wife. This is a family business. Nice to meet you."

"I'm George Pollock. Nice to meet you."

"Over thirty years," said owner John Sousa.

"What'll you have?" Dinis asked. "On me."

"Oh, thank you," I said. "That's so nice of you. But I'll just have coffee."

Dinis raised a finger and in seconds I had a hot cup of coffee, on the house.

Within two minutes of walking in the door, I had met the owner of the Off Broadway Diner, his family, got a free cup of coffee, and felt accepted and right at home. The place was packed with obvious regulars yakking away, laughing, playing around, wolfing down breakfast. OMG! Another great show!

Even though they were rushing around serving customers, the owning family happily posed for this picture.

In the foreground is Dinis Louna. In the background, left to right, is owner John Sousa, Anna Louna (Dinis' wife), and Carmen Sousa.

What great theater on Broadway in Taunton, Mass.


So long and keep moving.

Update, June 7, 2013:  On a visit to Taunton, I learned that Tommy Clark had finally sold Park News, bringing an end to his 60 years as its owner and his reign as unofficial "mayor" of Taunton.

Amazon E-Books by George Pollock"

"State Kid: Hero of Literacy" is fiction based on his real-life experiences growing up in foster homes; "Last Laughs," is the true story of how five foster kids (he and four younger siblings) found their way in life and each other. "Killers: Surprises in a Maximum Security Prison," is the story of his being locked up for 23 hours with killers in a maximum security prison; "I, Cadaver" is about his postmortem adventures and mischief in the anatomy lab at UMass Medical School. “A Beautiful Story” demonstrates the art and process of creative writing as a 16-year-old boy goes all out to write a story that literally saves his life; "A Long, Happy, Healthy Life," is about how to live the title every day; and "Unlove Story," Writing anonymously as "Elvis," a husband, dumped after 38 years of marriage, lets it all out on love, marriage, life, everything. A guy doing this? It's unheard of.

 
For the Nook:

A Beautiful Story
A Long, Happy, Healthy Life
I, Cadaver
Killers

The Last Cobbler? Mike Vallee Should Be History. So Why Is He Still Fixing Shoes?

As a cobbler, Mike Vallee, who operates a cobbler shop in Bristol, CT, is supposed to be extinct. In our throw-away society, we don't get our shoes repaired; we just buy a new pair at a giant shoe store. Right?

How come Mike doesn't know that? Shouldn't somebody tell him? I don't think so – and neither do his many clients, such as this smiling regular getting his tight shoes "blown out."

Mike Vallee is a cobbler, for God's sakes. God and his cobbler father put him on earth to heal, with deft and loving hands, wounded shoes. Using ancient skills handed down from the dawn of humanity, he saves shoes from the dumpster. Even shoes near fall-apart death, he restores to a healthy vigor and sheen.

Mike performs miracles with shoes and shoe-lovers. He says walk again and they do. For both, he heels. For both, he saves soles. (Sorry ... couldn't resist.)In a city with some rough edges, even a drive-by shooting can't stop him from doing his thing. That's a bullet hole you see in his sign.


We are the only animals that wear shoes. I spent a lot of time in Africa and saw all kinds of animals in the wild. I never saw an animal wearing shoes. Mike Vallee will surely attest that no antelope has ever came into his shop for a shoe fix. (What must horses think of those iron “horse shoes” that we force them to wear?)

However, all manner of humankind in Bristol and regions beyond troop into Mike Vallee's cobbler shop with tales of shoe woes. The mayor of Bristol, Art Ward, is a regular, as have been mayors before him. “I do Artie's shoes,” Mike said. City councilors also come in. They may be skilled politicians with talented tongues, but none can sweet-talk their shoes back into service.

Only Mike Vallee can do that and everybody in town, from the mayor to ordinary folk, knows it. They come humbly, hat in hand, spilling out with no little emotion their shoe issues. They know that Mike the cobbler is always in for them.


