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Call me a rolling stone—I’m an East Coaster the wind blew to Santa Fe and again to northern California. But I have deep Philadelphia roots. My father was born there and his parents and my long-gone aunt, the painter Edith Stevens, are buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Roots? I put them down for ten wonderful years at 2104 Brandywine Street in Spring Garden. Little did I know when I drove out of the city in 1988 that a Santa Fe stockbroker would tell me, in 1997, that she was the next to last owner of that exact same Brandywine house!
So, you can’t really take the gal outta Philly, where I got a good boost to my freelance career and confidence ranting about anything and everything in the old Welcomat. NOT true it was a birdcage liner! Dan was a steady hand at the tiller even back then.
I learned to broadcast as a volunteer at the Radio Information Center for the Blind in Philadelphia and from there went to WHYY News to sound off as a local commentator. You gotta love those microphones.
Hunting for a bigger whack at glory, I wrote and produced a quirky one-hour radio drama on a Pennsylvania Humanities grant. Hired a good scriptwriter and paid the cast Equity wages, too. Because of that Equity credit, my star went on to the understudy role in Amadeus on Broadway, no less.
(Do I know where he is now? Well, the thing about rolling stones is you lose your marbles.)
Then, thanks to the strong Philadelphia culture, National Public Radio Theater bought that play, The Story of Crazy Nora, and aired it nationally. With my mellifluous voice introducing it, no less. What a hoot that was. Crazy Nora was a real, live 19th-Century street character whose portrait hangs in the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Thanks to Charlie Blockson, the well-known black bibliophile who gave his extraordinary collection to Temple University, for that lead.
Having established my fame and glory in the Northeast, I followed my cowboy heart west where I saved a wonderful old adobe on the Santa Fe River and published my first book, Treasure of Taos (1993), out of print but available second-hand at amazon.com.
“How do you make a small fortune in Santa Fe?” people ask.
“Start with a big one.”
Alas, true. After the house and the horses, the cowboys and Indians, which I describe in my second book, Santa Fe Dreamhouse (2009), money got very tight, so I sold real estate. That’s in the book, too.
Partner (now lassoed into being Husband) Jim Tirjan, Lehigh ‘63, grabbed a job opportunity in Silicon Valley. It took me a good year to stop pronouncing it “silicone” valley, although some of the women out here in California..
Yeah, I am very East Coast. Now I flog Dreamhouse and rant for Dan in BSR. Rant even more on my blog: reedstevens.blogspot.com. If you just have to have more Reed on your screen, take a look at that.
Who knows, maybe I’ll figure out how to make some groovy vids on my new Mac. Boy, that scares the hell out me now, as I compose on Windows.
This old rolling stone has probably settled down now in Campbell, California. But that’s not so far from Philadelphia these days, is it?
I’d love to hear from you!
More articles by Reed Stevens, newest first
| Requiem for the post office |
February 12 2013 |
I’m probably the last citizen who will miss post offices, because I haven’t seen a child put anything in the Outgoing Mail slot for years. But not long ago the post office was a vibrant community center, and picking up the mail was a genuine treat.
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| Mourning Campbell’s Soup |
October 09 2012 |
People don’t buy canned soup the way they used to, say the folks at Campbell’s. It’s neither gourmet nor heart-healthy nor organic; it’s inedibly salty; and it can’t be microwaved. But can haute cuisine replace the memory of a steaming bowl of hot goopy tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread?
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| Roger Ebert’s ‘Life Itself’ |
November 19 2011 |
Roger Ebert’s memoir reveals the film critic as a lovable fellow who never had to apply for a job, fight for a promotion, sleep with an editor or fret about money. No wonder his book made me grumpy.
Life Itself: A Memoir. By Roger Ebert. Grand Central Publishing, 2011. 448 pages; $27.99. www.amazon.com.
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| ‘The Help’ and ‘The Debt’: Jessica Chastain’s moment |
September 10 2011 |
Jessica Chastain has miles to go to match the force of Helen Mirren’s mature persona. Until then, here’s an actress beginning to stretch herself in two good movies aimed at very different audiences.
The Help. A film written and directed by Tate Taylor, from the novel by Kathryn Stockett. For Philadelphia area showtimes, click here.
The Debt. A film directed by John Madden. For Philadelphia area showtimes, click here.
