Regular readers of the Tube City Daily Drivel ... I mean, the Tube City Almanac ... know that when I write of Our Fair City, I always link to its home page at www.mckeesport.org.
I don't mean to brag, but thanks to those efforts, when you search for "Our Fair City" on the web, Our Fair City is consistently among the top 30 results, beating out Portsmouth, Va.; Garland, Texas; San Diego, Calif.; and Cambridge, Mass., for the honors of being America's Fair City. At least on the Interweb.
(That other city somewhat north of Our Fair City doesn't even show up in a Google search for the words "Our Fair City." Ha!)
So I was delighted to see recently that Our Fair City had redesigned its website. According to a message from Mayor Brewster, the new design was done by some students at Carnegie Mellon, and it's really quite attractive.
It also includes an interactive community calendar, information about the McKees Point Marina, and links to other Web sites in and around Our Fair City. (No link to the Almanac, but what are you going to do? We may be Number 4,322, but we try harder.)
All in all, it's a big improvement over the old site, which itself was a big improvement over no site at all.
Still, this wouldn't be the Almanac if we didn't find some nits to pick, would it?
So the first thing that I found unusual was the banner that decorates the top of the page:
That's a handsome bridge, if I do say so myself.
And unfortunately, not anywhere within 50 miles of Our Fair City. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, I strongly suspect that it's the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge over the Susquehanna River, which is about as unlike any bridge in the Mon-Yough metroplex as you can get. And I know that only because we took a family trip out the Lincoln Highway from Irwin to Lancaster one year.
If anyone from City Hall happens to read this, yours truly will gladly contribute a picture of a suitable bridge --- be it the Jerome Avenue Bridge, the 15th Avenue Bridge, one of the stone bridges in Renzie Park, or the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge, gratis, for you to incorporate into your Web site. You know the address.
The other teensy-weensy thing that someone might want to address is this paragraph on the history page:
Um, oops. Given that he's as popular around City Hall right now as General Sherman is in Atlanta, someone might want to fix that.
We've been pleased to offer this free advice as a public service of the Tube City Almanac, where misteaks are unpossible!
There are much more egregious errors about Our Fair City to be found on the Interweb, like this one from Yahoo! Maps:
Let the record show, your honor, that Yahoo! is sending users over a bridge that was torn down in the early 1930s.
To their credit, they do warn people: "When using any driving directions or map, it's a good idea to do a reality check and make sure the road still exists." Well, they're not kidding!
Would it be impolitic to call them a bunch of ... yahoos?
...
To Do This Weekend: In remembrance of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Holocaust survivor and White Oak resident Sam Weinrab discusses his personal experiences at 7:30 p.m. today at New Light Congregation, 1700 Beechwood Blvd., Squirrel Hill. Admission is free. Call (412) 421-1017. (More in the Post-Gazette.) ... Genesius Productions presents "Monk-y Business," at St. Anthony Hall in Mon City, at 8 p.m. today and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Call (724) 258-9710. Admission is $10. (More in the Herald-Standard.)
The news hit the Mon-Yough Metroplex with the sharp crack of a 16-pound ball scoring a strike on league night at Lokay Lanes.
Or the crash of a snowplow hitting a loose manhole cover.
You know, something thunderous.
Like, um, thunder.
The Eastland Mall flea market is closing, reported Celanie Polanick in The Daily News:
The venue's approximately 200 vendors have until Feb. 4 to move their spreads of wares - some of which could fill a tractor-trailer truck, one vendor said --- according to a deal struck Monday morning between Benderson Development Co. Inc. and attorney David Shrager, who handled the initial negotiations pro bono. (...)
And some of them may not even be notified properly of the shutdown, said Carolyn Weber, who sold video games and other items at the market. She estimates 150 of the vendors didn't show up Monday, and probably won't know about the closing until they show up and find the building locked.
Right before they handed out fliers Sunday afternoon notifying vendors of the closing, the landlords collected rent for the month of January --- all the while knowing the last weekend flea market of the month never would happen, Weber said.
"They made a decision that they weren't going to put any work into this place, but they played it to the hilt," she said. "They drained everybody down to the bitter end. They took whatever they could."
Weber is being kind. If Eastland isn't torn down, it's going to fall down. The last time I was at the flea market, located in the old Gee Bee's store at the east side of the mall, giant tarps and wading pools were being used to collect water from the leaky roof. One woman in Polanick's story speaks of hordes of roaches swarming in the bathrooms.
As has been reported elsewhere on Tube City Online, Eastland is owned by one of the country's largest shopping center developers, Benderson Development, which owns 23 million square feet of retail and commercial space, including some very high-end malls.
