Filed Under: default || By jt3y
Category: default || By jt3y
Allow me to talk about myself for a minute, hmm? I try not to do that at the Almanac, but I think I'm entitled once in a while, and if yinz don't like it, well, see you later.
If it seems like I am filling the Almanac with more scrawls than bloviations lately, there is a simple reason for that --- the book is due to the publisher by May, so I'm frantically trying to whip the manuscript into some sort of shape.
Add to that a number of writing projects at my real job and the need to write copy at my weekend job, and there's not much verbiage left in the tank some days. Sitting down at the drawing table and scribbling out a cartoon, on the other hand, provides a certain amount of relaxation. Your indulgence is appreciated.
Incidentally, regarding the book --- if you haven't checked out the website lately (www.gcmurphy.org), you might like to. I've been trying to keep it updated with fresh material, and one new feature is called "Photo of the Month." I'm posting images that I've acquired that are probably not going to make it into the book.
The current photo is a February image --- a Valentine's Day display window --- and there will be a new one for March on Thursday.
One of the "good news, bad news" situations is that I presently have enough material to fill three volumes. Former G.C. Murphy Co. employees and customers have been extraordinarily generous, and I continue to get emails and letters (it's "G.C. Murphy Book Project, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, PA 15134") on a weekly basis.
Unfortunately, Penn State Press wants 90,000 words. So we're going to have to figure out what to do with the rest of the material.
Just last week I received an email from someone in Indianapolis. He was a union steward at Murphy's Indianapolis warehouse from 1971 to 1978, and while going to night school at Indiana University, he wrote a master's thesis on working conditions and employee job satisfaction. Would I like to read it?
"Would I like to read it?" Does it rain in Indianapolis in the summertime?
Ultimately, much of what we collect going to end up with the rest of the G.C. Murphy Co. archive at McKeesport Heritage Center. The Murphy material (much of it stuff that was covertly spirited out of 531 Fifth Ave. before Ames could throw it away) currently fills several large file drawers.
It's some measure of the affection that people continue to have for Murphy's that since starting the book project, we have now collected at least two more good-sized boxes full of stories, newspaper clippings and mementos more than 20 years after Murphy's ceased to exist as an independent company. And that's not counting material I've acquired on my own over the last two years.
By comparison, the entire corporate archive of the McCrory Corporation --- a competing variety-store company that was once three times the size of G.C. Murphy Co., and controlled by one of the richest men in the United States, Meshulam Riklis --- fits into two standard boxes at the Historical Society of York County.
Since we can't publish all this stuff, and since not everyone is going to want to trek to McKeesport to see it, we may use the G.C. Murphy website to distribute some of the choicer bits. I would hate the stories and memories to not have a wider audience.
. . .
Meanwhile, Alert Reader Eric sends along a link to a common misspelling of the editor's last name. According to the website "toygers.org":
The Toyger is a designer cat. It is designed and bred with the demands of modern apartment life as a human companion foremost in mind. Glittered, pelted, dramatic pattern appeals to both the high-tech glamour and nature-loving, wild dreams of city-caught people while the laid back, easily trained character of these cats make them a joy to live with.
Category: default || By jt3y
‘The Ice Clog Debacle’:
Pennsylvanians don't really need to pay an outside consultant or to await the results of legislative hearings to figure out what happened on the state's ice-clogged interstate highways last week.
To wit, state government messed up. It was the job of PennDot and the state police to keep the highways in safe condition and to protect the public from life-threatening situations. Those agencies did neither. (Associated Press via Centre Daily Times)
The sale of beer in Pennsylvania's grocery and convenience stores could be halted by a Commonwealth Court ruling.
The court ruled today that Sheetz Inc. should not have been given a license to sell takeout beer from its Altoona store unless it planned to allow customers to drink beer inside the store. (Harrisburg Patriot-News)
Category: default || By jt3y
As the self-appointed online chronicler of the Mon-Yough area, I guess I need to mention the recent rash of shootings in and around the city, notably:
Category: default || By jt3y
An item in yesterday's Almanac misspelled the name of a new restaurant on Lysle Boulevard called The Enzone. We regret the error.
Also, a Jan. 26 story about the Port Authority public hearing at the Palisades misspelled the name of Pat McMahon, business agent of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85. We regret the error.
