Alert Reader Jeff wants to know why I haven't mentioned that tomorrow marks the 25th annual Greater Pittsburgh Soap Box Derby on Eden Park Boulevard.
Well, there's a very simple and logical explanation.
And just as soon as I think of it, I'll let you know.
The soap box derby gets underway at 9 a.m. tomorrow, and the finish line is near the "Voke." Expect traffic disruptions around Renzie Park for most of the morning.
As my former cow-orker and fellow Serra grad Brian Krasman noted a few years ago in the News, the city's soap box derby actually dates back to 1956, and it continued for the next 16 years under the sponsorship of Deveraux Chevrolet.
("Devie," incidentally, was originally located on Sixth Avenue Downtown, in the building currently used by Tube City Appliances, before it moved out to Eden Park Boulevard, in the showroom recently vacated by Tri-Star Ford.)
The derby is open to kids ages 8 to 17, and you can find a list of this year's contestants online.
. . .
Now, appropos of nothing, we bring you Joe Cocker singing "A Little Help From My Friends," with the lyrics helpfully annotated underneath. It might just be the highlight of your weekend.
(Tip o' the Tube City Hard Hat: Mark Evanier.)
And after you're done watching that, go watch this, and you will never be able to take Joe Cocker seriously, ever again.
Assuming you took him seriously in the first place, that is.
ABC Photo Lab just processed several rolls of film from my trip to Dayton last month (yes, I am a relic), which reminds me that while I was in Ohio, I got to see a baseball game at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park.
That's right: I have yet to set foot in PNC Park, but I have seen Cinci's. You may recall that I've also seen the Slippery Rock Sliders and I've seen the Washington Wild Things at least three times. Good Lord willing, I'll get to see the Altoona Curve this summer.
It's not that I don't like professional baseball. I love baseball. (Can't play it worth a darn. My lifetime batting average in the Liberty Borough Athletic Association was something like .002, and that's only because they don't assign negative numbers.)
But I'll be damned before I'll shell out $30, including parking and tickets, to watch the Pirates slide to the bottom of the standings every year. So I haven't seen a Pirates game in person since Three Rivers Stadium was torn down, and I haven't bought a single item of Pirates merchandise.
C'mon, they blew a six-run lead yesterday. They lost by double digits on Tuesday.
There's such a thing as rooting for your home team even when they're losing. After all, I'm a Serra High graduate. The whole concept of "winning games," let alone competing in playoffs, is still a novelty to most of our alumni.
Frankly, you should root for your home team when they're trying their best, but failing. But the Pirates aren't trying. Or, more specifically, the Pirates' ownership isn't trying.
You may wonder how the Nutting family sleeps at night. I say, "On a big pile of money."
They're pocketing money from the fans and the taxpayers, paying lip service to the idea of being competitive, and laughing all the way back to West Virginia, where they invest the profits in a chain of mediocre newspapers and contribute money to things like the "Oliver North for U.S. Senate Committee."
It's been 15 consecutive losing seasons, and they're working hard on No. 16, which would tie the all-time record by any professional sports team ... if you still consider what the Pirates are playing "professional" baseball.
The "P" on the caps doesn't stand for "Pittsburgh." It stands for "Painful," "Pitiful," or maybe just "Pathetic."
Give your money to the Nuttings. As for me, I'll drive to Altoona to see a baseball game, even with gas at four bucks a gallon.
Yeah, I'd almost rather see the sheiks of Saudi Arabia profit than the owners of the Pirates.
. . .
'This is Real ... This is 'Night Watch'': Last night, I was listening to a 1950s police detective interrogate a suspect caught with marijuana seeds and stems.
"How many roaches did you smoke?" he says. "Where do you usually go to get a blast?"
The dialogue could have come straight from Jack Webb and Dragnet, but this was a real detective in the Culver City, Calif., police department, who was recorded as part of a short-lived CBS Radio documentary series called "Night Watch."
The folks at First Generation Radio Archives have unearthed 20 rare episodes of the show and restored the audio.
Beginning in 1954, the Culver City police allowed a sound technician to ride along with an unmarked squad car and record their cases for later broadcast. If that sounds a little bit like the 1950s equivalent of "Cops," you're right.
But consider the difficulty of doing a show like this in the 1950s. The smallest portable tape recorders were the size of a suitcase; the engineer on "Night Watch," "police recorder" Don Reed, hid the microphone inside a flashlight casing.
I've uploaded the July 31, 1954 episode, "Boy, Go Home." It's 4.5 MB, even as an 8KHz MP3. I hope FGRA will forgive me; I wanted you to hear this thing as an enticement to buy the CDs.
It's not slam-bang exciting, but it is compelling.
It's also a little bit depressing. The calls you hear will be familiar to anyone who's a police officer today. There's a child neglect case, a battered woman who refuses to press charges against her spouse, and another battered woman who sets fire to her home to punish her husband.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
"Boy Go Home," from "Night Watch," CBS Radio, July 31, 1954
(4.5 MB, MP3)
In the interest of fairness, I want to point out that an Alert Reader identifying himself only as "a concerned citizen of McKeesport" has posted a link to what he calls "videos of the first steps in the illegal taking and destruction of the Historic Hitzrot House in McKeesport, Pa."
