A Big Chuck Road Trip! Day One…..A Visit With “Honest” Eddie Murphy!

THIS IS A THROWBACK THURSDAY POST THAT WAS PUBLISHED IN 2012

I took a road trip from Oneonta into the Poconos of Northeastern Pennsylvania last week.  Just a quick overnighter with my wife before she goes back to school as a teacher and our 15-year old goes back to school as a 10th grader.  So to the Poconos we go!

Now...where are the Poconos?

We drove from Oneonta to Binghamton where we jumped on Rt. 17 South.  We traveled about thirty miles and exited at Hancock.  It is in far western Delaware County, along the West and East Branch  confluence of the Delaware River.  I don't know if I had ever been in Hancock before (or at least in my adult memory).  It is a lovely little town whose history is colorful as a factory town and a town where the manufacture of wood products was its hallmark.

It was time for lunch so we started looking for an eaterie along Main Street.  There we found an impressive hotel right in the middle of town.  The Hancock House Hotel is magnificent.  It sports a brand new $400,000 makeover.  The sign on the restaurtant said "Honest Eddie's Restaurant and Tavern."  Looks good to us.  We went in.

The restaurant and tavern were new, clean and very comfortable.  We had a light lunch and we chatted with our waitress.  I noticed many sports items lining the walls of the restaurant and asked her what gives?  She told me all of the items comemmorate one of the most famous folks ever to come out of Hancock....baseball player Eddie Murphy.

It is quite a story.

Murphy had an excellent 11-year career playing for 3 MLB teams; Philadelphia, Chicago and Pittsburgh.  In 1919 he batted .486 and helped take the Chicago White Sox into the World Series;.  This would be the infamous "Black Sox" series in which a scandal casued 8 members of the team to be suspended.  But not Murphy who stood alone untouched by the scandal.  Because of his sterling reputation the press dubbed him "Honest Eddie," a name which stayed with him the rest of his life.

It was neat to stumble upon this wonderful hotel and restaurant in this small out of the way community on the border of Pennsylvania.  The waitress told me, "Yes, we don't have a lot of famous people who were born here but we love "Honest Eddie" and we are proud to honor him at our restaurant.  In fact two weeks ago, Eddie's neice walked in the door to look at our memorabilia of her famous uncle (who died in 1969) to learn more about him."

Day One of my road trip to the Poconos brought me just the kind of surprise that I enjoy.  I stumbled upon a historic little town that had a fascinating history (they made the Louisville Slugger baseball bats here for decades), I uncovered a great story about a guy, "Honest Eddie", whose story needs to be told, and...I found a GREAT meatball sub on the far western fringe of Delaware County!