And on Jan. 18, the Almanac incorrectly surmised the location of McKeesport's notorious "Brick Alley" red-light district. It was located on Rose Alley.
The Almanac would like to issue these additional apologies and corrections:
Category: default || By jt3y
Today is Ash Wednesday, the day when Catholics and many Protestants never tire of hearing that immortal joke, "Hey, did you know there's something on your forehead?"
Alert Reader Tim passed along a column that appeared in the January issue of Western Pennsylvania Hospital News (motto: "One of Western Pennsylvania’s Great Newspapers About Hospitals") written by Jan Jennings, president of American Healthcare Solutions and a native of Our Fair City. You can read it at Jennings’ blog, but it’s worth quoting some of it here:
There were all kinds of stores, and the city was bustling in the 1950’s. There was one store that was first among equals, at least for my family. It was the Goodman’s Jewelry Store. It was a family business, and the senior Mr. Goodman, through my ten-year-old eyes, was probably 200 years old. He had a very serious looking and craggy face. But could he dress. To this day I always think of him as the best dressed man I ever saw. He had two sons in the business, and I suspect there were other family members involved as well. The store was always sparkling clean and lighted to show off the items for sale.
This store was special to our family. Somehow the Goodmans learned and remembered our names, all of our names. They were patient as my mother looked over all of the wonderful items we could never afford. The Goodmans had a kind and gentle spirit and found a way to steer my parents to items they both wanted and could afford. The Goodman men could wait on two or three people at one time and never seemed flustered or inattentive to their customers’ needs.
When Mr. Goodman saw one of my parents agonizing over the price of something they really wanted to buy, they almost always would find a way to provide a discount on the item. In doing so, it was always done with grace and never embarrassing to my parents. ...
My parents respected the owners of the Goodman’s Jewelry Store because they were always treated with kindness and respect any time they visited the store, in good times and in bad. ...
There were Sunday afternoon drives when we would drive through the better neighborhoods of McKeesport and became familiar with the location of the Goodman home. It was a beautiful place, modest by today’s standards. It is clear to me now that the Goodmans did not get rich serving that community, but they were always first to contribute to the local schools, police and fire departments and countless other local charities. They were Jewish, and we were Christian. It did not matter to them, and it did not matter to us.
For you whipper-snappers (how old am I, anyway?), Goodman’s was located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sinclair Street, in the building that’s currently occupied by the Coney Island convenience store.
Category: default || By jt3y
And now, a message from Connie Loughead, president and CEO of Elrama Airlines:
Dear Elrama Airlines Customers,
We are sorry and embarrassed. Last week was the worst week in Elrama Airlines’ history --- even worse than the aftermath of our ill-fated “Free Homemade Mayonnaise” promotion in 1994.
Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the need to apologize. We were founded on the promise of bringing low-cost, low-hassle, low-flying airplanes back into the reach of people with low standards, and we failed to live down to those last week.
Many of you were stranded, delayed or left to sit in fetid water for up to 11 hours following the severe ice storms in the Northeast. Many of you had trouble reaching us by telephone as a result of the “Beverly Hillbillies” marathon on TVLand. (Mother assures me that she will leave the phone, or at least the answering machine, plugged in during next month’s “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” marathon.)
Although Elrama Airlines cannot prevent severe weather, the crew of Flight 139 should have recognized that some of our passengers have heart conditions or other physical problems, and that it was a bad idea to ask them to shovel the runway at the Greene County Airport. In the future, we will hire local children, or possibly buy a snowblower.
Also, I certainly understand why passengers of Flight 226 from Butler, Pa., to Hagerstown, Md., via Troy, Ohio, became upset when the starboard engine fell off over Parkersburg, W.Va., but the plane involved in that incident was serviced just before takeoff, and our lawyers will be in touch with Boomer’s Amoco in Evans City to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
And for those of you on board that flight: Screaming at the pilot only made things worse. He was having a hard enough time flying without a fuel gauge or altimeter.
To ensure that our employees are working at peak efficiency, I have eliminated the “Brewmeister” machines from our crew lounges and removed DVD players, iPods, “Easy Bake Ovens” and other distractions from all of our cockpits.
More importantly, I have created the Elrama Airlines Passenger Bill of Rights. You have my guarantee that if your flight is delayed more than three hours, six-ounce cans of pop will be half-price (sorry, discount does not apply to Coca-Cola products). In addition, if your plane fails to reach its destination, we will refund a pro-rated portion of your ticket price to you, or your next of kin.