Of which Eastland is decidedly not one.
Benderson has owned Eastland since 1988, but has never done much of anything to modernize it. Over the last couple of years, the company has allowed the 41-year-old mall to deteriorate rapidly; the entire basement has been boarded up for several years, and there's no heat in most of the center.
Why allow Eastland to fall apart? Who knows? It's definitely an old-fashioned shopping mall, chopped into relatively small stores, which makes it unattractive to large retailers who want "big box" properties. At this point --- with virtually no major upgrades to its plumbing, electrical or heating systems since the early 1970s --- Eastland would be easier to demolish than renovate.
That leads one to ask why Benderson bought Eastland in the first place. Speculation is rampant that Benderson has been using Eastland as a tax write-off for its other, upscale malls; and that the maintenance ended when the tax write-offs finally ran out. But no one knows for sure, and Benderson is a privately-held company, so it's not talking. (Nor is it under any obligation to talk.)
Maybe Eastland is destined to be demolished, like Greengate Mall over in Hempfield Township, to make way for a big-box store --- a Costco? A Wal-Mart? Another Target?
Time will tell what happens; for now, Beer World is still in business, and seems to be doing reasonably well, and there are a few other hardy souls hanging on inside Eastland Mall.
But it's not like it was in its hey-day.
I almost feel moved to song. Can we dim these lights?
Thanks. (Ahem.)
A long, long time ago,
I can still remember when the Eastland Mall was always full.
From Gimbels' to the hot-dog stand,
And Woolworth's toys were really grand,
And Penney's pantsuits
Still were cool.
But through the years, it made me shiver,
Watching broken tiles quiver.
Cracked concrete on the doorstep,
You had to watch your step.
I remember how I felt the blues,
When the "Eastland" sign came loose,
But nothing prepped me for the news,
The day the flea mart died.
They were singin',
Bye, bye Mr. Baseball Card Guy,
Bought a TV for a dollar but the tuner was fried,
A smelly drunk who didn't pull up his fly,
Was sayin', "This'll be the day the flea mart died,
"This'll be the day that it died."
(faster)
Did you buy some moldy pogs,
Or an 8-track cartridge of The Troggs?
Or black-market Tylenol?
Have you eaten corn dogs on a stick,
And did they make you feel real sick,
So nauseous that you had to crawl?
The hubcap guy had bad B-O,
And the bathroom faucets wouldn't flow,
We still had lots of fun,
Buying rubbish in the sun.
I was a cheap and stingy yinzer freak,
And it was the highlight of my week,
But I knew that I was up the creek,
The day the flea mart died.
And they were singin',
Bye, bye Mr. Baseball Card Guy,
Bought a TV for dollar but the tuner was fried,
A smelly drunk who couldn't pull up his fly,
Was sayin', "This'll be the day the flea mart died,
"This'll be the day that it died."
Now when we want trash, where will we shop?
For rusty bikes and congealed slop,
That once was a can of paint?
Dry and rotten rubber balls,
Folding chairs from union halls,
And old nudie mags that now seem quaint?
But while the vendors caught some Z's,
The owners kicked them in the knees,
They chained and locked the doors,
And closed the crummy stores.
As lawyers looked for last reprieves,
And children wiped snot on their sleeves,
I confess I almost got the heaves,
The day the flea mart died.
And they were singin',
Bye, bye Mr. Baseball Card Guy,
Bought a TV for dollar but the tuner was fried,
A smelly drunk who wouldn't pull up his fly,
Was sayin', "This'll be the day the flea mart died,
"This'll be the day that it died."
(softer)
I saw a man who sold old tools,
He called the owners a bunch of fools,
Then he spit and scratched his rear.
I drove down to the parking lot,
Where the fried dough maker once was hot,
But no funnel cakes were sold this year.
I suspect that soon enough,
Wal-Mart will be on this bluff,
Giant Eagle or a Target,
Or a mammoth supermarket.
For now, what we don't need at all,
Empty stores and a quiet hall,
Are all that's left at Eastland Mall,
Because,
The flea mart's died.
So, bye, bye, Mr. Baseball Card Guy,
The floors were always filthy, and so was the outside,
But I'll miss the leaky roof and the walls so cockeyed,
Because this'll be the day Eastland died.
...
Thank you! Thank you! Groupies can gather at the stage door!
I can't remember my own phone number, where I put my brown sportcoat, or to get my wage tax payment in on time. But I can remember a piece of doggerel from a column that Peter Leo wrote in the Post-Gazette 20-odd years ago. And every time I see a salt truck, my brain coughs it up:
Over hill, over dale,
We will hit the snowy trail,
When the salt trucks go rolling along.