When they come in, their shoes are tired. They're tight. They squeak. The heel is worn. There is a hole in the sole. Any one of these can be like a dagger in the heart of someone who has worn a pair of shoes for years, loves them, and can't bear the thought of being without them.

For many of Mike Vallee's regulars, God forbid, buying a new pair in a shoe store is not an option. It's an emotional thing: the huge stores see shoes as just shoes; they insult shoes and shoe-lovers by their mass display and mass merchandising; shoes are like people, each pair unique and with its own personality; the shoe-store chains don't understand how important shoes are to people the way Mike Vallee does.

He knows that people identify with their shoes and that their style, brand, designer, price, and condition all proclaim who they are. Our shoes are us. If our shoes are not right, neither are we. And sometimes, as Mike Vallee sees day in and day out, people need to talk about their shoes.

In Mike Vallee's little cobbler shop, people can let out all their shoe troubles and hopes. They can't do that in a giant shoe store while being waited on by a bored, part-timer whose heart and mind are elsewhere. Mike is fully there. Having grown up with many of his customers, he knows them and their shoes, intimately. He's a trusted friend to both.

Sometimes people come in with a shoe emergency in which time is critical. A wedding is coming up and a mother wants to dance with her groom son wearing pumps that match her joy. A businessman has a big meeting with a potential client and wants to make sure that a delicate deal won't be done in by his shoes; they must reflect his ability to fulfill the contract. A factory worker -- Bristol has many -- must have shoes that enable him to be on his feet for long hours so that he will be able to support his family.
In Mike Vallee, such varied shoe needs find a sympathetic ear. He is decidedly NOT tough as shoe leather. He's also a bit of a dramatist who likes acting out with customers. He's like the cobbler in the famous Norman Rockwell cover (pictured here)fixing a doll's shoes for little girl. You can just see him doing exactly the same.

While chatting and exchanging stories, he tells people what has to be done. Sometimes, if it's a small job and the customer doesn't mind taking a seat, he does the fix then and there. While I was there, a regular came in complaining that his shoes were tight. Mike immediately “blew them out” while engaging in multiple ongoing conversations.

Within minutes, the customer was out the door wearing his now comfy shoes with a smile on his face and with a newly confident step. A steady stream of customers ask for and get this kind of quick, efficient shoe fix. They walk out in comfort, pride, and with a fresh new outlook on life.

Really? Really – as I would find out myself when I presented Mike Vallee my own shoe problem.

Mike's father started Vallee's Shoe Service in 1947. Mike got his start lugging a shoeshine kit around Brockton Plaza where he and a Greek kid hotly competed for customers. He learned early on that you can get a pretty good shine with a brush, but to get the lustre, you have to “pop the rag.”

When he was 10, he started working in his dad's cobbler shop, and he has been there ever since. Mike Vallee Sr. retired at 55 because of heart trouble. He had a major heart attack and underwent “five or six” bypasses, Mike says. Still, largely because of a female cardiologist from India, a “maestro in the field,” he lived another 20 years before passing away at 75 in 2000.

Mike Vallee has two brothers, one younger and one older. Both are cobblers. His older brother Joe runs Gulfgate Shoe Repair in Sarasota, Fla. Dave operates Dave's Shoe Repair in Rockville, CT. Both tried working in other fields, but always came back to the cobbler life.

Mike has a son and two daughters. His son Mike, 29, years ago “did some stitching” in the shop, but has shown little interest in carrying on the family cobbler tradition. He is an athlete who went to college on an athletic scholarship where he studied economics and political science.

“I didn't do sports,” Mike Vallee Sr. said. “I was always working.”

His two daughters have shown no interest in becoming cobblers. Mike completely understands. Cobbling is not a field that the female gender would naturally gravitate to. His younger daughter is a student at Central Connecticut College. His older daughter has just received a master's degree in education.