We worked hard to regain your trust in 2003 when Flight 178 from Bellefonte to St. Mary’s inadvertently took off without a licensed pilot onboard. On the advice of our attorneys, I am authorized to say that we may or may not, within the best of our abilities, and at our option, try to win you back again.
Sincerely Yours,
Conrad “Connie” Loughead
President and CEO
Finleyville-Cayman Islands Aviation LLC
d/b/a Elrama Airlines
Category: default || By jt3y
This story isn't really relevant to anything, but I thought I'd share it anyway. Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues has been in the news recently, and I ...
Hold on. Someone at the back is laughing. What's so funny? Would you like to share it with the rest of the class?
I didn't think so.
Anyway, the play debuted while I was in college. I was working for the college newspaper when the campus women's center staged its own production, and the features editor assigned a reporter to review it.
Now, I need to explain that we were using a headline font called "Franklin Gothic," which has pretty wide letters, and that meant you couldn't fit very many words on a line. Also, the managing editor was constantly telling us that we had to use "action words" in our headlines.
You couldn't write a headline like "University To Appoint Study Committee," because that was a passive sentence, and the words "university" and "committee" were too long. Instead, you'd write something like "Deans Plan Study Group" or "Deans Study Plan Group" or "Groups Study Plan Deans" or "Plans Dean Groups Study."
The night before the paper came out, the features editor sent the page with the review over to the proofreaders, who worked in a dingy little office adjoining the newsroom. Suddenly we heard peals of laughter from next door.
The headline on the story was "'Vagina' Defines Women."
I don't remember what the new headline was, but the old one made our "wall of shame," and I although I don't think I had any headlines on the "wall of shame," I had a lot of crunks.
Actually, the worst headline I ever wrote made it into print. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws organized a rally on campus, and we had a feature photo, and I wanted to be clever and tie the rally to a current movie, so I wrote the headline ... wait for it ... "Dazed and Confused?"
Funny, right? No, it wasn't, and I have no excuse, except maybe that I was tired, smug and 19 years old, and oh, you should have seen the letters to the editor that week. We could have run them under the headline "Stupidity Defines Editor."
. . .
Speaking of Stupidity: Do you remember the Pittsburgh Regional Branding Initiative? It was a $200,000, five to 10 year campaign launched in 2002 to come up with an "image" for Pittsburgh that didn't involve steel.
Well, it seems that they let their website (brandpittsburghregion.info) expire. It's now owned by some Internet service in Equatorial Guinea. (I'm not sure what the brand of Equatorial Guinea is. "Come to Guinea and be a pig!" No?)
I suppose this means the branding was a complete success. Nice job, guys! Take an extra 200 G's out of petty cash.
. . .
(P.S. I almost wrote that the campus women's center had "mounted" a production of the play. Hee hee! Oh, grow up.)
Category: default || By jt3y
Anyone who sends me to the library, a historical society or any other data center to do research does so at their own risk, because I have an interest in practically everything. (And expertise in practically nothing.)
Send me on a 10-minute errand to verify something at the Recorder of Deeds, and I might return two hours later with 1780s maps of land grants in Elizabeth Township. Ask me to retrieve a photo from the Pennsylvania Department at the Carnegie Library and I will become engrossed in 1930s planning commission documents. I stop at the McKeesport Heritage Center to pay my dues, and three hours later I'm still there, paging through police blotters from the 1900s.
I graze on information like some people peck at snacks and appetizers at a party --- a little nibble of this, a handful of that.
This has other disadvantages besides the obvious time management problems. My head is full of completely pointless information on hundreds of topics, but I'm not an expert on any of them, and usually I can't remember where I read something if I'm asked.
I've derailed more than one conversation with family and friends by spouting some arcane bit of useless trivia that's completely unverifiable. I haven't quite entered Cliff Clavin territory, but I'm one pair of white socks away.
Anyway, this week I had to look up some information in Business Week, Fortune and Newsweek from the 1950s. Microfilm is especially deadly for an information grazer because you never know what you're going to stumble across on your way to the information you need.
Thanks to the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (those big green volumes of indexes to magazine stories --- remember them?), I had the dates and page numbers of the articles I needed, but I had to scroll past page after page of other things that tickled my interest.