Hitch a ride, take the bus,
Even walking's dangerous,
When the salt trucks go rolling along.
For it's hi! Hi! Hey!
Here we are on the Parkway,
Hope you brought a change of clothes along.
If we weren't such boobs,
We'd have detoured 'round the tubes,
When the salt trucks went rolling along.
Then, last night, someone mentioned the '70s pop singer Phoebe Snow to me.
I replied: "Phoebe Snow was wont to go by railroad train to Buffalo. Her gown stays white from noon 'til night, upon The Road of Anthracite."
"How's that again?" he said.
"Phoebe Snow was an advertising character created for the old Lackawanna Railroad at the turn of the century," I said. "That was one of the little poems they created to go with the advertisements." I searched Google for "Phoebe Snow" and "Lackawanna" and within a few seconds had pulled up an entire page of Phoebe Snow rhymes.
"I assume that's where the singer Phoebe Snow got her name," I said. "The railroad's gimmick was that they burned hard anthracite coal, which didn't make as much soot, so people's clothes stayed cleaner."
My friend looked at me with astonishment. "How do you know this? Did you have to memorize this for school or something?"
"Um ... no. I just read it years ago, and it stuck with me."
I can't help it! Tell me something important, and you might as well be telling it to a brain-damaged poodle. Give me some useless information, and it burrows into my noggin forever, such as the facts that there is no Winky's in Wilmerding; Y-97FM is where the Three Rivers Come to a Y; First National Bank of McKeesport became Western Pennsylvania National Bank, which became Equibank, which merged with Integra Bank and now the whole shootin' match is National City; or that to load a file off of the disc drive of a Commodore 64, you had to type LOAD "filename", 8,1.
(If you forgot to type the "8,1" the computer would think you were trying to load a program from a cassette, and would prompt: "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE." Typing "POKE 53281" and then a number would change the color of the screen.)
What in the name of the Great Gildersleeve (a character originated on radio by Harold Peary, who ultimately left the show in a contract dispute ... arrgh! I'm doing it again) is the use of any of that trivia?
I'll be sitting in a chair, minding my own damn business, when some dusty cog in my brain will slip into gear, and this will tumble out:
Happiest drivers in the world,
Don't say Olds, say Bendik Olds!
Get complete full-service care,
Don't say Olds, say Bendik Olds!
Ardmore Boulevard in Wilkinsburg,
That's the place!
You'll find satisfaction, so,
Put on a happy face, and remember,
Don't say Olds, say Bendik Olds!
Don't say Olds, say Bendik Olds!
Don't say Olds,
Make it a Bendik Olds!
"You have a mind like a steel trap," my friend said.
"Yep," I said, "nothing gets in, and nothing gets out."
Some how, I've been put on a whole bunch of mailing lists. People seem to think that this daily page of foo has some influence, and every public-relations bumpkin (and as one myself these days, I know of what I speak) from Birch Bay, Wash., to North Lubec, Maine, now sends me press releases.
I'm not sure who decided that a freelance writer in McKeesport (Our Fair City), Pa., would be interested in news from the Canadian National Railways, but I get it religiously. If you want to know when the assistant regional district road superintendent for Sherbrooke, Quebec, is going to get promoted to senior assistant regional district road superintendent, just let me know. (Note to the professionals at CCNMatthews: Knock it off!)
For a long time I was on the mailing list of the Ayn Rand Institute. You would have a hard time finding someone less in agreement with Ayn Rand, one of the truly overrated writers of our time (others include the execrable John Grisham, but at least he hasn't spawned a political philosophy), than I am. Nevertheless, someone at the Ayn Rand Institute decided to send me nonsense several times a month. (Sample of a recent press release from ARI: "Social Security in any form is morally irredeemable." Sorry, granny, get off the dole! Ayn Rand says you should be eating cat food.)
Those have tapered off a bit since I complained to them, but occasionally, one slips through. Apparently, the Ayn Rand Institute needs no warrant or sanction to spam away, and it's perfectly logical to irritate other people with your junk mail. But I digress. Objectively, of course.
And then there's the Democratic National Committee. The sweet, misguided Democratic National Committee. Aren't they cute? More than two months after the election, they continue to email me missives full of invective about President Bush and his policies.
If your party had lost the White House, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court, I suppose you could focus on building a grass-roots effort in the South and West that could get some congressional candidates elected in 2006, and possibly turn some of the so-called red states into blue ones.
