Long Weekend

The South Jersey Track Coaches Association boys' indoor championships last night at Haverford College concluded an interesting odyssey for the Camden track team this weekend. The Panthers left for Louisiana on Friday afternoon to compete in the Louisiana High School Track Classic at Louisiana State University, caught a flight back yesterday morning, and arrived four hours before yesterday's meet. The Panthers showed no ill effects from the trip. Camden captured four events, winning the 55-meter high hurdles, long jump, and the sprint medley and 4x400 relays.

The cool, gloomy skies that lowered over Philadelphia yesterday, crushing dreams of a long weekend capped by sunny barbecues and shimmering beaches, proved kind to Col. Elmer "Bud" Atkinson and his Union troops. For there they stood, 30 of them in authentic navy wool uniforms, white gloves, and black boots, bow ties and hats, solemnly marking the 104th Memorial Day at Independence Hall. A dozen women stood by, also in mid-1860s dress: hoop skirts, bonnets and straw hats, shawls.

This was supposed to be a travel story about our family trip to Winterlude, the annual festival in Ottawa. But we never got there. Instead, we spent our long weekend holed up in a Comfort Suites motel room in Upstate New York, watching TV and checking our daughter's pupils to make sure they were dilating. The plan had been ambitious from the start. Over President's Day weekend, we would make the 6 1/2- hour drive with our 13-year-old daughter, Avery, to St. Lawrence University, where our son, Chad, is a freshman.

Legend has it that actresses Mary Martin and Helen Hayes were once strolling down the Champs-Elysees discussing the importance of Americans' looking their very best when abroad. Out of the sky, a large bird plopped all over Martin's new Dior suit. Hayes braced herself for a seismic star fit. Instead Martin cracked a smile and glanced heavenward: "For some people," she said, "they sing. " And I'll bet her visit went much better after that. Paris isn't much fun if you're chasing some fabulously Olympian standard of dress and conduct, as if the city were some Parnassus that we can visit only when we're suitably evolved.

The USS Barry docks at Penn's Landing with the help of Seaman Ty DeJoinville. The destroyer arrived yesterday for a long weekend. It will be open to the public today and tomorrow from noon to 5 p.m. The vessel, which departs Monday, is commanded by Doylestown resident Mark K. Seglem.

It seemed more like early April than late December outside, but many managed to get into the winter spirit yesterday at Penn's Landing. For one thing, trained sea lions had arrived for a show of acrobatics. And those humans enjoying a long weekend - or just a respite from the mall - could skate on the RiverRink, a perfect place to show off both their grace and their holiday gifts.

On the last long weekend of summer, there is nothing like a cookout to fill the belly . . . and the soul. The good folks of West Oak Lane know the fun of chowing down on barbecued chicken, corn on the cob and cole slaw. In a park at Ogontz and Stenton avenues, a group called the Residents Advisory Committee shared their Labor Day holiday with the less fortunate, feeding about 150 homeless people yesterday.

ICE ON the streets formed quickly, so I'm led to believe the city didn't get enough salt down under the snowfall. Briny treatments don't cut the mustard when it's cold. It's going to be a long weekend and a rough Monday. For this second major hit, I'm thinking a C-minus for Mayor Nutter. Frank Graff, Philadelphia

MEMORIAL Day has to be their favorite holiday. Not because they historically hike the price at the pump over the long weekend, but because they have the most powerful nation on earth to defend their practice of gouging the American people at the pump. They should really reduce the price over this weekend by 75 percent or more so people can afford to make the trip to pay tribute to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. Shame on you, Big Oil. Joseph Carlin, Philadelphia

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Three weeks ago, Rick Santorum chose this town to give a defiant speech, linking his struggle against Mitt Romney to "the things that the people in this battlefield just down the road fought for. " Recalling the blood shed at Gettysburg, he exhorted more than 1,000 supporters: "That's why we must go out and fight this fight. " Santorum may have thought he was George Meade rallying the Union forces, but he turned out to be leading Pickett's charge — the disastrous Confederate offensive here in which Gen. George Pickett lost half his division and the war turned against the South.