I love reading the advertisements --- what car buff could resist a two-page spread from a February 1958 issue of Newsweek touting the new Plymouth Savoy with "Golden Commando V-8," "Push Button TorqueFlite transmission" and "Directional Stabilizing Fins"? Especially since --- as I've noted in the Almanac before --- the '58 Plymouths are one of my all-time favorite car designs. You'd better believe I needed a copy of that.
At other times you run across stories that are suddenly of more enduring interest, like a two-page profile of George Romney --- father of newly-announced presidential candidate Mitt Romney and then the president of American Motors. In 1958 Romney the elder was the only automobile executive in Detroit who was staking his company's future on compact cars.
When Romney left to become governor of Michigan, his successor came in and scrambled the product lineup, sinking AMC within a decade.
I notice, by the way, that Mitt Romney took some flak for launching his candidacy at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. A group of Jewish Democrats accused Romney of anti-Semitism. That's a load of baloney for many, many reasons, not the least of which that Henry Ford's descendants have no record of sharing the old man's warped political views --- in fact, as the Detroit News points out, when the American Jewish Committee presented its National Human Relations Award to William Clay Ford Jr., they did it at the Henry Ford Museum.
Besides, Romney could have launched his campaign at a site having to do with AMC, but a vacant lot in Kenosha, Wis., wouldn't have provided much of a backdrop.
(Now, do you see what I mean about the pointless digressions?)
And if you're a failed newspaper reporter and local history buff like me, you'd have to love an ad in Business Week from March 1958 touting the effectiveness of advertising in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "fastest-growing newspaper in America's eighth-largest market."
It's been a long time since Pittsburgh was America's "eighth-largest market," and an even longer time since newspaper circulation was growing. No matter what you think of the two current choices (and I know a lot of people who don't think much of one, the other or both), the city is still fortunate to have two independent, competing papers. Few cities of Pittsburgh's size can boast that.
But in 1958, Pittsburgh had three daily papers --- the morning P-G and the afternoon Sun-Telegraph and Press --- all under separate ownership. The Sun-Tele (a Hearst paper) was already on life support by 1958 and would be folded into the P-G in 1960, an acquisition that nearly sunk that paper and forced it into a joint operating agreement with Scripps-Howard's Press. And we all know how that turned out.
(Another pointless, trivial digression! I'm full of 'em today!)
I'd better stop here before I really run off the rails --- but not without a plug for a service I've been using for a year, and which I really enjoy. It's called Newspaper Archive, and it's a searchable Internet database of millions of newspapers on microfilm from the 1800s to the present.
Unfortunately, the Daily News isn't one of them, but you can read the Charleroi Daily Mail, the Monessen Daily Independent, the Indiana Gazette, the North Hills News Record and hundreds of other titles.
It's not cheap --- about $70 per year --- but if you're doing any kind of historical or genealogy research, it is an invaluable asset.
Or, if you just want to learn pointless, time-consuming trivia, like me, it's the equivalent of information crack.
. . .
Youth Crime Task Force: In the wake of a shooting last week on Jenny Lind Street that sent a 17-year-old boy to the hospital, Mayor Jim Brewster has created a coalition to try and address root causes of gun violence among teens. Members will include local teen-agers, representatives from the police department and school district and the NAACP, among others.
Jen Vertullo had the story in the News (subscriber-only link), while Eric Slagle had a follow-up in the P-G.
. . .
Play's The Thing: On a lighter note, Margaret Smykla of the P-G caught up with the volunteer thespians of the McKeesport Little Theater. The MLT will be presenting John Patrick's comedy "The Curious Savage" next month as part of its 46th season in the city.
. . .
To Do This Weekend: McKeesport Symphony Orchestra presents a chamber/small ensemble concert, featuring two semi-finalists in its annual "Young Artist Competition," Michael McCarthy and Ingrid Petersen. That's at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium of McKeesport Area High School, 1960 Eden Park Blvd. Tickets are $15 for adults, $8 for students and $12 for senior citizens. Call (412) 664-2854.
Category: default || By jt3y
Cluttered thoughts from an empty mind:
A friend and former cow-orker who shall remain nameless pointed out the cover story in this week's Pittsburgh City Paper, saying that it made him "want to beat Marty Griffin to death with his own microphone." Ouch!
