Back-Fence Chat

"It's kind of like leaning over the back fence chatting," explains Earl Selby, a top reporter and columnist on the Philadelphia Bulletin. "The problems may not be earthshakers, but they hit the neighbor where he lives." Selby's chats take place Mondays through Fridays at 6:25 p.m. on Mr. Fixit, a local show telecast by Station WCAU-TV. Sometimes blond, crew-cut Earl Selby, 37, uses his five minutes to point up some civic horror, as when he appeared unshaven and in tattered clothes to talk about Skid Row and what it costs the city--$650,000 in relief and a high incidence of tuberculosis. Another time, discussing trees, he wore a lumberjack's hat and carried an ax. More often, he simply helps people get what they want. Some of Selby's fixes:

P: Found a shoe shop for a young teacher who displayed her 5AAAA foot and complained that she could not find any places that sold her size in fashionable styles.

P: Found an Andy Russell recording of "their song" for a married couple who had been searching everywhere.

P: Got expert advice for a man plagued by bats in his window shutters (a bat expert advised that he use a broom and let more light in between the shutter leaves).

P: Searched out a prom dress for a girl who could not afford one. Selby found a thrift shop that sold formals for as little as $3--in the next few days he got 600 letters asking for a list of the city's thrift shops.

Selby has wangled gloves for a kids' baseball team, taught a Scottish bride-to-be how to season steak before broiling (rub on hot mustard, top with hickory salt), found aquariums for some boys who had brought a batch of snakes back from camp. He has had some failures, too. He had no solution for the woman who wrote: "Sheriff coming to foreclose tomorrow. Please send $4,000 in cash," and he was unable to finance a trip to the Canadian wilds for a would-be Davy Crockett who wanted to kill himself a b'ar.

Mr. Fixit has a sponsor (Philadelphia Gas Works Co.) and an audience estimated to include 43% of the adults viewing at that hour. It started last March after an adman named Franklin Roberts saw Reporter Selby on a straight newscast. Roberts told Selby he was a poor commentator because he was not reporting what he knows best: Philadelphia, its people and its problems. He suggested a show growing out of the "In Our Town" column that Selby writes six days a week for the Bulletin, and they finally settled on the column's "Mr. Fixit" service idea.

Selby's TV and newspaper work keep him going 13 hours a day. Once he gets to his typewriter, he can finish a column in around 15 minutes. The rest of the time he is busy on the phone, answering his mail, badgering his contacts and just plain digging for stories--as when he broke, in effect, the state's case against Virginia Carroll in the shooting of Politician William F. Meade (TIME, April 7, 1952). He is usually home in suburban Bryn Mawr by about 7 p.m. for his ceremonial "B and B" (Brahms and bourbon). The Brahms comes from an elaborate hi-fi set and, during the music, Selby spends an hour or so reading his mail. Selby's three children have made occasional appearances on his television show, usually as a background audience, munching hot dogs and potato chips, washed down with milk. They are not particularly impressed--possibly because there is no TV set in the Selby home.

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