Quote of the day: 


One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
—Plato

Once again we’re back to my third year at Penn State when I was on the fifth floor of Mifflin Hall, and one of the guys was named Pete Boyle.

Or at least that’s what everyone called him.

He was sandy haired and had a gravelly voice and seemed to be a bit older than his years. Because he seemed to be a bit older than the rest of us, though I don’t think he was, some of the guys often turned to him for advice. I don’t know if his advice was any better than what anybody else might have doled out, but he did have have that air of sagacity about him.

Anyway, it wasn’t until perhaps halfway through the year that I found out that his first name wasn’t really Pete. Both he and his roommate, whose name was Tom (at least I think it was), were from Philadelphia, and on learning that his roomie’s last name was Boyle, Tom dubbed him “Pete” when they met, in honor of the Philadelphia TV broadcaster of the 1950s that they both recalled from their younger days. And the name stuck. I’m not sure if I ever knew what “Pete’s” real first name was.

If I recall correctly, the “real” Pete Boyle, the broadcaster that is, used to host a week day show on the Philadelphia station channel 3 in the late afternoon or early evening called something like the “Fun House” and he’d show cartoons and short features like the Little Rascals (aka Our Gang). I think that’s where I first got to see those Little Rascal shorts.