May 15, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Paul Roller: Prisoners’ best hope for a ‘last meal?’
by LEN LEAR
Part two of a two-part series

Chicken magnate Frank Perdue used to say, “It takes a tough bird to make a tender chicken.” In the case of Paul Roller, you could say it takes a very tough taskmaster to make a successful restaurant. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

Some of Paul Roller’s former employees think he is so tough, he’d probably love a job preparing “last meals” for prisoners about to be executed. On the other hand, Paul, 55, sure is fun (for someone not on death row) to interview.

That’s because he is a hard dog to keep on the porch. Whereas almost all other businesspeople are guarded and circumspect when they know they’re being quoted in a newspaper, Roller is a rapid-fire weapon of delicious quotes, often politically incorrect. He has never sanded down his rough edges. For example, at least three people said to me this past week they “could not believe he said that,” referring to Paul’s comment in last week’s issue that “The profit margin is so bad (in restaurants) these days, and that’s even if you’re not doing coke.”

Mt. Airy’s Ron Little very big in Calligraphy world
by LELA BETTS 

Ron Little, a Mt. Airy resident, creates extraordinary works of art using hand-lettering and calligraphy.

When Ron Little traveled the world as a student and Peace Corps volunteer, he did not expect his time in the library to lead him to a job as a calligrapher and artist. While he was studying in Spain, he was fascinated by the historic hand-lettered manuscripts he discovered in the library. These days Little, a Mt. Airy resident, creates works of art using hand-lettering and calligraphy.

After studying in Spain and earning a degree in the teaching of languages, Little felt his creative side calling. “I was always haunted by my interest in art,” he said. Living in Hawaii at the time, he asked a sign maker to help him learn calligraphy and basic sign- making. In the natural beauty of Hawaii his career as a calligrapher and sign maker was born.

Little, who grew up in Rochester, New York, studied art at Parson’s and the Art Students’ League in New York City. After living in the San Francisco Bay area, he moved to Chestnut Hill and has lived in Mt. Airy for the last five years. He makes signs and does calligraphy for local residents and businesses. His work is displayed in Chestnut Hill, where he hand-lettered the sign for the Candle Shop on Germantown Avenue. 

Loyal four-legged friend ‘hears’ for deaf minister
by JIM HARRIS AND ZIPORA SCHULZ

Rev. Pickering walks his hearing dog, Buffy, on Woodale Avenue, their previous home in Chestnut Hill.  (Photo by Jim Harris)

When they held a fire drill recently at the Willow Valley Retirement Community near Lancaster, the first residents to emerge were a couple and their little shepherd/sheltie mixed-breed dog named Buffy. She is a service dog, which accounts for the rapid response to the fire alarm. The couple was the Rev. Roger Pickering and his wife Sandra, most recently of Chestnut Hill, but on a journey that has taken them to many places and won them many friends along the way.

Roger was born to a Norwegian father and Finnish mother who met in Minnesota. He grew up in Michigan, and at the age of six, contracted scarlet fever and lost his hearing. After initially attending schools for the deaf, he went on to attend regular high schools and colleges, earning a degree in chemistry at the University of Chicago in 1957.

When asked how he was able to cope in schools that were not equipped to teach deaf students, he replied, “I read a lot. I asked the teachers for outside reading on the classroom topics, and asked questions about some points. I did not have interpreters or note takers. I would ask to sit next to another student in class and copy his or her notes. The teachers were very generous with their time, seeing that I was really interested in learning.”

While pursuing a PhD in chemistry at Penn, however, Roger had a change of heart. “I liked science,” he said, “but I missed the human element.” So, in 1959, he left chemistry and decided to pursue the ministry, receiving his Master’s degree from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California, in 1962.

Mike’s mom and dad didn’t need a dog psychiatrist
by MIKE TODD

When my parents came to visit last weekend to meet Memphis, the floppy-eared, multibreed puppy (that sounds so much better than “mutt”) that has recently taken residence in our home, they brought with them a squeaky rubber chicken that has not stopped squeaking since they left. When people call the house now, it must sound like a nervous clown is pacing in the background.