You can go read my entire response if you want to, but I'll summarize it: Bull.
The present owners of the Hitzrot House have owned it since 1991, according to the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds:
U.S. Steel and its predecessors have been making coke in Clairton for more than a century.
Engineers for ThyssenKrupp, which needed to continue making coke to fuel its nearby mills, designed a plant with fewer but larger ovens, which theoretically should provide fewer places for gases and soot to escape.
With gas prices above $4 a gallon in most of the Mon-Yough area, there's no better time to look for low-bucks entertainment that's not too far to drive.
So there's no better time for the annual McKeesport City Fair, which kicks off at 6 tonight at Helen Richey Field in Renziehausen Park along Eden Park Boulevard.
It's the seventh year for the five day celebration of the start of summer. Events continue nightly from 6 to 11 p.m. and wrap up Saturday, naturally, with fireworks (after all, we are in western Pennsylvania).
Admission and parking are free.
According to Patti Bosnak, vice president of the city Recreation Board, more than a dozen rides will be operated by LAM Enterprises, owned by Lloyd Serfas of Greenock, Elizabeth Township.
"They try to have something different every year," Bosnak says.
Ride-all-night price is $12 per person, per evening, she says. Games and souvenir stands will also be manned.
Food will include traditional treats such as funnel cake, cotton candy, french fries with toppings, corn dogs and fresh lemonade. In addition, local restaurants will also have booths at the fair; Mama Pepino's will be selling pizza and gyros, Farmer's Pride Poultry will have chicken-on-a-stick, halushki, hot dogs and hot sausage, and Dell's Dessert Hut will have ice cream.
The city Recreation Board has tried to fill some of the void left when the Mon-Yough Riverfront Entertainment Committee, or MYREC, disbanded several years ago.
Besides Bosnak, members include president Ron Melocchi, Jennifer Shields, Tammy Toth, Cheryl Cotter, Cyndi James and Chuck Jarrell.
Board members coordinate fair activities with city Parks and Recreation Director Jim Brown, Bosnak says.
. . .
Good Neighbor Day: The city fair isn't the only event underway in the city this week. The annual "Good Neighbor Day" celebration will be underway tomorrow on Fifth Avenue, Downtown, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Owners of local businesses and representatives from local non-profit agencies will be on hand with free giveaways and to answer questions.
. . .
Have you read enough about the old Eagles lodge on Market Street? Well, tough.
The city's best historian, John Barna, notes that the Fraternal Order of Eagles didn't buy the building until 1911, and that it was built as the home of Dr. Henry W. Hitzrot in 1892.
He also sent along this photo of Dr. Hitzrot and another picture showing the house "in its heyday."
"What the hell is a heyday any how?" John wants to know. "I can't remember if I ever had one!"
I don't know what a heyday is either, and I don't think I've ever had one. But if they need oil to make them, then I'm sure the price of heydays has gone up.
. . .
Speaking of inflation, John also dug up an article from the Nov. 7, 1892, issue of the Daily News, which calls the Hitzrot mansion "one of the finest homes in Pennsylvania" and says that construction cost $50,000 --- that's better than $1.1 million by current standards.
"The most pleasing feature of this splendid edifice is that nearly all the work was done by McKeesporters, and the majority of the materials are of home make, reflecting the highest credit on local builders," noted the unnamed writer, who went on to describe the interior in detail:
Passing through the wide, deep doorway, the visitor enters the reception hall; on the right is a large stone fireplace, extending to the ceiling, and built from an Egyptian design.
The staircase is wide, is of easy ascent and splendidly carved. A silver chandelier diffuses a subdued light, and the room is decorated with works of art, paintings and statuary, and the walls in this as in the other apartments, are covered with leather of exquisite design and of a different shade in each room.
To the left is a parlor, furnished in white and gold, light shades predominate and the decorations are simple, yet elegant. Back of this is the drawing room.
The dining room is finished in hard wood, beautiful china closets, large plate glass mirrors; a rich chandelier adorns the centre, and appropriate works of art are found on the walls.
The News' story continues with a description of the kitchen, which the paper reports was so elegantly furnished that if "it were not for the large range and silver hot water boiler it would be difficult to determine that it was a kitchen":
On the second floor are bedrooms and Mrs. Hitzrot's boudoir or sewing room. The bath room is simply elegant, tiled floor and walls, silver fittings, and decorated in a rich manner. The furnishings of the apartments on the second floor are in harmony with the luxury that is found on the first floor.
One is impressed with the large number of small closets, drawers in all parts of the house to store clothes, household utensils and food products, making even the kitchen and basement present a neat appearance.
The heating apparatus is most complete. Pure air is secured from the outside of the house, heated in the furnace and then distributed through the building. The ventilation for sanitary arrangements are very complete, and the pure air found in the house is very noticeable. All water passes through a large filter in the basement, which renders it quite pure.
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