But for Mike Vallee, cobbling is all he knows and he has no desire to do anything else. He loves the work. He loves having all his old friends coming in to get their shoes fixed and, especially, the comaraderie that goes with it. In Mike's shop, it's all first names and nicknames and never-ending stories and joshing. He is shown here with shoe forms.

But what if work dries up in a trade that is widely seen as dying? What will he do then? Mike does not seem the least bit worried. Asked if business is good enough for him to pay the bills and keep going, he will only say, “I make a living.”

But judging from the stream of customers I saw and a little research into the state of the cobbler business today, I would venture to say that Mike Vallee is in no danger of going out of business. His business is probably healthier today than it has been in recent years.

Jim McFarland, owner of a cobbler shop in Lakeland, Fla, and a spokesman for the Shoe Service Institure of America, says cobbler shops are seeing a surge in business. He is a third-generation cobbler. He says that since November, many shoe-repair shops have seen a 25% to 30% growth in business.

In a depression like this – excuse me, recession – it makes sense. Instead of buying new shoes, more people are getting their shoes repaired to save money. McFarland says that where the typical shoe-repair customer has been age 50 and up, recent new customers have been much younger.

“We're starting to see some younger people, 20 or 30-year-olds, coming into the stores,” McFarland said. “Before this recession started, we didn't see younger people.” Indeed, the little hall of his small shoe-repair shop is piled high with reheeled stilettos, resoled boots, and polished Oxfords.

While the shoe-repair business is up, the sales of new shoes are down 3.2% in the 12 months that ended in November, according to NPD Group, Inc., a market research firm. This does not mean that the shoe-repair has become a new growth industry. At one time there were 120,000 shoe-repair shops in the U.S. Today, there are about 7,000. As with Mike Vallee, the children of cobblers are little inclined to learn the trade from their fathers or to take it up themselves.

Another reason the ranks of cobblers have thinned is that this is not a trade that is learned overnight. It can take up to four years to learn the trade. Few young people are willing to put that much time into getting qualified. On top of that, is the need to invest in pricey equipment. A finishing machine with trimmers, sanding belts, and buffers can cost more than $20,000.

In the meantime, like everybody else who comes to Mike Vallee's cobbler shop, I arrive with a shoe problem. “Mike, as a friend of a friend,” I said to him, “could you fix these loafers? They're Eccos, the best shoes I ever had in my whole life. I paid over a hundred bucks for them at a Bostonian store six years ago and look at them. The braid is pulling apart. Something is going on with the sole. They're all scuffed up. My wife thinks I need new shoes.”

He asked me to take off my shoes. I did so. Placing them on the counter, I said, “Now I suppose you are going to look at my shoes and be able to tell my whole life history.”

He took one of the shoes and studied it. “Not quite,” he said. “But I can tell that you are a man who likes his comfort and these shoes are dry. They have never met polish.”

“That's it?,” I said, relieved.

“Well, let me ask the shoe.” He put one shoe to his ear and, periodically nodding, made out like he was getting an earful.

“I don't think everybody needs to hear what a bad person I have been. Can you help me?,” I asked.

“I can't do much with the hole in the sole because it is rubber. But let me see what I can do.”

Then, while chatting up old-friend customers sitting in the shop and coming and going through the door, he restitched my shoes right on the counter. The photo shows him doing the restitching by hand. Then he applied leather treatment and polish. He put my shoes to a buffing machine. It took him about 15 minutes.

He handed the shoes to me. “I gave the sole a quick fix, a patch job,” he said. “Can't really do anything more with rubber soles.”

“They look like new,” I said. The new stitches blended in perfectly. Gone was the dried-up, tired, scuffed-up look. It was replaced by a soft leathery sheen that made my old shoes seem reborn. “How did you do that?”

He smiled.

I put my 6-year-old shoes on. They felt heavenly. “How much do I owe you?”

“On the house.”

I walked out of Mike Vallee's cobbler shop happy. My “new” shoes made me feel like a new man. Now I know what Mike Vallee's regulars know. There's nothing like having a personal shoe makeover by a guy who knows exactly what it takes to make your shoes –- and you -- happy.

