Rocky Road

To know John Harrison is to know and love ice cream. Harrison - whose taste buds are insured for $1 million - is the official taster and flavor-developer for Edy's Grand Ice Cream. When he's not tasting ice cream, he's talking ice cream. He says he has tasted more than 100 million gallons of ice cream in his career, and he also has created more than 100 popular flavors, including Cookies 'N Cream. Now while getting paid to taste ice cream might seem to be one of the most supreme forms of employment, keep this in mind: Harrison never (well, almost never)

The Rocky statue continues to attract mail. Few readers think it should remain at the Spectrum. Most seem to believe it should be restored to the top of the Art Museum steps. But ever since we revived the controversy, after a Guest Opinion from Tom Devaney urging that it be relocated where tourists can see it, the letters continue to flow. In a future issue, we'll conduct a telephone poll. In the meantime, here are excerpts from more letters: SOME SUGGESTIONS We're talking about a statue of a fictitious person in a movie, not a relic or piece of art. Maybe Philadelphia can make some money and lend the statue to the other great art museums so they could place the Italian Stallion on their steps.

At only 25, Matthew Neenan is already Philadelphia's most musically sophisticated ballet choreographer. Tonight, the Pennsylvania Ballet will premiere his Rocky Road to Kansas, a slinky 33-minute dance, and only the second new commission in the Ballet's 1999-2000 season. It will be corps de ballet dancer Neenan's third mainstage work since joining the ballet in 1994. For Neenan, whose 1999 Sfrenato was praised for its dense vistas and complex transitions, to suggest that the audience "tune in and out - just like you're watching TV" seems an odd directive for a multilayered composition with 12 dancers.

A foreign visitor riding along a bumpy road south of Washington asked a member of Congress why American roads were so bad. Because they are all state or local roads, the legislator said, and it is not always in the interest of, say, South Carolina to build a good road to North Carolina, or for one county to build a good road leading to any other county. That conversation took place in January 1832, between a distinguished son of South Carolina, Joel Roberts Poinsett, and a young Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville, taking notes for a book he would call Democracy in America.

David Anton said it was in elementary school that he and his best friend, Jorge Coombs, began plotting to drive race cars in rallies as adults. They even dreamed of starting a business to support their racing. Anton, 32, is now living both parts of that dream. He has won national racing events, and he has helped create a small automotive shop. But along the way, he encountered financial strains and the growing pains of starting a business. He and his partners, who have since left, learned that ordering parts in bulk would have been a lot more economical than making them in small batches as they did. They realized they should have narrowed the focus of their business sooner than they did. They also saw their balance sheet suffer from discounting too many jobs for friends.

A few years ago, a fat man and a skinny man, obviously close friends, both drenched in sweat and without shirts, repeatedly ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and celebrated at the top - just like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. I'd seen this ritual happen so many times over the years, and this time I couldn't help myself. I went up to the two men and asked them who they were and why they ran. They were from Denmark. Their English was broken and I can't remember exactly what they said, only their absolute joy. They had come to Philadelphia just to run these steps.

For as long as she can remember, Kerry Budd wanted to compete on a Division I swim program. But there were moments during her high school career that cast doubts on her dream. The most visible sign was the brace she wore while swimming for Conestoga. Not so visible was the pain and discouragement she endured at times. All the result of scoliosis, a curvature of her spine. The scoliosis took a toll on her both physically and emotionally, but Budd, who recently completed her swimming career at Division I William and Mary, was not going to let it beat her. And it didn't.

It has been a rocky road for Sabrina, 9, and she is looking forward to being adopted by a loving family. She said she hopes they'll "treat me nice. " And she'd like to have her own room. She loves attending church and is in the choir, goes swimming, rides a bike around the neighborhood, plays on the swings and slides, and draws pictures. She writes stories about people's hopes and dreams. Sabrina does average work in fourth grade at school and has good verbal skills. She has had therapy since she was 4 because she felt abandoned and confused.

Q: I am into S&M — and I don't mean Steve and Mia. I am a sub, but my husband is not a dom. When we started dating five years ago, I refused to have sex until I was able to reveal myself. I told him to research it and get back to me if he was still interested. He did come back, and we had an incredible relationship for three years. Then we married and the first year was great. But over the past year he has slowly gotten rid of my sexual paraphernalia. He has pushed me into what I term vanilla sex. Initially, I gave in because it was something he needed, and since he gave me what I wanted, it was only fair.

