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For years, my wife has been in pursuit of the perfect hamburger. While a lot of carnivores share this quest, it should be noted that Mrs. Pincus has kept a strictly kosher diet for over forty years. Eating kosher meat within the privacy of one's home is a fairly easy task. At one time, a kosher butcher shop was the only outlet for certified kosher meat. As time went on and the number of families seeking kosher products increased, major supermarkets began stocking a variety of commercially-packaged meats along with other mashgiach- supervised groceries. Thus, the preparation of kosher meals at home is not difficult, however finding a decent kosher restaurant in the Philadelphia area is another story.

In New York, the city that never sleeps, you can swing a tallit over your head and hit six kosher restaurants with no effort. But Philadelphia, the fifth largest city in the country with the sixth largest population of Jews (206,000 of 'em), can't keep a kosher restaurant in business to save its life. In the thirty years since I began to observe the laws of kashrut, I have seen kosher eateries come and go as quickly and abruptly as the Rea Sea swallowed up Pharoah's army. The problem with the majority of these places is they are either run by people with no business or restaurant experience or they are filthy and unappetizing. One day, my in-laws told us of yet another new kosher restaurant that opened in Northeast Philadelphia and my wife and I decided to give it a try. Perhaps this will be the one that makes Mrs. Pincus' Hamburger Hall of Fame.

We drove out to the Northeast and pulled into the parking lot of one of the many cookie-cutter strip centers that line Castor Avenue. Squeezed between a credit union and a dry cleaner was a small storefront passing itself off as a restaurant. Once inside, we had our choice of tables, since we were the only customers. (That was not particularly encouraging considering it was the customary dinner hour.) We sat and were greeted and handed laminated menus by a young waitress. I perused the surprisingly numerous offerings. My wife, however, studies the "Hamburger" section of the menu, her eyes not straying to other areas — no matter how enticing. A few minutes later, the waitress returned and we placed our order. I'm sure I ordered something simple and sandwich-y. My wife ordered a hamburger with some cutesy name, but a hamburger no less. The restaurant's decor left a lot to be desired, so we chit-chatted while we waited for our meals.

Soon, the waitress approached our table with two plates laden with steaming food. My wife's burger looked delicious — decorated with green lettuce, red tomato and a variety of condiments — and judging by the way she savored every bite, it tasted delicious as well. All through dinner, Mrs. Pincus talked about how much she enjoyed her burger and when we finished and were presented with the check, she expressed her pleasure with the meal to the waitress before even being asked.

When I arrived home the next day and inquired about dinner plans, my wife excitedly suggested the restaurant from the previous evening. She said she had thought about the burger from the night before and really wanted another one. So, again, we trekked out to the Northeast for a repeat performance from the chef at the new kosher restaurant. We essentially mimicked our actions from the night before, right down to occupying the same table. On this evening, a different waitress took our order and we chuckled that a place with such sparse business needed more than one server. Of course, Mrs. Pincus ordered the same burger. A short time later, the waitress returned and placed a platter before my wife. It didn't look remotely like the b

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Ever since a visit to a California airfield, Douglas Corrigan became interested in flight. He began taking flying lessons at an airfield where aircraft manufacturers B.P. Mahoney and T.C. Ryan ran a small airline. He eventually took a job at their San Diego factory.

Just after Douglas was hired, a young aviator named Charles Lindbergh contacted Mahoney and Ryan with plans for a specialized craft. Douglas assembled The Spirit of St. Louis' wing and installed its gas tanks and instrument panel. When Lindbergh took off from San Diego to prepare for his famous flight from New York, Douglas personally pulled the chocks out from the wheels of the aircraft. When news of Lindbergh's success reached Douglas and his co-workers, they were excited, but Douglas vowed to someday make his own transatlantic flight.

In 1929, Douglas received his pilot's license and he purchased a used monoplane. He began to modify the craft, readying it for his own flight of glory. Unfortunately, the government repeatedly rejected Douglas' applications for transatlantic flight. He had flown from San Diego to New York on quite a few occasions and was certain that his modified plane could make the trip across the ocean. The US government believed otherwise.


On July 8, 1938, Douglas left San Diego for New York, a trip he had made many times. His official flight plan had him returning to California on July 17. Douglas took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn in a thick fog. He flew east and claimed he had become disoriented. With the fog refusing to lift and visibility at its poorest, Douglas was only able to fly with aid from his compass. Twenty-six hours into the flight, he dropped below cloud level and noticed a large body of water beneath him. According to his account, Douglas realized that he had been following the wrong end of his compass's magnetic needle. After twenty-eight hours and thirteen minutes in the air, Douglas touched his plane down at Baldonnel Airport in Dublin, Ireland.

When officials questioned him, Douglas stuck with his story of getting lost in the clouds and flying the wrong way. Upon his arrival back in the United States, the newly-nicknamed "Wrong Way" Corrigan was given a hero's welcome. The New York Post printed a front-page headline that read "Hail to Wrong Way Corrigan!" — and the headline ran backwards. Douglas also received a ticker-tape parade down Broadway with more people lining the sidewalks than had turned out to honor Charles Lindbergh after his transatlantic flight.

Long after his fame had faded, Douglas retired to an orange farm in Santa Ana, California. He passed away in December 1985 and he never changed his story.

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