On Thursday night, against my better judgment, I watched the televised debate on WQED between the seven candidates for mayor of Picksberg. After reading about their records, watching their commercials and now, seeing them in action, I can say confidently to all of the Pittsburghers I know that no matter what happens on Tuesday, you are hosed.
Aw, I don't mean that. Actually, it was quite entertaining --- particularly interesting were Lester Ludwig and Louis "Hop" Kendrick, who I hadn't seen on TV during this campaign before. Kendrick is one hell of a powerful speaker. I don't know if that qualifies him to be mayor --- maybe a talk-show host --- but he sure can talk, although he lost me several times. Kendrick made the point that if he were elected, the state Legislature --- controlled by Republicans --- would be more willing to cooperate with him than any other Democratic candidate. Something about his independence, despite the fact that he's running as a Democrat. I couldn't quite parse that, but maybe you can. Anyway, I think it would be great for the second-largest city in the sixth-largest state to have a mayor people call "Hop."
Lester Ludwig is an interesting bloke, too, despite his unfortunate resemblance to Christopher Lloyd in the Back to the Future movies. I kept expecting him to leap from his chair and shout, "One-point-twenty-one gigawatts! One-point-twenty-one gigawatts!" Ludwig seems like a very sincere gentleman, but he seemed to be answering questions like a kid who had crammed for the exam on the school bus. "Pittsburgh has a strong mayor type of government, not a city manager type of government," he said at one point, and then proceeded to explain what the difference was. Well, thanks for the civics lesson, Les, but what's the point? And the bad attempts at name-dropping. Oy! "I was talking just the other day to the head of transportation in Allegheny County," Les said. Allegheny County has a "head" of transportation? Who he?
That brings me to the Big 3 --- Messrs. Lamb, Peduto and O'Connor. Kendrick, bless him, nailed Bob O'Connor on several issues --- most notably on his fund-raising. The O'Connor campaign machine, it should surprise no one to learn, has raised about twice the folding green that the next nearest challenger (Lamb) has collected. And several times, when quizzed about the big cash pile in his coffers, and what his donors might expect in return, O'Connor looked like he wanted to throttle the moderators, Chris Moore and Stacy Smith. (Both of whom, incidentally, didn't allow the candidates to weasel out of answering the questions. The people who moderate the presidential debates should be as good.)
I like O'Connor, but he has the habit of finishing different sentences than he started; on the other hand, since malaprops and non sequiturs didn't disqualify Dubya from being President of the United States, I don't see that some fractured syntax should prevent O'Connor from becoming Mayor of Pittsburgh. I also happen to think that O'Connor is one hell of a politician, and in a lot of ways, what Pittsburgh needs right now is a hell of a politician to start repairing some of the severely strained relationships between different government agencies, labor unions and residents. Whether he's independent enough from the old guard that's been in power in Pittsburgh since Jesus was in kneepants is another question. I'm not sure O'Connor would be able to make the kind of politically unpopular choices that need to be made --- more about that in a minute.
Peduto is the favorite of the smart set. He's done a great deal of networking with young people, high-tech whizzes and the artsy-fartsy crowd. But I some how doubt that the babushka- and fedora-wearing senior citizens who form the biggest block of voters in Pittsburgh feel all that connected to the high-tech and arts communities. Indeed, a lot of older Pittsburghers view young newcomers with suspicion. Now, I happen to think that's one of the problems around here, but it's a political reality, and Peduto hasn't really addressed that weakness in his campaign. Peduto has mentioned the strong support that he's received in the East End of the city, but he's not running for Mayor of Forbes and Murray. Still, watching Peduto, I can't help but think, he's got a lot on the ball, and he'd make one hell of a city manager. If O'Connor wins --- and all of the "experts" seem to think he's a lock --- he could do a lot worse than choosing Peduto for that post, or as a deputy mayor.
I'm actually a little bit disappointed that Michael Lamb hasn't gotten more support. He seems to combine Peduto's best risk-taking qualities with some of O'Connor's hale-fellow-well-met political skills. It's unfortunate for Lamb that he's spent much of his political career in the prothonotary's office, which is the closest thing to a witness protection program that Allegheny County has to offer. (Quick! Name the last three prothonotaries.) Most people can't spell "prothonotary" or describe what one does, much less name who that person is. So when Lamb talks about his efforts to reform the prothonotary's office, he might as well be describing the theories of Wittgenstein.