Here is one happy customer, me, showing off his "new" shoes with Mike Vallee, cobbler artiste. Mike: I thank you. My shoes thank you.
So long and keep moving

Amazon  E-Books by George Pollock

"State Kid: Hero of Literacy" is fiction based on his  real-life experiences  growing up in foster homes; "Last Laughs," is the true story of how five foster kids (he and four younger siblings) found their way in life and each other. "Killers: Surprises in a Maximum Security Prison," is the story of the author being locked up for 23 hours with killers in a maximum security prison;  "I, Cadaver" is about the author's postmortem adventures and mischief in the anatomy lab at UMass Medical School. “A Beautiful Story” demonstrates the art and process of creative writing as a 16-year-old boy goes all out to write a story good enough to get him into an exclusive college -- on full scholarship; and "A Long, Happy, Healthy Life," which lays out what to do (and not do) to live the title every single day.

  For the Nook:

A Beautiful Story
A Long, Happy, Healthy Life
I, Cadaver
Killers
State Kid
Unlove Story

The "Mayor" of Taunton, MA: With Newspapers Dying, How Can Tommy Clark of Park News Be All Smiles?

On Broadway in the heart of downtown Taunton, MA, Tommy Clark, owner and operator of Park News,shown here with his wife Anna, hears of the latest price increase by The New York Times from an unlikely source: me, a walk-in stranger he has never laid eyes on – but whom he greets with a warm smile nonetheless.

"What do you think of the Sunday Times going to six bucks and the weekday paper going to two bucks?" I ask him on the first day of my week-long, grandchild-sitting visit to the Taunton area. I am at Park News to get my daily New York Times fix.

"Price increase? Another one?," Tommy says, obviously taken by surprise. "Six bucks for Sunday's? No, I haven't heard anything."

"Well, that's what I heard, " I said. I heard about the increase from the guy who puts the Sunday Times together at a White Hen convenience store in the Tatnuck section of Worcester. "I'm in a state of shock," I told Tommy Clark. "That's a fifty percent increase for the Sunday Times in less than two years and a hundred percent more for the weekday Times."

Seeing that he cannot easily escape, I continue my rant. "The Times is catching up with The Wall Street Journal, which has doubled since Rupert Murdock took it over a year ago." I'm angry at the Wall Street Journal, too, another habit of mine.

The name Rupert Murdock, the Australian Press magnate, does not ring a bell with Tommy. As I learn later, he does not read newspapers; he just sells them. He is 77. He has owned and operated Park News for 59 years, since he was 18.

18? "My dad helped me," Tommy said. "He knew everybody in town and everybody knew him. Plus I got a lot of support from the rest of the family. I have always done this and I never wanted to do anything else."

In the photo, he is shown at the nerve center of Park News with his wife of 51 years, Anna. The two have been selling newspapers together since they got married. "Actually, "Anna said. "I do the work and he talks to the customers, just like what he is doing now."


As she says this, she is waiting on a customer while Tommy combs his hair to get looking his best for the photograph. Previously, he had good-naturedly waved off my request to take a picture of him. This photo of the two of them came about only because Anna stepped in.

When I told her he wouldn't let me take a picture, she turned to him and said, "Why not? Let him take a picture of you for crying out loud. What do you care?" Tommy promptly did what he was told.

Tommy says that marrying Anna was "the best thing I ever did." He met her in Park News. "She went to high school down the street and would come into the store every day and buy some candy." Then he went away to the service for two years. When he came back, Anna came into the store and said, "You're not married?"

He said, "No."

"Six months later, we were married," Tommy said.

That was in 1948, before the advent of television, when newspapers were king. People came to Park News for news, to get the latest on what was happening. Since then, while raising five children and being blessed with eleven grandchildren, Tommy and Anna Clark have sold a lot of newspapers.