THE GIZMO: Dressed with Euro-glam styling and first-in-class gadgetry, the new 2012 Ford Focus is a bit like that stunning creature you spot across the crowded dance floor. Despite the negative rumblings you've heard about her character (from Consumer Reports and J.D. Powers) you yearn to take her out for a spin, fantasize about the life you might share together. Ah, but then after you actually do spend a long weekend together, you start to realize the naysayers may be right.

With planned holiday festivities and last weekend's incidents of roving packs of teenagers, the police department will deploy additional officers and patrol squads throughout the Fourth of July weekend, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said today. "We will have officers on foot, on bike, we will have mounted patrol," he said during a press conference. "People have no need to be afraid to come out and enjoy themselves. " More uniformed and undercover officers will be deployed in hopes of defusing situations like last weekend's assaults and robberies committed by crowds of teenagers leaving a North Philadelphia music festival, Ramsey said.

ICE ON the streets formed quickly, so I'm led to believe the city didn't get enough salt down under the snowfall. Briny treatments don't cut the mustard when it's cold. It's going to be a long weekend and a rough Monday. For this second major hit, I'm thinking a C-minus for Mayor Nutter. Frank Graff, Philadelphia

By Mark Vanhoenacker For much of human history, getting lost was easy. But in our hyper-managed, over-scheduled, GPS-enabled era, misplacing yourself can take some serious effort. I recently found myself lost in Navajo country near Four Corners - the point where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. Though it's probably not in the Western spirit of cheerful self-reliance to do so, I know exactly whom to blame: Hampton Sides. I'd just finished Blood and Thunder , his excellent biography of Kit Carson, and couldn't get its evocative place names out of my mind: Window Rock, Canyon de Chelly, Shiprock.

MEMORIAL Day has to be their favorite holiday. Not because they historically hike the price at the pump over the long weekend, but because they have the most powerful nation on earth to defend their practice of gouging the American people at the pump. They should really reduce the price over this weekend by 75 percent or more so people can afford to make the trip to pay tribute to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. Shame on you, Big Oil. Joseph Carlin, Philadelphia

In his dealings with two real estate developers and their lawyer, Philadelphia City Council aide Christopher Wright did a few things that might not look quite right, attorneys for him and his three codefendants acknowledged yesterday in closing arguments. As chief of staff to City Councilman Jack Kelly, Wright tried to make real estate deals with brothers Ravinder and Hardeep Chawla, and took a $1,000 check from Hardeep Chawla. He tried to get the Chawlas to use a company he was affiliated with so he could earn a commission.

The time has come again for Brandywine Hospital's Strawberry Festival, which starts at 5 p.m. today on the hospital grounds in Coatesville. The annual festival will run all weekend with a wide variety of fun and games, including tonight's Battle of the Bands, which pits last year's winner, Eden's Unknown, against newcomer Circian Dubb. Tomorrow night is T.G.I.F., sponsored by ArcelorMittal, the Coatesville steelmaker, with a concert by Common Crave, a new Philadelphia band.

With the 76ers falling further and further behind, Maurice Cheeks called a 20-second time-out, but instead of spending the break inside the team huddle, he directed a tirade at official Leon Wood. Wood, a teammate of Cheeks' in the mid-1980s, calmly listened to everything the Sixers coach had to say during the time-out and 10 seconds after play resumed before finally blowing his whistle and placing an index finger of each hand in the familiar "T," for technical foul. Cheeks needed to blow off steam Saturday night in Milwaukee near the end of a disappointing weekend.

This was supposed to be a travel story about our family trip to Winterlude, the annual festival in Ottawa. But we never got there. Instead, we spent our long weekend holed up in a Comfort Suites motel room in Upstate New York, watching TV and checking our daughter's pupils to make sure they were dilating. The plan had been ambitious from the start. Over President's Day weekend, we would make the 6 1/2- hour drive with our 13-year-old daughter, Avery, to St. Lawrence University, where our son, Chad, is a freshman.