I know next to nothing about the Republican, Joe Weinroth. Despite not being a resident of Pittsburgh, I will endeavor to find out more. From his appearance in last night's debate, he struck me as a thoughtful guy, and I won't even hold the fact that he's a Republican against him. If a Republican can't get a decent shot at becoming mayor of Pittsburgh this year, than it may never happen. And likewise, if the party doesn't throw some serious money behind this guy and give the Democratic mayoral candidate a race for once, then it doesn't deserve the office anyway.
You know what nobody said, though? And they danced all around the issue. It was alluded to, hinted at, whistled past, and crawled over, but never addressed head-on. They all talk about how the City of Pittsburgh has to protect its employees, but what about its taxpayers? Who says that city government is supposed to be a full-employment program?
They call Social Security the "third rail" of national politics? Well, that's the "third rail" of Pittsburgh politics. The candidates don't want to say "our labor costs are too high, we've got too many employees for a city of our size, and we need to cut back," because whatever union (or unions) that's about to be gored will crucify them, and I say that as a union man.
I don't want to see anyone lose their jobs, but at some point, someone has to use some common sense; the City of Pittsburgh can't keep employing the same number of employees (and politicians!) that it did when its population was twice the current number.
Anyway, I've got no dog in the fight, so whomever wins, I wish them the very best of luck. I just have to worry about the election for mayor and borough council of North Bittyburg, and I don't know who any of the candidates are.
Instead, I'm going to use the time-honored method handed down to me years ago by my grandfather: "Jason," he said, "always vote for the guy with the Hungarian name, and if there isn't anybody, vote for the Democrat."
This being a primary election, all I can do is vote for the Democrat, but if there's anyone running for office in North Bittyburg this year with a first name of Laszlo, Janos, Imre or Ferenc, he's got my vote.
...
To Do This Weekend: McKeesport Little Theater, corner of Coursin and Bailey streets, Our Fair City, presents Neil Simon's "Jake's Women," tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Call (412) 673-1100. ... McKeesport Symphony Orchestra presents "Golden Moments from the Silver Screen," 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium of McKeesport Area High School, 1960 Eden Park Blvd., Our Fair City. The concert will feature flautist Stephanie Miller, winner of MSO's "Young Artists Competition." Call (412) 664-2854.
As we helpfully were informed earlier this week by Peter Leo, today is National Limerick Day. As usual on these occasions, we were moved to verse:
A quite nervous bloke from Versailles,
Had the habit of biting his nails.
His wife in frustration,
Sent him out on vacation.
Now he's pulling his hair out in Wales.
A nasty young lad from Port Vue,
Had a day off with nothing to do.
So he tortured a frog,
Shaved the hair off his dog,
And flushed his poor cat down the loo.
Said an e
teelworker named Bart:
"I'm trying hard not to lose heart,
"But when I worked in Duquesne,
"I ran a fifty-ton crane,
"Now I'm a greeter out at the Wal-Mart."
A dirty old man in West Mifflin,
Lived his days in an orgy of sin.
He'd gamble all morn,
Spend his lunchtime with porn,
And at night consume gallons of gin.
Many a Mon Valley nipper,
Feeling unusually chipper,
Has just two words spoken,
Quote: "Kennywood's open."
Which means, "Please examine your zipper."
A young girl on the Christy Park bus,
Said "I don't mean to be making a fuss,
"But on Walnut we ran over,
"A beagle named Rover,
"An old lady and a man in a truss."
This one was inspired by a recent event in the news:
The former police chief in Rankin,
Ill-gotten profits was bankin'
His defense wasn't cricket:
He tried eating the ticket,
And earned magisterial spankin'.
These limericks are public service announcements:
Next Tuesday's primary election,
Is escaping the voters' detection.
Except in Pittsburgh, alas,
Where the voters, en masse,
Await Mayor Murphy's ejection.
County Executive Dan Onorato,
Speaking in voice quite staccato,
Says "Please reject the norm,
"Vote for row-office reform!"
(Would he have better luck playing the lotto?)
And finally:
I hope that you won't get all snitty,
If these limericks don't seem that witty.
You can post your retort,
Even if you're not from the 'port.
(Also called "Our Fair City.")
...
