Ode to a Philadelphia lady
TIME IT WAS AND WHAT a time it was it was,
a time of innocence. a time of confidences.
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph. .
.Preserve your memories. They're all that's left you.
It was before the time of Jim Gardner or Larry Kane. Think Vince Leonard and Gunnar Back. I'm talking Professor Peabody and his Wayback Machine here when I talk about Philadelphia TV news in the era when a young Lena Horne lookalike named Edie Huggins arrived at Channel 10 when it was still called WCAU, the first CBS "O-and-O" (locally owned and operated network affiliate)and a legend named John Facenda was not only the top rated TV news anchor but the closest thing to the voice of God.
"Do have a good night. And a good day tomorrow. Good night, all." Facenda's nightly sign-off was like a benediction that it was safe to go to bed.
Into this relative family warmth of a TV news environment in 1966 arrived this drop dead gorgeous light skinned black woman with a silky baritone voice named Edie Huggins. I fell in love at first sight. I was 15 at the time. I don't even remember if I knew she was black at the time -- only rich people had color TVs -- but I do remember not caring when I found out she was black. Edie Huggins was a dish in any color in any language and at any age. She was my friend and I didn't even know she was sick until after she had died, which is exactly how she would have wanted it.
But it makes me mad because it leaves me without ever having told her how much I love her and what she meant to me. Which leaves me to tell you, which is even better because I won't end up crying when I describe the Edie I knew. Because the Edie I knew was exactly like every description of her by everyone who knew her. Edie Huggins was a mench, a guy, a constant loving force always fun to be around, never a prima donna. She labored like a worker bee with the benevolent elegance of a queen. To be in her company, even briefly, was like being invited inside the hive . I was proud to be inside Edie Huggins hive.
Of course this required me to remember every conversation we ever had the next time we met. I don't know who was having senior moments first, but Eddie would begin a conversation with me halfway through one we had three weeks ago. She reminded me of my mother. In fact, that's exactly who she reminds me of. My mother. And my Aunt Jane and my Aunt Maggie, who both worked for WCAU during the '60's, which is how I got me and my friends on the Pixanne Show when I was 12 (Jane Norman -=- talk about hot!) And later in my teens to meet Edie Huggins, who was then as she was the last time I saw her.
I've been looking for words to describe Edie, who died at the age of 72 after a long battle with lung cancer, and I keep coming back to elegant. Edie was elegant in the best sense of the word. And having written that, I had to look up the word elegant in the dictionary, just to make sure. Elegant in the dictionary reads like this, it comes from the Latin and French words meaning "to choose":
"1, Characterized by dignified richness and grace, as of design, dress, style, etc. ; luxurious or opulent in a restrained tasteful manner 2, characterized by a sense of propriety or refinement, impressively fastidious in manners and taste, 3, Marked by concision, incisiveness, ingenuity; cleverly apt and simple."
There's not a word in that definition that doesn't ring like the bell of truth with Edie.
I'm writing this for people who know Edie Huggins. I could go through her history, through her "importance" of being the first black on-air TV newswoman at Channel 10, making her the second on-air black newswoman in Philadelphia after Trudy Haynes at Channel 3, but that all seems so stupid now. Edie knew exactly what she was through most of her career -- lucky! -- and she'd be the first to tell you so.
She was lucky to be so lovely. She was lucky to be so gifted. And she was lucky to have pipes like a female Jack Jones, another young black Philadelphian who studied at the altar of John Facenda. Edie worked for every break she got after her first break. But she always looked at herself in Christian awe. She knew she was lucky to understand and appreciate how lucky she was. To the end of her days she worked to earn that.
I never heard Edie Huggnis complain. I know that should sound impossible, especially for someone at Channel 10, and I worked with her at Channel 10 in the mid-to-late 90's when Edie's role was being reduced almost hourly. But she never complained. As my Channel 10 technician friend Al, a Yankee's fan, would comment about a batter who got whacked on the elbow by a fastball inside, "And he didn't rub."
Edie could be full of intrigue and observations about the hell in-a-handbasket nature of the TV news business, but she never complained about her own situation. She never rubbed. She shared information but not despair. Edie endured with such grace, such warmth, such ready love, such effortless elegence. But as God as my witness, I know Edie is popping a cork over The Inquirer unsing the words "dogged" in the headline above her obit.
Check it out in the photo at the top of this column. The woman I have just described was reduced in the failing art of headline writing (no easy task -- but tell me they couldn't have done better that this one column headline over Edie's photo?) :
A versatile,
dogged,
endearing
NBC10 face
And I know exactly what Edie and my mother are buzzing about up there right now: "That wouldn't have happened at The Inquirer when Clark was there."