The story's about Griffin, a KDKA-TV "investigative" "reporter" (I use those words in the loosest sense, since we're talking about Tee Vee "news"), and his pursuit of the Rev. Brent Dugan, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon. Griffin filmed portions of a service and a festival at the church before springing on Dugan the real reason for his interest --- parishioners suspected the pastor was gay.
Naturally, there's a connection to Our Fair City, or else the Almanac wouldn't care. After Griffin confronted Dugan while he was purchasing pornography at the "adult novelties" store on West Fifth Avenue near the Mansfield Bridge, the station began airing promos for its "expose" that was going to uncover "illicit, possibly illegal, activity by a local minister, activities which at the very least violated the rules of his denomination."
Suddenly, Dugan disappeared and KDKA withdrew the report, making a sanctimonious on-air announcement that congratulated itself for its "unprecedented decision not to air the story" out of fear "the pastor may be in danger to himself." By then, the damage was done, because Pastor Dugan had checked himself into a motel and blown his brains out.
. . .
From Penn State's Don't-Call-Us-McKeesport Campus comes some good news that I missed in Wednesday's Almanac round-up of warm-hearted stories.
Penn State alumni Ann E. and George R. Kemp have pledged $100,000 to create two undergraduate scholarships; one will target students at the No-Seriously-We're-Not-McKeesport Campus, while the other will support home-schooled students in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Mrs. Kemp was an elementary school teacher for 20 years, while her husband was a landscape architect. Together they also operated the former "Fishers of Men" Christian bookstore in Olympia Shopping Center in McKeesport.
. . .
Rejected names for Penn State's Greater Allegheny Campus:
The city provides — hold onto your hats — no residential snow removal. Seriously. Main arteries and business districts are plowed, but residential streets fend for themselves. Neighborhoods that still count a few members of the middle class in their number form associations and pay for plowing privately. Everyone else buys boots. In apocalyptic winters, whole streets can become impassible. My friend Ron did some stories about this a few years ago, and said the first thing that happens is, everyone passes the word when the mail will be arriving, and residents gather at the closest navigable corner. The mailman arrives, distributes the mail and leaves. If you miss it, come back tomorrow.
South Side resident Mark Rauterkus, who has run unsuccessfully for state Senate, Pittsburgh City Council and mayor, announced yesterday that he will run for six political offices at once in the November election.
A 47-year-old swimming coach, he said he will run as a Libertarian for Allegheny County chief executive, county councilman at-large, county councilman for District 13, mayor, city controller and city councilman for District 3.
Category: default || By jt3y
When I run for governor (ha! ha!) one of my first proposals will be a law that requires everyone to pass a snow-driving course before they can obtain a Pennsylvania driver's license.
To make things suitably challenging, you'll have to pull out from a snow-covered parking lot into traffic and then make your way up a short hill in a 1969 Chrysler Imperial with bald tires and drum brakes. If you can't make it with clean underpants and fewer than three dents, you have to go to traffic school.
Also, I'd like to thank the clown in the SUV who passed me on the Glenwood Bridge Tuesday night, sending up a giant shower of snow and slush that clogged the sleek, gray Mercury's windshield wipers and blinded me temporarily. I hope that he's spending this messy and cold Wednesday safe and cozy in bed with a nice hot cup of coffee ... and hemorrhoids the size of watermelons.
Finally, if I hear one more Picksberg TV "meteorologist" use the phrase "wintry mix," I'm going to slug him. A "wintry mix" sounds like something on the menu at King's:
"Our vegetables today are green beans or wintry mix."
"Well, I just shoveled a pile of green beans out of my driveway, so I'll take the wintry mix."
Paige, who served two tours in Vietnam and two in Korea during his 20-year Army career, then worked in restaurant management for another 12 years before retiring completely, said he tried to get some young Blacks interested in running for the school board, but nothing gelled.
So, he figured it was up to him to address the issue—and he did.
“Well, I just watched and learned for a few months, then I started bringing things out that they weren’t moving on,” he said. “So I let them know I was serious and wanted to accomplish something. That earned their respect.”
Category: default || By jt3y
... published in Sunday's Post-Gazette, in which Mr. DeWeese attempted to justify both the lavish bonuses he handed out to his favorite staffers (some of whom apparently "volunteered" for campaign work), and his ham-handed efforts to hide those bonuses from public scrunity:
"Blow it out your ear, you pompous, tax-bloated sack of wind."