P.S.: At the bottom of a page of this blog,
Was a great poem about "Underdog."
The author, no rube,
Called himself "Dr. Boob,"
But his real name's not in my log.
(Go read it here.)
I was going to go off today on a long rant about Amtrak. I have to do some traveling later this summer, and wanted to see if I could go by train instead of plane, at least on the way home.
I'm fully prepared for the fact that the trip --- which would take a few hours by plane --- will take me better than a day and a half on the train. I figured I could use the time to catch up on some work and maybe do some writing.
OK, so I'm making that up. I suspect I'd do the same thing I always do in those kinds of situations --- walk around and B.S. with strangers, stare out the window aimlessly, nap and read. But you could do worse with a day's vacation, I think.
I'd also be forced to change trains at Washington Union Station. But that's fine, too: I haven't seen Union Station since it was renovated.
Anyway, I used Amtrak's webpage to see how close I could get to the town I'll be departing from, and it looked like it wasn't very close. In fact, it looked like there was no service to that part of the state at all. Then I checked my April 1968 issue of The Official Guide of the Railways (what, doesn't everyone have one?) and looked up the same route.
There were no fewer than five daily trains between my destination and Washington, D.C. back in 1968 --- when passenger train travel in this country was in its death throes. (Amtrak, after all, was created by the Nixon administration in 1971 to relieve the railroads of the supposed burden of carrying passengers, which is why I get so amused when politicians talk about "privatizing" it --- the private sector didn't want to provide public transportation in the first place. But I digress.)
So I worked myself up into a fine, white lather of fury on Tuesday --- why, in 35 years we've gone backward! We're now getting worse service! If I can't get my choice of Amtrak trains to a major city, then what good is Amtrak? It's not providing any alternative, so it's time to kill it off altogether! Harrumph! Harrumph!
Tuesday night, I gave up on the lousy Amtrak "trip scheduler" and just downloaded a printable Amtrak timetable. It turns out there are two trains serving the metro area that I'll be visiting, and they actually both stop in the tiny town where my last appointment will be. They depart at about 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. respectively, so I wouldn't even be catching them in the middle of the night.
Um. Well, then. Maybe I can rant about the high price of an Amtrak ticket? Yes, that's it! Back to the Official Guide, where I see that the fare in 1968 was about $33, or about $182 in today's money.
The fare now is about $99.
Oh.
Maybe Amtrak is running much slower than the 1968 trains --- yes, that's it! According to the Guide, the trip in 1968 took 25 hours. The trip now is scheduled at 21 hours (though I suspect that it rarely pulls into Washington on schedule).
Well. Er. See, the thing is ... yes. Um.
I suppose I could complain about the crappy web interface that Amtrak uses, but that would be like complaining to the waitress at Eat 'n Park that my pancakes weren't quite fluffy enough. It's a fine hair to split. Thus did a righteous roar of Almanac indignation die an ignoble death on Tuesday.
So, um ... never mind. See you Thursday.
I was up in State College on Sunday. Were you aware that there's a university of some sort up there? Apparently it was in all of the papers.
And cows. Lots and lots of cows. I can't imagine going to a college where you can see cows grazing out on the other side of the football stadium. Where I went to college, we had lots of bull manure, but it was produced by the faculty and the students, not by actual bovines.
(Although, now that I think of it, our college also had --- and still has --- a mania for dumping cow manure on the lawns, which can make an impromptu touch football game on the quad a bit of a stinky affair, and which gives the whole campus a certain barnyard aroma. But I digress.)
I always feel like a spy, hanging around State College, like I should be surreptitiously taking photos and bringing them back to my bosses. I walk down North Atherton Street with a feeling of dread; at any minute I expect a blue and white, windowless van to pull alongside. The door will slide open and two burly guys in trenchcoats will drag me aboard, stuffing a rag soaked in chloroform into my mouth. I'll come to in the basement of the Pattee Library, where a bright light will be shining in my eyes.
In the corner, I'll be able to dimly make out a man with a pompadour and dark prescription sunglasses. He holds a football. "We have ways of makin' you talk, wiseguy," he says in a Brooklyn accent.
Nothing of the sort happened, of course. Actually, State College last weekend looked kind of like one of those Twilight Zone episodes set in the aftermath of a neutron bomb attack --- the buildings were standing, but there were no students around. I stopped in a fast-food restaurant downtown for a quick sandwich, and was the only person in the place who didn't work there. The employees were sitting around in the dining room, reading the Sunday paper, and seemed startled to have a customer.
