CheppedHam

When I commute my 23 miles to work each weekday morning, my typical route leverages Interstate-85 to the Durham Freeway South which I stay on through Durham, exiting at Alexander Drive right on the northern edge of the Research Triangle Park. From there I take Alexander to South Miami Blvd and then a mile or so down Miami to the office. At the ever-active intersection of Alexander and South Miami sits this massive Sheetz Convenience Restaurant. The place always seems to be packed and buzzing with activity– folks filling up – coffee or gas or MTOs ordered through their touch screens. This Central PA kid just shakes his head and chuckles every time he encounters this scene. Imagine that  – Altoona-based Sheetz on Tobacco Road - and not just thriving, but expanding.

The Mirror recently did a story on the company’s history and growth as they celebrate their 60th birthday. Though the tale has been told many times before, it is still a good read. A driven, competitive, visionary creates and grows a company in his image with a corporate culture rooted in his small town values. An obsession to customer service. A continuous loop of customer feedback, reinvention, and adaptation as your company, your market, and the world around you changes. Some good timing and fortune, no doubt, but, as with most of these successes, the recipe includes huge doses of intelligent business planning, innovation, and good old elbow grease in the execution phase. The “Sheetz Story” is all the cooler, for me at least, since the seeds of this success story were sewn on the same streets of the city in which I was raised. (Damn, that last sentence has some high-quality alliteration. Props to, among others, Ms. Patricia Winstead, 9th Grade English, BGHS Sixth Avenue, 1976-1977.)

The nearest Sheetz store to our house was the one at the site of the old Wright Elementary School, at the corner of 13th Street and 14th Avenue. I am not sure of the exact year that particular location opened. If I were to guess, it would be around 1972. The linked article cites that year as a “learning one” with some growing pains for the company as it expanded from 7 to 14 stores. I probably walked past that particular store almost 1800 times just to get to/from McNelis Catholic (including the “St. Leo’s years”) .

It was also pretty much a Sunday routine for us to frequent that store as well after Mass at The Cathedral. That Sunday trip to Sheetz would usually involve picking up some miscellaneous items needed for Sunday dinner and almost always included the purchase of a copy of the Sunday Pittsburgh Press. That was such a big deal to me then and I looked forward so much to that moment each week. The size of our world was so small in those days. The Press would give me a window into that whole other world out there beyond Blair County (and of course so much rich content to consume related to my Bucs, Steelers, and Panthers).

In the fall, if we timed Mass right that week (and got to the 7:30 AM or 9:00 AM slots), I could be back to the house by 10:00 or so for a leisurely journey through the Press while watching the John Facenda-era NFL Films weekly highlights (Ed and Steve Sabol), the Notre Dame highlight show (Lindsey Nelson and Paul Hornung), and the Penn State highlight show (Ray Scott). That was basically an entire wing of a broadcasting Football Hall-of-Fame every Sunday morning in the early-to-mid 70s. Really good memories from those Sunday mornings, with Mom in the background getting dinner rolling, almost always managing to impeccably time its readiness with halftime of the 1:00 PM Steelers' game.

Our family also frequently took advantage of the deli at Sheetz in those days. I would bet dollars-to-donuts that the dairy product at the epicenter of my parent’s infamous "I Ate The Cheese"  marital earthquake was purchased from the Sheetz deli. Chipped Ham from Sheetz was a family favorite as well. Sandwiches made from this unique Pennsylvania delicacy almost always accompanied us on our trips to Pirate’s games at Three Rivers – the family budget in those days really didn’t include line items for over-priced concessions at the ballpark.

The Nedimyer Family Patriarch (aka “Big Bro” Steve) has run a fantasy football league named in our parent’s honor since the mid 2000s. Though I am not a “fantasy guy”, I did participate in the inaugural campaign – and got my ass kicked. From that inaugural season, I am most proud of the team nickname that I created and used: CheppedHam.

My team name was a clever word interplay between the nickname my brothers call me (“Chep”) and the aforementioned Chipped Ham from Sheetz. You may be wondering about the origin of my nickname. Perhaps memory suppression is at work here, but I am drawing a blank on that origin as well – no doubt my brothers have told me many times before. I vaguely recall they might have hatched it in collaboration with Cal B, a friend of theirs growing up and quite a character in his own right. With the possible connection to Cal B in mind, I am not sure I even want to know, particularly if bodily fluids of any kind are involved.

One has to admit, though, that I was bringing it strong with that team name. In a league honoring my parent’s legacy, I was able to cleverly meld a unique Central PA  food reference with my childhood “family” nickname. That set a pretty high bar for team name creativity in that league, if I do say so myself. Just for historical accuracy, you should be aware that I waffled for the better part of one afternoon trying to decide between “CheppedHam” and “The Chepped Hams” – really couldn't go wrong with either of those options. Conciseness and economy of expression won out in the end.

Since I am all about self-reflection and self-awareness, I wonder if, based on my performance in the FFL, my pre-draft time that season might have been better spent, oh, I don’t know, maybe analyzing player performance, matchups, the injury report, and the waiver wire instead of coming up with a masterpiece of a team name?