Category: default || By jt3y

A correspondent asks when I'm going to add some new tourist attractions to our McKeesport "visitors" page. Good point. It hasn't been updated in about 18 months. I'm taking suggestions; the attractions must be open to the public and not located in the city of Pittsburgh.

I tend to define "Mon-Yough area" as roughly bounded by the Parkway East to the north; Route 136 to the south; Route 51 to the west and the Turnpike to the east. Draw a circle about 10 miles in diameter from the junction of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers, and that'll catch most of it.

Send your favorite Mon-Yough valley place or attraction to me at jt3y at dementia dot o-r-g. Best one received before November 1 will earn the submitter one free item from the Tube City Online store.

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The restaurant page needs to be updated, too; I've eaten at several nice out-of-the-way places in the Mon Valley recently. Check in a week or so.

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President Bush will be flying over Western Pennsylvania to inspect flood damage today, but federal officials aren't disclosing the route of his helicopter for security reasons.

That sounds sensible. Unfortunately, it will also prevent us from expressing our true affection and gratitude to the President.

Just to make sure, every time you hear a helicopter today, I suggest running outside and dropping your drawers. Sooner or later, you're bound to moon the right chopper.

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Joanna Blair reports in the Trib that the problem-plagued Alpine Village shopping center off of Scenery Drive in Elizabeth Township is nearly full under the township's management.

Alpine Village is now generating tax revenue for Elizabeth Township, according to the chairman of the municipal authority that runs it. Renters and other businesses are paying about $28,000 per year in taxes, and the complex broke (barely) into the black last year.

Unfinished sections of the complex are now filled, Blair writes, and the number of tenants has gone from seven to 12.

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R.D. Summers of WWSW-FM (94.5) has compiled a "Top 100" list of Pittsburgh's favorite oldies, and counted them down on Labor Day. The complete list is online and contains many of the usual suspects: Number 1 is the incomparable "Since I Don't Have You" by Jimmy Beaumont & The Skyliners; Number 2 is "Oh, My Angel" by Bertha Tillman, which I can take or leave. (Maybe you had to be 17 when you first heard that song, and dancing with your first true girlfriend or boyfriend to love it. To me, it's just OK.)

But Number 3 is one of my all-time favorite records: "At Last" by Etta James. It never fails to give me goosebumps. Yikes!

Many of the songs were hits only in Pittsburgh, and most fall in the period between 1957 to 1965. Still, there's a wide range of musical styles represented (R&B, soul, jazz, pop, rock, country) by a diverse range of artists: solo artists; black, white and multi-ethnic assortments; girl groups and all-male groups.

I don't want to sound like a complete old poop --- I wasn't born with these songs were hits, but I know these songs. I'll bet most of the people in my parents' generation could hum all or most of them, at least if they grew up in Our Fair City.

However, I wonder: With all of the songs on "contemporary hit radio" sounding pretty much alike these days, what will a "Top 100 oldies" list look like in 2040? I suspect that with the homogenization of music radio from city to city, it will look pretty much the same, all across the country. I also suspect that none of the melodies of the Top 100 of, say, 1997 to 2004 will be memorable in 2040.

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Kim Lyons of the Observer-Reporter struck just the right note of whimsy in her story about how the publishers of the "Yellow Book" confused Petersburg, Pa. (near State College), with Peters Township in their recent Washington County edition.

The publishers of the "Yellow Book," which is not published by any local phone company, also mixed up Canton Township (a rural suburb next to Washington, Pa.) with Canton, Pa., which is in northern Pennsylvania.

It all means many of the addresses in the Washington County "Yellow Book" are wrong. A spokesman for the company that prints the book says they don't intend to correct the mistakes until the next edition, due out in May --- so if you live in Washington County and your address is wrong, hard cheese.

I'm no big fan of Verizon, but it sounds like a good reason to stick with their book.

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Since I was a kid, there's been a "Rexall" pharmacy in Liberty Borough --- Kessling's. Last time I checked, they still even had a soda fountain there (though I don't think they still make the treats there --- the ice cream and pop is all pre-packaged).

The Rexall name in the U.S. was once applied to thousands of drug stores, but the company went bankrupt in the early '80s. The American trademark was sold to a multi-level marketing company that's been trading on the Rexall name to peddle what some people consider suspect nutritional supplements.

But in Canada, the Rexall brand name is being resurrected for pharmacies by a big chain of drugstores. In fact, the Edmonton, Alberta, hockey arena is now called "Rexall Place," and a new tennis stadium in Toronto is also being renamed for Rexall.

Does anyone remember Rexall's slogan? Or which famous (actually, "infamous") national radio program that was sponsored by Rexall?

Answer tomorrow ... stay tuned!