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| ‘Seeing Gertrude Stein’ in San Francisco |
June 21 2011 |
Gertrude Stein wrote unreadable prose, admired Hitler, had little use for women, betrayed her fellow Jews and was unspeakably mean to her longtime companion. Yet for one reason, I forgive her everything.
"Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories.” Through September 6, 2011 at Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission St. San Francisco, Calif. www.thecjm.org/index.php.
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| ‘True Grit’ gets a remake |
December 28 2010 |
The arch, awkward, faux-Victorian language almost worked in the original True Grit. But if you were born in 1995 and watching the Coen brothers’ sendup of the 1969 sendup, you’d have to ask: What country, what planet spawned these people?
True Grit. A film written and directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. For theaters and times in Greater Philadelphia, click here.
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| My Christmas shopping list |
December 18 2010 |
It’s amazing, the things I never knew I needed until the December Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue arrived in my mail. Now I’m ready to give Santa my Christmas wish list. For good girls only, of course.
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| The making of an activist, 1960 (memoir) |
January 30 2010 |
After I joined a “Ban the Bomb” protest in college, first my parents and then my fiancé scolded me for questioning the government. I had to choose between my independence and my survival. But in the half-century since, I’ve learned that I don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.
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| Airport security nightmare |
January 09 2010 |
After a 12-hour flight from Brazil, my husband was exhausted. Next thing he knew, he was in a windowless room, being told, “Do not look down, do not speak or we will take you down.”
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| A cell phone adventure |
November 28 2009 |
My cell phone was a source of constant irritation, mainly because it constantly reminded me how old and technically challenged I am. But it did open up a new world to me, although not the way you might think.
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| My health care Catch-22 |
November 14 2009 |
Like a Good Wife I worried that I might have inherited my poor mother’s Alzheimer’s. So I went to see a neurologist, who gave me a clean bill of health. Big mistake.
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| My great-grandmother grows younger |
November 07 2009 |
When I was a child, my pioneer great-grandmother seemed very old and insufferably proper. Now that I’m older than she was, she looks positively youthful, and I can imagine the two of us having a nice sit-down on the sofa.
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| A writer and her audience |
August 15 2009 |
Everyone has a story to tell, and everyone could be a writer. The problem, says recent author Reed Stevens, is that most would-be writers don’t understand that writing is a two-way process.
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| One woman’s quest for peace and quiet |
May 30 2009 |
In Philadelphia I once heard a mockingbird sing outside my house on Brandywine Street. But only once. As my cross-country peregrinations have proven, peace and quiet are hard to find no matter where you live.
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| Our not-so-golden years |
April 25 2009 |
My husband has decided that this medical procedure is the perfect time to quit the stress of working and start enjoying life. But what about the stress on me, not to mention the ozone layer?
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| Shooting Three Mile Island |
March 30 2009 |
The ominous towers appeared on the horizon emitting deadly-looking steam. All the traffic was heading in the opposite direction. I felt noble and brave. Should I perish in an atomic inferno, my name would be immortalized as the gutsiest free-lance photographer in history.
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| ‘Milk’ and gay reality |
February 24 2009 |
Oscars or not, Milk is not a perfect film because it depicts gay men’s lives in those Stonewall days as more about reckless sex than loneliness and terror. Back in the day, I learned firsthand how lonely and alienating the gay life was and still is, for many.
Milk. A film directed by Gus Van Sant. www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/milk.
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| ‘You’ll never be a writer’ |
January 31 2009 |
Many people say they want to be writers. What’s the difference between wanting to do it and doing it? Here’s my story.
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| A few questions for Bristol Palin |
September 02 2008 |
I want to know about the kid. The Baby you have started. What’s her life going to be like growing up in a family where the parents married at the end of a shotgun or the back of a Bible? Say, Bristol, you ready to put away your dancing shoes and warm up the bottle?
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| China’s ‘humiliation,’ reconsidered |
August 09 2008 |
Forget the Chinese obsession with their national “humiliation.” We are just beginning to feel the power of this vast and brilliant people as they gather themselves, and us, along with the rest of the world.
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. By Simon Winchester. HarperCollins, 2008. 336 pages; $27.95.
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| To Shelby Steele, about Obama |
February 02 2008 |
Obama’s candidacy felt like such a relief from being a racist pig. Damn, I’m 66 and I’m ready to put that burden down. Now I wonder if I’m drinking too much Kool-Aid.
A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win By Shelby Steele. 160 pages. Free Press, $22.00. www.amazon.com.
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