Never let it be said that a hotdog in Peoria, Illinois, can’t eventually find its way to me here in the Philadelphia area.
In a recent “Outta Leftfield” print column, I told a story about a friend of mine, Peoria radio personality Greg Batton, who is a high school friend.
We communicate fairly regularly via various forms, not the least of which is the social networking Web site Facebook.
Recently Greg asked his friends on Facebook, “What can I do for you?” His intent was to use his influence as a local celebrity to try to help his friends and listeners accomplish good deeds.
There were many deserving suggestions, but Greg seemed intrigued with my request. See, I was going to new Yankee Stadium for the first time the next day and my request was for Greg to buy me a hotdog at the ballpark.
I know him well enough to know how much he likes a challenge. I had gotten a heads up from my brother in Illinois via a text message that Greg was on the air that morning in Peoria trying to arrange to buy me a hotdog in New York.
I waited the whole ballgame for that hotdog to arrive, but it never did. Try as he might, Greg couldn’t pull it off.
But that wasn’t the end of The Great Hotdog Request.
This week I returned to my office after a morning filled with meetings to find a brown paper bag filled to the brim with what smelled like lunch.
Inside were 12 hotdogs, wrapped in tin foil, and delivered with all the fixings from Twining Deli III in Fort Washington.
Our receptionist, Theresa, had gotten a call from Greg in Illinois. He apparently was determined to buy me a hotdog, so enlisted the help of Theresa and some other in the classified department of Montgomery Newspapers to get me a hotdog, or 12 for that matter. Greg obviously knows me well enough to know that I am much more capable of eating 12 hotdogs than I am of eating just one. I don’t consider one hotdog any more than just a warm-up.
It was all great fun and the folks here at Montgomery Newspapers who Greg had enlisted as co-conspirators were good sports about the whole thing.
I shared the hotdogs with any staff members who were interested. I, myself gobbled down three dogs with mustard, somehow managing not to spill anything on my shirt, a rarity to be sure.
And then I went to lunch. After all, with three hotdogs already under my belt, I was sufficiently warmed up.