Normally I wouldn't eaten at a chain, but time was of the essence. I don't have to recommend the Diner to you, do I? You surely know about it? The inventors of the grilled sticky? That and a hot roast beef sandwich and some coffee will just about arm you for the rest of the day. Alas, I was stuck with a grease bomb from Arby's.
I did have time on the way out of town to stop at the Ag Arena, where the State College chapter of the American Association of University Women was holding its annual book sale. They tarp over the floor of the horse show ring (I'm assuming they shovel it out first) and sell thousands and thousands of books --- some junk, some gems, and a lot of bestsellers from five or 10 years ago. Supposedly it's one of the largest used book sales on the East Coast.
Any writer who thinks he's hot stuff ought to take a walk through a used book sale, where hardcover tomes that were labored on for a year or more are now stacked in damp cardboard boxes along with old copies of National Geographic and a bunch of Harlequin bodice-rippers. If someone happens to read this and you're within an easy drive of State College, you've got until 9 p.m. tonight to buy some books. Today you can fill a grocery bag for $5.
Among other things, I picked up Ben Hamper's Rivethead, which I had always wanted to read, but never got around to before. If you saw Roger & Me, you saw Hamper. He'll forever be remembered, for better or worse, as the guy shooting baskets and singing "Wouldn't It Be Nice" as he tells the story of having a nervous breakdown on an assembly line in Flint, Mich. When I got home, I looked up Ben Hamper. It will surprise no one at all, I suppose, to learn that he's got his own web page on Michael Moore's server where you can sample his writing.
There was also a pile of used Bibles for sale. Used Bibles are every bit as good as a new one, I guess; you don't hear about them being updated very often --- "If you liked the Book of Revelations, you'll love the new Bible's all-new ending!" But these were presentation bibles, the kind that you give to a child on their confirmation or first communion. Some of them were still inscribed --- "For Joe Smith from Pastor John Jones, May 1, 1963," etc. Nobody gives their presentation Bible away to the used book sale, do they? All I can think is that the original owners had died, and whoever cleaned out their houses gave away the books to the book sale. It's kind of depressing to think about.
The other thing that's kind of depressing is that Sheetz has completely taken over Central Pennsylvania. It is to gas stations in the Johnstown-Altoona-State College corridor what Wal-Mart is to discount stores everywhere else. You have a hard time finding a gas station that isn't a Sheetz, and it seems like every burg big enough to have at least one intersection has a 16-pump Sheetz station.
I suppose Pennsylvanians should be proud that Sheetz has grown to become such an important player in retail --- and after all, it's based in Altoona, so why wouldn't it saturate that market? The problem was that I wanted to fill up the car with gas, don't have a credit card for Sheetz, and I didn't want to put a tank of gas onto my MasterCard, but I couldn't find any stations from the three large, multinational oil companies that I do have credit cards for. As it was, I made it back to Our Fair City with gas to spare, both in me, and in the car.
Now, if someone could only tell me why this blue and white van trailed me home and keeps hanging around my neighborhood, I'd be happy.
I was looking for an address on Saturday afternoon, took a wrong turn, as usual, and wound up in one of the worst traffic jams I've ever seen. Couldn't go forward --- there were fire trucks and cop cars everywhere --- and couldn't go backward --- there were two tri-axle coal trucks behind me.
So I did the next best thing. I went sideways into the parking lot of the Tastee-Freez, got a cone, and walked down to see what all the fuss was about. According to the sign on the little brick post office, I was in a place called Saltpeter Borough.
Behind the barricades on the main street through town, I could see smoke, flashing lights, and water everywhere. A gaggle of people --- senior citizens, young women pushing strollers, a couple of kids on bikes --- was watching. A Dodge truck with blue flashing lights and a sign saying "FIRE POLICE" was blocking the road; on the running board sat a guy wearing a baseball cap that said "SALTPETER VFD" and a blue T-shirt with a maltese cross on it. He was sticking a pinch of Skoal in between his cheek and his gum.
"Big fire, huh?" I said.
"Mm-memprph-terrorithmm," he said, taking his fingers out of his mouth.
"Terrorism?" I cried.