But, gradually as people got more news from TV and, more recently, as a full-blown Internet age has taken hold offering news 24/7 with a couple of mouse clicks – and much of it for free – Park News has been selling fewer and fewer newspapers.

Readers are turning instead to news "aggregators" like Google and Yahoo and to thousands of bloggers and webzines like Huffington News. The newspaper section at Park News has shrunk to a small section at the front of the store. Tommy gets only a few of copies of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which are bought by newspaper dead-enders like me.

"What I make from the newspapers, it's not worth turning the cash register on," Tommy said.


Park News' best-selling paper is the Boston Globe and the local newspaper, The Taunton Daily Gazette, but the sales of both are way down from earlier years. The New York Times owns the Globe but is itself fighting for financial survival. Faced with $1.1 billion in debt, the Times raised $225 million on a lend-lease of its building. It borrowed $250 million -- accepting stiff terms -- from one of the richest men in the world, Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico. Pushing the financial misery down the line, the New York Times has threatened to shut down the Boston Globe unless it comes up with $20 million in cost reductions.

Lois Souza, a waitress at Jimmy's restaurant a couple of doors away is a throwback newspaper junkie who reads three newspapers a day (Taunton Daily Gazette, Boston Globe, and the New York Post). She has a dim few of the future of the Taunton Daily Gazette."The only thing selling the Gazette are the obituaries," she said. But Tommy Clark says that he gets a much better cut from each copy of the Gazette sold than he does from either The New York times or the Wall Street Journal.

After three or four visits to Park News to pick up my New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Tommy begins treating me like one of his regulars. Taking advantage, I ask nosy questions such as: Exactly how much money do you make on newspapers? If it's as little as you say, how do you stay in business?

One day when I come in, Tommy decides to provide some answers. Picking up the phone, he said, "I'm going to find out about that price increase. I'm going to check on exactly what I'm going to make on The New York times and The Wall Street Journal." He gets the distributor on the phone and takes down notes as they talk.

Hanging up, he said, "Yes, you're right, prices for The New York Times are going up, effective June 1st. The Sunday Times is going to six bucks. It will cost me five fifty-three.

I'll make forty-seven cents. The weekday Times goes from a buck fifty to two bucks. I'll make thirteen cents. I make a dime on the Wall Street Journal."

He explains that in the old days, and for many years, he made a steady 20% on the Times and the Journal. "Not any more," he said. "What's my percentage now? Less than half that?"

For the Sunday New York Times, Tommy's forty-seven-cent cut comes to 7.9%. For the daily Times, his thirteen cents is 6.9% of the new $2.00 selling price or perhaps .65 for the three or four copies of the daily Times that he sells. He continues to get about 20% on sales of the Taunton Gazette.

For the six copies of the Times I bought from him during my week in Taunton, Tommy made a whopping .78. I would say that is cheap enough, considering that if deprived of my Times for a week, I would be dead.

Tommy Clark makes next to nothing selling The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He gets a much better cut from each copy of the Taunton Daily Gazette sold, but the local paper's sales continue to slide. So how does Tommy Clark stay in business?

"Cigars," he says. And sure enough, hanging out at Park News, I see a steady stream of customers, all men, buying cigars. But I must hasten to add that customers also buy a lot of cigarettes, lottery tickets, and magazines.

Customers are on a first-name and nick-name basis, so much so that I get little looks that say: Who the hell are you? Friendly joshing and wise-cracking is non-stop. Many customers have obviously grown up together and have been coming to Park News all their lives.

With Park News' name a mere leftover from a once great and dominating newspaper era, with its future now on a day-by-day basis -- the money coming in is enough to pay the bills, at least for now -- Tommy Clark's place remains stubbornly vibrant. It is a Taunton social center where people stop by for a cigar, to see old friends, to catch up on gossip, to skewer dumb politicians, and to flip a buck or two to the "mayor" of Taunton.

