Trash

The Inquirer is presenting one profile a day of participants in Sunday's Blue Cross Broad Street Run. See full coverage at www.philly.com/broadstreetrun .   Jonathan Lieberman calls himself a "late-bloomer Ironman triathlete" who, over the last two years, went from smoking a pack a day and weighing 241 pounds to completing the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii in October. He wears a dog tag around his neck that never comes off, and reads "Relentless. " That's one way to describe a man who signed up for his first Ironman at Lake Placid in 2010 and didn't know how to swim.

There are lottery odds and lottery balls. But lotteries also have oddballs and oddities, as recent news stories show. Recall the McDonald's worker in Maryland who told reporters her personal ticket, not her pool's, won a piece of March's record Mega Millions jackpot. Mirlande Wilson then said she lost the ticket, only to be proven she was mistaken about ever having it, when three educators from the Baltimore area claimed the prize — and vowed to continue working. The latest case involves a trashed ticket worth $1 million.

Keri Wilkins is incensed. She is a librarian passionately committed to serving the blind and physically handicapped in 29 counties, the entire eastern half of Pennsylvania, sending out almost a million digital books and recorded cassettes a year. "I am appalled. I am angry," she tells me at the branch at Ninth and Walnut, founded in 1882, the nation's oldest library serving the blind, where almost a half-million mint-condition recorded cassettes are, by state mandate, headed for "recycling," that is, the trash.

A 1-year-old baby from the city's Logan section is in stable condition after falling from a three-story window into a trash pile Saturday morning, police said. The child fell from the alleyway window of a home in the 4900 block of North 12th Street about 9:30 a.m., police said. The trash pile apparently prevented a more serious injury. Police are still investigating what caused the toddler to fall. The child is recovering at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.

Law enforcement will collect two kinds of dangerous items on Saturday: guns and prescription drugs. "Turn in a gun anonymously and receive a $50 food voucher for a local supermarket on the spot, no questions asked!" declares a Philadelphia Police Department announcement. The firearms buyback will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at St. Joachim's Church Hall, 1527 Church Street, in Northeast Philadelphia. The Knorr Street Shop-Rite is sponsoring the event, along with the Philadelphia Police District Advisory Council.

Government-owned, taxpayer-funded trash-to-energy plants in Harrisburg and Camden County have fallen many millions below the financial projections of the people who sold them years ago. It's not that ugly in Montgomery County, but even there, towns are burning less trash than expected: Moody's Investors Service this week cut its credit rating for Montgomery County Industrial Development Authority's $34 million 2002 bond issue, which is...

DEAR ABBY: My ex-husband likes to call to ask me for advice. Our most recent conversation was in regard to his girlfriend and her sexual past, which he knew about before they started dating. He now disapproves of her history and he began calling her unpleasant names. Hearing this sort of talk gives me a stomachache. I feel terrible for the woman. I want to be a friend to my ex, but I'm not sure I can handle the stress it causes. — Wisconsin Reader DEAR READER:The next time your ex starts asking you for relationship advice, tell him you don't like hearing the way he talks about his girlfriend.

Volunteers for the 5th Annual Philly Spring Cleanup swept up the city's streets and helped clean parks Saturday, encouraging residents to "Keep Up The Sweep Up. " The Philadelphia Streets Department helped start the cleaning initiative with a morning celebration at Kingsessing Recreation Center and park in Southwest Philadelphia. Steve Smith, the facilities supervisor for the park, said that volunteers collected over 60 bags of trash in his area alone. Smith, 51, said that the work began around 8 a.m. and lasted until just after noon.

On people you know are talking trash about you: When someone wants to share a third party's juicy/hurtful/critical comments about me, I like to reply, "Her opinion of me is none of my business. " Stops 'em dead, and I love the expression on her face as she tries to sort out what I said.   On parents who accentuate the negative: I struggled with a mother who was negative about everything I did. With therapy, and prayer, I learned to handle my anger, frustration, and sadness at having a mother with whom I could share little.

SPRINGTIME is when the flowers bloom, the days become longer and winter coats are banished to the closet for a few dark, lonesome and linty months. But in Philly, even something as sweet as springtime comes with an attitude. 'Tis the season when Philadelphians in some neighborhoods guard their faces during a gust of wind to avoid being pelted by cigarette butts, condom wrappers and whatever else is caked onto the crumbling sidewalks. Since the weather was nice earlier this week, I took a little field trip up North 5th Street and found a trio of trashy tragedies during my jaunt from Oxford Street, in the Ludlow section of North Philly, to Allegheny - on the northern edge of Fairhill.