"Sorry," he said. "We're simulating terrorism. It's a drill." Behind him, I could see about a dozen two and three-story brick buildings, with a Pennzoil station on one end and a Family Dollar at the other. The town appeared to have one traffic light, and that was flashing yellow.
"No offense," I said, "but that seems kind of dumb."
He squinted up at me, a little tobacco juice running down his lip. "You some kinda weirdo?" he asked. "Don't you remember 9-11? You like terrorism?"
"Hell, no!" I said. "I'm a charter member of the NRA." (I didn't tell him that I meant the Nelson Riddle Admiration society.)
He picked up a cardboard iced tea carton and spat into it. I instantly lost my appetite for soft-serve ice cream.
"Terrorism is everybody's problem," he said. "Fella came down from Harrisburg a few months ago and said we all should be drillin'."
A group of Boy Scouts carrying jugs of water crossed the street behind us. "Besides," he said, "we saw on the news where Pittsburgh was gonna hold a drill, and it was gonna cost 750 grand, and we figured we gotta get some of that money, some how. Borough council said the budget was light by about 40 grand this year."
"So how much is all this costing?" I said.
"About four thou. But we're billin' the feds for forty-four."
"How does that work?"
He spat into the tea carton again, then pointed down the street to where a group of women were standing behind a card table and an electric roasting pan. "The VFW ladies are feedin' us lunch today. Sloppy joes, ham barbecues, potato salad and orange drink. Know how much they're billin' the borough?"
"How much?"
"Fifteen bucks for a sloppy joe and 20 for a ham barbecue."
"Pretty expensive," I said, wiping some of the melting ice cream off of my hand and onto my pants.
"If the freakin' Pentagon can pay 600 bucks for a toilet seat, we can pay 15 for a Manwich," he said. "Then the kick the extra money back to the borough, and we can use it to buy WMDs."
"You mean Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
"No, 'What's More Deserving,'" he said. "The borough building needs a new boiler, the cop car needs a transmission, and there's a sewer collapse over on Elm Street. The federal government don't have no money for that stuff, but they do give out lots of money for homeland security."
"How's the drill going so far?" I asked, flipping what was left of the ice cream to a dog that was eyeing it, hungrily.
"Pretty good, I guess," he said, spitting again. "Chief of police come up a while ago, said they've secured the area and are now working to decontaminate people. We got lucky, 'cause the high school musical was last week, and they had a bunch of makeup and props left over. They're our victims. Some of them people is a little bit too eager to play dress-up, if you ask me."
"Any problems?"
"A couple of junior firefighters turned hoses on each other at lunchtime. Lieutenant went over, chewed their asses out. To punish them, he told them they hadda be dead bodies for the rest of the afternoon."
"That's too bad."
"You kiddin' me?" he said, sticking some more Skoal into his lip. "That's freakin' great. Any time you can get two 15-year-old boys to lie still and keep their fat yaps shut for a coupla hours, I got no complaints."
"So what's the scenario you're playing out?"
"Well, Stosh Zerpanski was a suicide bomber, and he was supposed to crash his truck into the high-test pump at Mittler's Pennzoil. I guess he got a bit too excited, 'cause he come flyin' up over the sidewalk and wiped out a big stack of them gallon jugs of windshield washer fluid. Old Man Mittler was screamin' and hollerin', but we promised to pay for it.
"Then we had a poison-gas attack down at Sue Ann's coffee shop, but if you ever been there when she runs the corned beef and cabbage special, you know that ain't far-fetched.
"Over at the beauty shop there, Johnny D'Amata got his deer rifle and took hostages in the back of the hair dryers, and the police auxiliaries are surrounding the building. But if one more of them jagoffs gets on the radio and says the situation is 'hairy,' I'm gonna go over and shoot 'em myself.
"At Judy's Hallmark, they got a suspicious UPS package, and there's three people in Dr. Harish's office with flesh-eatin' bacteria. We wanted to get O'Shannon's Printing to pretend a dirty bomb went off, but Bill O'Shannon and our chief had a fight, and Bill said we should go screw off, 'cause he was going fishing today.
"So other than O'Shannon's, we wiped out every business on Elm Street here except for the hardware store," he said.
"Why didn't you wipe out the hardware store?" I said.
He spat into the tea carton again. "We kinda figured that the way things were goin', we'd just let Wal-Mart do that."
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