WORD UP "GHETTO': Adjective. Exhibiting little tact or self-control. Usage: "Excuse me, but using your tongue to lick the last of the Rocky Road from the bottom of a half-gallon carton is very ghetto. " ON THE RACKS STOP THE VIOLENCE DC Comics tackles a heavy subject with "The Seduction of the Gun," a special non-profit Batman book on sale now ($2.50). Proceeds go to the Reisenback Foundation to help promote handgun control. It's a hard-hitting story about the proliferation of handguns in schools, and considering what's been going on lately in Philly, we say it's right on time.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Juan Castillo spent nearly three weeks trying to ward off the recollection of last season and his uneven inaugural campaign as Eagles defensive coordinator, preferring to dwell on the benefits of a full offseason with his team and his system. The first public glimpse of Castillo's group came against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Thursday's preseason opener, when the Eagles' first-team defense allowed a touchdown and a field goal in its only two series on the field. Castillo no longer needed to talk about what had gone wrong in 2011; he had to explain why the defense seemed to have the same issues it had last year.

BRIGANTINE, N.J. - People who sit on the beaches of Ventnor, Wildwood, and Atlantic City - where the ice cream man will put his box down and hand over a banana Fudge Bomb without your even moving, except to find the money - might be shocked to learn that in Brigantine, people lack this fundamental Jersey Shore right. And that, for the most part, they do not care. But that, possibly as early as next week, when the City Council is scheduled to vote on a seven-page ice cream ordinance 15 years in the making, they could at last be granted the right of beach ice-cream sales.

Q: I am into S&M — and I don't mean Steve and Mia. I am a sub, but my husband is not a dom. When we started dating five years ago, I refused to have sex until I was able to reveal myself. I told him to research it and get back to me if he was still interested. He did come back, and we had an incredible relationship for three years. Then we married and the first year was great. But over the past year he has slowly gotten rid of my sexual paraphernalia. He has pushed me into what I term vanilla sex. Initially, I gave in because it was something he needed, and since he gave me what I wanted, it was only fair.

DALLAS - The future finally has arrived for a Penn State football program that has spent the last couple of months mired in a sort of limbo. Well, actually, the real future can't begin until a new head coach is hired, a process that seemingly is taking longer than the thawing of glaciers. But yesterday's 30-14 loss to pass-happy Houston in the second annual TicketCity Bowl at least brings a closure of sorts. It marks the end of a 2011 season that is at once historic (as the last of Joe Paterno's 46 years as head coach)

WASHINGTON - Even before President Obama announces his jobs package this week, Republican congressional leaders returned to Washington on Tuesday criticizing most of the proposals as nonstarters. It shows the difficult road the White House faces in getting any legislation through the divided Congress this fall. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the majority leader, called on Obama to convene a bipartisan meeting of congressional leaders to discuss job-creation strategies before his address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday.

How do you get a contemporary-flavored musical about mental illness - a bipolar personality and her semidysfunctional family - successfully to Broadway, and now the road? Not easily, not quickly, allowed Tom Kitt, composer of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical "Next to Normal. " It opens at the Academy of Music on Tuesday with original cast member Alice Ripley in the lead role that won her a Tony. "Any musical is a major undertaking," said Kitt last week, during a breather between rehearsals for the New York Shakespeare in the Park production of "All's Well That Ends Well" that he's tuned up with original songs and incidental music.

Maurice Grobes' history with the Germantown Y says as much about the civil-rights movement as it does about his long relationship with the community and fitness center. "I've been a member since the 1960s, when they first started letting blacks join," said Grobes, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1955. "I had a lot of firsts here. I learned how to play handball and racquetball here. " Grobes, 65, also remembers sitting down with neighborhood friends in the steam room for weekly chats.

METAIRIE, La. - If it wasn't for a certain foursome, Jahri Evans believes he would not have had the opportunity to face the Minnesota Vikings' fearsome front four. Growing up in North Philadelphia, the New Orleans Saints guard had "four moms" - his mother, Katreen Hopkins, and his three older sisters, Carmela, Geana, and Cheryl. They are the reason he is playing in tonight's NFC championship game against Minnesota, the 26-year-old Evans said. "My mother was strict, but not overly strict," said Jahri (pronounced Jah-ree)

After weeks of hand-wringing, Congress' top Democratic leaders have finally offered their own versions of health-care legislation for the consideration of their respective chambers and the American public. Well, almost. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not fully released his bill because he's waiting for the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to analyze its fiscal impact. President Obama has said he will sign only legislation that costs less than $900 billion and is deficit-neutral, so Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have their marching orders.

Cole Hamels rejects the notion that athletes should play through injuries, and questions the sense of risking his health and the team's success to prove toughness. So after a dismal regular-season debut, in which he allowed 11 hits and seven runs in 3 2/3 innings in a 10-3 loss to Colorado at Coors Field, the lefthander swore that command - not his elbow - was at fault. "If there were something because of my arm that was causing it, I would definitely take myself out of the game," said Hamels, who is 25 years old. "That's not going to help the team win, giving up seven-spots every time you go out just because you're trying to be tough and muscle through things.