Category: default || By jt3y
Our topic today at "Good Government ... On The March!" is the Pennsylvania Constitution. (What's that? You didn't know we had a constitution? Hmmm. See me after class.)
Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which spends its time establishing what the federal government may do (provide for an army and navy, promote law and order, regulate interstate commerce), the Pennsylvania constitution spends much of its time saying what the state government may not do --- restrict freedom of speech or religion, pass laws regulating individual municipalities, or give hereditary titles.
(That last clause may come as a surprise to people who have never seen an election ballot without a Flaherty, a Costa or --- in central Pennsylvania --- a Shuster. But trust me, it's in there.)
There are several clauses in Pennsylvania's constitution describing how the branches of government are supposed to operate, but nowhere in the Constitution will you find that "selling liquor and beer" are among the Commonwealth's primary duties:
This story broke last week, but I bring it up because of "Fast Eddie" Rendell's budget proposals this week that (among other things) would increase the state sales tax by 1 percent and lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private company.
Category: default || By jt3y
Category: default || By jt3y
Category: default || By jt3y
On Friday, the media spotlight was again focused on Jefferson County, as much of the nation wondered if the weather-forecasting groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow.
Though Phil didn't see his shadow (at least according to the members of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club), the revelry that accompanies Groundhog Day in the northwest Pennsylvania borough did cast its shadow once again over another prognosticating varmint.
According to legend, Port Vue Pete emerges from the trunk of an abandoned car on River Road before sunrise on the first Monday of February. If he doesn't bite a bystander, then the Mon-Yough area can expect an early end to winter.
Despite bitterly cold temperatures and wind chills near 20 below zero, the Almanac was on the scene this morning to capture the spectacle.
We asked Pete if he's jealous of the attention that Punxsutawney Phil receives each year.
"Jealous? Of that overgrown squirrel?" Pete said, lighting a cigarette. "Punk better never come down here. I'll mess him up."
"What is Raccoon Day, and why do you come out of your burrow on the first Monday in February?"
"It used to be Feb. 17 to celebrate the end of raccoon season," Pete said, "but that was too close to Valentine's Day and the stores didn't like carrying Raccoon Day merchandise at the same time as Valentine's Day cards. Too many guys don't pay attention when they buy cards --- they just grab the first one they see. Women were complaining that they kept getting cards like, 'Sorry to hear you have rabies.'"
He stopped to cough for a while, then continued: "Plus, we raccoons wanted a long weekend, so they moved it to the first Monday."
"When did raccoons first start predicting the weather?"
Pete paused, then asked: "When did Groundhog Day start?"
"In 1841."
"Then we started in 1840," he said.
"Doesn't that seem a little bit suspicious?"
"You wanna argue with a hungover raccoon?"
"Sorry. Why are you hungover?"
"What are you, stupid? Super Bowl was last night."
"Oh, right. I didn't realize that raccoons cared about the Super Bowl."
"We don't, but it's a good excuse to drink. You know what Dean Martin said: 'I feel sorry for people who don't drink --- when they wake up in the morning, that's the best they'll feel all day.'"
"How did you learn to forecast the weather?" we asked.
"My dad taught me," Pete said, "and his dad before that, and his dad before that, all the way back to the beginning."
"And who taught the first raccoon to forecast the weather, back in 1840?"
"Joe DeNardo."
"Why is Raccoon Day forgotten while Punxsutawney Phil has so many fans?"
"Aw, it's all PR. I blame that (expletive) movie with Bill Murray. Man, until that (expletive) nobody cared about (expletive) Groundhog Day. Now, all of a sudden, nobody wants old Pete any more. Sometimes I get so depressed I don't even feel like tipping over garbage cans or darting out in front of traffic."
"Well, maybe being written up in the Tube City Almanac will help," we said.
Pete snorted. "I'd get more viewers lying dead at the side of the road. And you don't need no Internet connection."
"Do you want to give your weather prediction?"
"Weather prediction? You (expletive) crazy? It's freezing! I wanna go back to bed."
"But I thought you got up this morning to predict the weather?"
"I got up this morning, moron, to go water the plants. You don't buy beer, you rent it. So if you don't mind, can a raccoon get a little privacy?"
