Mourning a radio legend

IT'S ONE OF those things that nag at you. You know, the last phone call or text that you got.

Looking back, you wish you'd responded instead of letting the moment pass. In my case, it was one from radio legend E. Steven Collins, who texted at 5:44 a.m. Saturday about his pool party at his home in Laverock later that day. It sounded fun, but I was headed out of town and never got back to him.

I wish I had, because the next I heard, Collins was gone. Dead at 58 of a massive heart attack that happened sometime Sunday night. As the news spread yesterday, people all over Philly were doing just what I had, reflecting on the last time they'd seen Collins, the unofficial mayor of Philadelphia.

A whole lot of folks had gotten that same early-morning text inviting us to his ranch-style home for an end-of-summer pool party for the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. From what I hear, the party was all that, with Collins himself manning the barbecue grill, passing out hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken. At one point, he grabbed the mic and thanked everyone for coming and took time out for special recognitions.

After things wound down, a handful of partygoers sat with him around his dining table discussing the upcoming Pennsylvania governor's race. The next morning, he did his weekly radio show, "Philly Speaks."

"I always think of it as Philly's black version of 'Meet the Press,' " said Vincent Thompson, principal at Thompson Mediaman Communications. "If you weren't on the show, people didn't know what you were doing within the black community. ''

In a very modern tribute to this great community activist, numerous people updated their profile pictures on Facebook to ones of them posing with Collins. The fact that so many had them tells you a lot.

"It's really hard to talk about E. He was just in my office last week," Mayor Nutter said, adding that they talked about the plight of city schools.

Yesterday, Collins was supposed to have been with state Sen. Vincent Hughes, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah and other men participating in the Million Father March to Overbrook High School in a back-to-school event. His absence left a gaping hole.

"All the men were looking at each other," said Mannwell Glenn, a former radio personality and now a consultant for Councilman Curtis Jones. "Everybody had that on their minds."

"Vincent Hughes announced on the microphone, 'We all got a wake-up call today,' " Glenn said, referring to their health.

Although Glenn said he didn't know of Collins having any health issues, he recalled Collins saying that he needed to get in shape just this past July. "He was getting older and kind of chunky. He mentioned that to me," Glenn recalled.

Maybe, but Collins was younger in his soul than a whole lot of 30-year-olds. In December, when Philly set out for a Guinness World Record for having the world's longest Soul Train line, Collins was there grinning and dressed in a huge Afro wig.

For his last birthday, he threw himself a bash in December at the Barnes Foundation that included a two-tiered cake, champagne and a huge crowd of friends and well-wishers. He enjoyed a good time all right, but he was a man of substance more than anything.

The last time I saw him, E. Steven Collins was fired up about Philadelphia magazine's controversial cover story "Being White in Philly." At a public forum to discuss the piece, Collins let the Philly mag editor have it so bad, I was all but wincing for the guy by the time Collins had finished.

But I've been with those on the receiving end, too. I've seen him go at the Daily News in the same way after we ran a less-than-enthusiastic editorial about a 2007 effort to get 10,000 black men organized to fight crime in Philadelphia. I knew there was trouble when he marched into the newsroom with music legend Kenny Gamble, among others, and wasn't smiling and glad-handing folks the way he usually did.

I could go on and on with examples of how Collins made an impact on this city.

But I won't, because, frankly, there aren't enough words to explain who he was and how he made things better.

So I'll say, simply, "Thanks, E." The E, by the way, stands for everything.

- Staff writer Regina Medina contributed to this report.