Ex-reporter, EMT makes breath-defying music

From saving lives to saving Irish bagpipe music

by LEN LEAR

Long-time Chestnut Hill resident Jeff Meade knows all about the imbalance of payments that tends to characterize the economy of the heart.

“You have to do some things (like make bagpipe band music and work as an emergency medical technician, in his case) purely out of love, not money,” explained Jeff, who started playing music as a drum major at Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster in the late 1960s. “Whatever money you may get as a bagpipe band member would barely pay for the beer you have after a performance. And you have to put a lot of money out of your own pocket before you can even perform this music.

“For example, a good kilt costs about $500, and a tunic is another $500. Then a ‘sporran’ (looks like a purse) costs $250, and a (bag)pipe band uniform, which ladies in Scotland make by hand, is between $1,250 and $1,500. . . We need bass drummers now, but when you talk to a teenage boy about putting on a kilt, you can see the curtain fall. If they will just listen to the music, though, they are blown away. . . Speaking of the kilts, I have been in parades where women lie down in the street to try to see what we are wearing under the kilts.”

Meade, 53, who grew up in Willow Grove but has spent most of the last 23 years in Chestnut Hill, has had not one but three creative careers — newspaper/magazine/TV reporter, emergency medical technician and Irish bagpipe band drummer. His band, the Philadelphia Emerald Society, which has participated in 18 bagpipe band competitions in the U.S. — with several second and third place showings but no first place finishes yet — will perform at the Irish Weekend September 24 to 26 in Wildwood, NJ. They will play in a parade Sunday and in a bagpipe music exhibit on Saturday.

The Emerald Society Band — six snare drummers, two tenor drummers, a bass drummer and 10 to 12 bagpipers — one of about 10 in the Delaeware Valley, rehearses every Thursday, 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., at the Commodore Barry Club in West Mt. Airy. They also sit in and play at times at the Mermaid Inn in Chestnut Hill. “We love the music and the crowd at Mermaid,” said Jeff, “but we hate the cigarette smoke.”

Meade grew up in Willow Grove, where his dad, now retired, managed a bakery at night and worked for the Mrs. Smith pie company in the daytime. “We always had good breakfasts,” recalled Jeff. “Not very well balanced, but we didn’t care.”

Jeff majored in journalism at Temple University, graduating in 1973. While still at Temple, Meade became a “stringer” for the Hatboro-Horsham Public Spirit, where he became a full-time reporter after graduation. After two years there, he was hired by the much-bigger Bucks County Courier times, where he stayed for 10 years.

“It was a great place to be a reporter,” Jeff insisted, “because you were exposed to so much. Political corruption was an Olympic sport there, like in South Philly. . . When the country had a gasoline shortage and there were long lines at the pumps, we were the only place in the country where there was a riot. A lot of people were hurt, including our reporters. . . We had some really good people there who went on to jobs at some major newspapers.”

After the Courier-Times, Meade took a job with Prevention magazine and then another magazine, Children, published by the same company, Rodale Press, in Emmaus, near Allentown. He drove 70 minutes each way every day. After two years, Jeff was hired by a new magazine, Teacher, in Washington, D.C. “It was a great magazine,” he said, “if you wanted to know how to make puppets out of toilet paper tubes.”

After 18 months, Jeff moved back to Philly and commuted for two years to Washington three days a week while working for a higher education journal. Jeff would take a train at the 30th Street Station at 5:40 a.m. and get to the office in Washington at 8 a.m., long before the employees who lived nearby. He would leave on the train in Washington at 7:30 p.m., arriving home in Philly at 10:30. He would spend six hours traveling to and from home.

“On the train I had so much time that I would read all through the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post and New York Times every trip. I was very well informed. I was afraid that if I fell asleep, I would wake up in Charlestown, South Carolina.”

Jeff eventually gave up the endless travel and started an interactive cable news TV channel with a friend from the Courier Times. It lasted three years. He then wrote guides for the Discovery Channel and did freelance stories for education-oriented magazines, covering topics “from undergraduate education to lawn ornaments, ‘glow-glows’ and fat fannies.”

From 1997 to 2001 Meade was news director for a consumer health web site started by U.S. Health Care. “We got so many ‘hits’ from people asking health-related questions that the thing crashed. In traditional newspapers, you may write an article and get one letter. With an interactive web site, though, you’re still telling stories and getting lots of responses. It’s thrilling. People would volunteer to stay late at work because they loved it.”

Since 2001 Meade has been web managing editor for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF.org), the largest foundation in the country devoted exclusively to health care issues.

In 1982, after writing an article about the Springfield (Montgomery County) Ambulance Service, Jeff underwent paramedic training and became a volunteer himself for the service for 20 years, and chief for one year. Every Friday he was on duty from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. He dealt with countless medical emergencies, mostly involving heart attacks, chest pains and serious accidents.

“It’s a horrifying thing to have to pound on someone’s chest and move him around like a sack of potatoes,” he said. “It’s not a time for gentle treatment but for aggressive treatment. We’d try to keep family members out. We would seem callous at the time, but we’d have to go through a certain sequence of steps, and we could not get emotionally involved. Some cases did stick with me, though.

“That kind of work does make you value every second of life because you can be taken away at any time. Most of the volunteers were among the finest people I have ever known. Some put in a lot more time than I did. They just amazed me.”

Jeff has two brothers —­Michael, 50, of Chalfont, a full-time musician who sings and plays guitar in area bars and clubs; and Mac, 43, of Willow Grove, a mail carrier in Huntingdon Valley and drummer in Jeff’s drum line; and one sister, Pam, 46, of Willow Grove, who owns and operates the Jenna-James Hair Salon in Willow Grove. Jeff’s wife, Diane, is a reference librarian for companies in the area, and they have one daughter, Sarah, 17, a senior at Gwynedd Mercy High School.

For more information about the Emerald Bagpipe Band or to try out for it, call 215-242-0209 or visit emeraldpipers.com