Presiding over it all, is the ever smiling and happy Tommy Clark. A typical longtime customer stands outside on Broadway watching Tommy schmoozing a bunch of customers. "Look at him," he said, " the mayor is working the crowd like a big-time politician. He knows everybody and everybody know him. He ought to run for mayor. He's a better politician than that guy across the street."

"Who is that?"

"Barney Frank. That's his office right over there," he said, pointing.

"Really?"

"Yeah, but he's never there. He spends all his time in Washington living the high life on our tax money. Tommy should run against him. He could get elected."

Tommy has two things about him that absolutely do not go together. The first is that ever-present smile. It was the first thing I noticed and it doesn't go away. The second is that he has multiple sclerosis, which is evident when he steps out from behind the counter.

In the characteristic MS way, his body is twisted and he drags a leg as he moves with difficulty around the store waiting on customers. Yet in the several times that I talked to Tommy Clark, he never once mentioned his MS and I saw no reason to ask him about it.

MS is not important enough for either one of us to mention, not even in passing. Though Tommy's MS is in plain sight for all to see and doesn't go away, it does diminish into nothingness before your eyes. Somehow, some way, Tommy Clark has managed to render MS irrelevant in his life.

I ask him if he has any plans to retire. "Retire," he replies. "Why would I retire? I love doing this. I've been on Broadway longer than Mickey Rooney. I want to die right here on the floor."

Note to medical researchers: find out how Tommy Clark does it – and bottle it.

So long and keep moving.

Postscript: This blog was supposed to be about how and why the newspaper that I know and love is dying a slow death – but Tommy Clark killed that idea just by being himself. Because of him, I didn't cite facts and figures, such as the number of journalism jobs that have disappeared last year; or describe iconic newspapers that have folded (such as the centenarian-plus Rocky Mountain News); or explain how Craigslist has eviscerated local newspapers by ripping away their advertising guts: the classifieds; or show how investigative journalism is slowly but surely becoming enfeebled; or document how news and journalism itself is now in a mad, headlong, desperate dash for the Internet, hoping to somehow survive in digital form.

Just as well, because, unless you live in an underground bunker, we all know all of this. However, for a good discussion of the financial issues facing the New York Times and the Boston Globe -- and, by extension, the Taunton Gazette and other newspapers, click here.

But there is one thing I must and will say. Newspapers like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal will not survive in paper form and both know it. Both are powerful national brands that have already established strong electronic editions, though the WSJ has been far more successful at monetization than has the NYT. I have already resigned myself to getting a notebook computer on which to read the NYT and the WSJ in the morning with my coffee. The notebook will be my new "blankee" – as my son Greg calls my New York Times that I carry with me at all times. On it I will be able to read at all times "all the news fit to digitize." If Tommy Clark can adapt, keep smiling, and be happy so can I, dammit!

NOTE: My novel, State Kid: Hero of Literacy is now available on Amazon and for the Nook.

Billy Stone was a foster child.

He ran away from abuse.

He went to juvenile prison.

He went up from there.

And he did it his way.

With the power of the written word. 

Amazon E-Books by George Pollock

 "State Kid: Hero of Literacy" is fiction based on his  real-life experiences  growing up in foster homes; "Last Laughs," is the true story of how five foster kids (he and four younger siblings) found their way in life and each other. "Killers: Surprises in a Maximum Security Prison," is the story of his being locked up for 23 hours with killers in a maximum security prison;  "I, Cadaver" is about his postmortem adventures and mischief in the anatomy lab at UMass Medical School. “A Beautiful Story” demonstrates the art and process of creative writing as a 16-year-old boy goes all out to write a story that literally saves his life;  "A Long, Happy, Healthy Life,"  is about how to live the title every day; and "Unlove Story," Writing anonymously as "Elvis," a husband, dumped after 38 years of marriage, lets it all out on love, marriage, life, everything. A guy doing this? It's unheard of.

   For the Nook:

A Beautiful Story
A Long, Happy, Healthy Life
I, Cadaver
Killers
State Kid
Unlove Story