"How about your prediction?"
"I predict I'm going to stick that notebook up your nose in about five seconds. Come back at noon."
"Gee, Phil always gives a cheerful little poem on Groundhog Day with his weather prediction ..."
Pete cursed. "Poem? You want a poem? Fine:
"Roses are red, I gotta gripe:
I'm glad there's an end to the Super Bowl hype.
"Snow is white, dead leaves are brown,
"We'll save lots of money if the Penguins leave town.
"My fur is iced over, my boogers they freeze,
"I wish that you soon would go away, please.
"Winter is cold, port wine is red,
"I'm taking a leak and going to bed.
"You want a prediction? Then never you fear:
"Spring comes on March twenty-one this year.
"Roses are red, Humpty Dumpty was an egg,
"Now if you don't leave, I'm biting your leg!"
Category: default || By jt3y
If Almanacking (is that even a word?) has been light recently, it's mainly because of the book. I've promised to have the manuscript to the publisher by May, and any "creative" "energies" (and in my case, I use those words in their loosest possible senses) have to go in that direction.
Otherwise I expect to find an angry mob of ex-G.C. Murphy employees standing at my front door with pitchforks and torches.
Also, I have spent the last two days fighting a sinus headache that has now decided to take up residence in my ears, and it's taken what little willpower I have to keep from using the power drill to drain some of the pressure off. So there's that. A lot of sleep and judicious use of the humidifier today is helping.
But I didn't want to let any more time go by without noting that Pat Cloonan, writing in the Daily News this week, called "bullsh-t" on Steve Bland, CEO of the Port Authority (new motto: "You can't get there from here"). In a story published last Saturday, Bland complained to Joe Grata of the Post-Gazette that "95 percent" of the people testifying at the service reduction hearings have been riders, not public officials.
As Cloonan pointed out (sorry, the story's not online for non-subscribers), something like 20 of the 60-odd people testifying at the hearing in Our Fair City last week were elected officials or leaders of non-governmental community agencies like Turtle Creek Valley MH/MR. I missed the first part of the hearing, but I saw state Rep. Marc Gergely there, although I didn't get a chance to talk to him.
Bland told Cloonan that McKeesport was the "exception."
Hmmm. Maybe, or did the P-G just take Bland's word for it that public officials aren't attending?
And is anyone from the P-G attending? Because Pat was the only representative of the media (OK, I guess I am, too) that I saw at the Palisades last Thursday night.
Just askin', is all.
. . .
In other news, I wanted to note that city native Bob Carroll Jr. died last week at 87 in Los Angeles. You probably didn't know his name, but you knew his work --- Carroll was a writer for Lucille Ball and worked on every TV show she ever had, including I Love Lucy. Born here in 1919, an obituary in the Washington Post notes that he moved with his family to Florida at age 3, and I don't know that he had any local ties in the region.
He started working with Ball on her radio show, My Favorite Husband (really the prototype of Lucy) before making the leap to television with her in 1953. Carroll and longtime writing partner Madelyn Pugh Davis eventually stayed with Ball until her last show, Life With Lucy, left the air in 1986.
Ivan Shreve Jr. has an item about Carroll's career over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. Requiescat en pace.
. . .
To Do This Weekend: I know what I'm going to do --- drink a lot of fluid and hope my sinuses drain. You, on the other hand, might want to register for the driver safety courses that Carnegie Free Library of McKeesport is offering next week --- if you're a senior citizen. (Today, I feel like a senior citizen, and Lord knows I could use some driving classes. At least people who've been passengers in my car seem to think so.) Qualified seniors will receive a 5 percent reduction in their auto insurance premiums, which sounds like a good deal to me. Call (800) 559-4880 (Tube City hard-hat tip: McKeesport Recreation Committee) ... Pittsburgh Area Jitterbug Club has dancing at the Palisades at 9 p.m. Saturday. Hope your long winter underwear doesn't show underneath your poodle skirts. (The ladies, that is. The guys aren't wearing poodle skirts, although it's none of my business if you do.) Call (412) 366-2138. ... Artifacts and photographs of the history of steelmaking are on display in the exhibit "Steel Around: Big Steel's Enduring Legacy," at the Bost Building, East Eighth Avenue in Homestead, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Call (412) 464-4020.
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