Or, you could continue to spend your time and money having staffers clog up my email box with useless "ACTION ALERTS!" How's that working out for you guys so far?
This week, there was a new email pest. Something called "Conservation Wire" wrote to inform me about an effort to list the "Northern Snakehead" fish as an endangered species.
I couldn't quite tell if they was fer it or agin it, but I couldn't give a tinker's dam for the Northern Snakehead fish, unless it tastes good dipped in batter and covered with hot sauce, in which case, I'll have three, and a cold Stoney's, please.
But since they didn't offer any recipes, Conservation Wire was no use to me, and after receiving several emails from them, I wrote back, saying "Remove me from your mailing list."
Then I went to get a cup of coffee.
I returned to find 250 emails in my inbox, and more arriving in batches every few seconds. It turns out that these nitwits at "Conservation Wire" were bouncing all of the "remove" requests to all of the other people on their mailing list. Not only did I get a copy of everyone else's removal requests, but everyone got a copy of mine.
I also all got copies of any messages that were bounced from any email addresses that weren't valid any more. So, presumably, did anyone else who was on the mailing list. And then they started to send emails to Conservation Wire. Which were resent to everyone else on the mailing list. Including the invalid email addresses. Which generated new bounced emails. Lather, rinse, repeat.
This thrilled me to no end. Or at least to the end of about another 250 emails.
Then I started to get emails from idiots who received my request to be removed from the Conservation Wire email list, complaining about how stupid I was for sending email to them.
I was nice to the first dozen or so, and then I started to tell them off: "Please look at the headers of the email. I didn't send this to you. I sent it to Conservation Wire, and they sent it to you. Complain to them."
Those have started to slack off, finally, but I just got another one, from the Webmaster of a radio station in Connecticut, who wrote to inform me that his station "does not have a mailing list and did not send out this email," and that he is "looking into the problem."
Go ahead and look into it, but I weep for your radio station, Charlie, if you're the Webmaster. Obviously, your reading comprehension skills leave something to be desired.
As for the people at Conservation Wire, who don't have any contact information anywhere on their Web site, I want to thank you for clogging my email box with several hundred pieces of useless crapola. I now know more about the endangered Northern Snakehead fish than I ever wanted to know. I still don't care, however.
I do know one thing --- I hope that if you go swimming this summer, you see a Northern Snakehead fish, swimming right toward you.
And I hope it crawls up somewhere that email won't reach, and bites you, hard.
...
Following up on yesterday's ecclesiastical Steelers Almanac, Alert Reader Officer Jim sends along the following fable to, as he says, "ease the pain a bit." It may not be original, but it is funny:
A Steelers fan amused himself by scaring every Patriots fan he saw strutting down the street in the obnoxious red, white and blue colors. He would swerve his van as if to hit them, and swerve back just missing them.
One day, while driving along, he saw a priest. He thought he would do a good deed and he pulled over and asked the priest, "Where are you going Father?" "I'm going to give mass at St. Joseph's church, about two miles down the road," replied the priest. "Climb in, Father! I'll give you a lift!"
The priest climbed into the passenger seat, and they continued down the road. Suddenly, the driver saw a Patriots fan walking down the road, and he instinctively swerved as if to hit him. But, as usual, he swerved back onto the road just in time. Even though he was certain that he had missed the guy, he still heard a "THUD." Not understanding where the noise came from, he glanced in his mirrors but still didn't see anything.
He then remembered the priest, and he turned to the priest and said, "I'm sorry Father, I almost hit that Patriots fan." "That's OK," replied the priest, "I got him with the door."
Since I like to sleep late on the weekends, and our church offers a Sunday night service, I've gotten into the habit of going then.
Guess what last night's service happened to coincide with?
I'm not saying the crowd was small, but it was hardly worth turning the lights on. We could have held Mass around the kitchen table in the rectory, and still had room left to roll in a television and catch the game.
Not that we needed that kind of temptation. As it was, I have this feeling that several people were already following the game on their Walkmans. Otherwise, their reactions to the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians --- "No! No, dammit!" --- were surprisingly vehement.
Even Father's hearing aid looked suspiciously large, though no one thought it was at all odd when he offered a petition "that the Patriots shall be fooled by the play-action fake, and that we can convert the third down, we pray to the Lord."
I'll admit, it was a bit much when Father dedicated the eucharistic prayer to "our bishop Donald, our coach, Bill, and all of his assistant coaches." And when the ushers brought up the offerings, I wish those two clowns in the back of church hadn't started yelling, "De-fense! De-fense!"
But the homily was nice, and made use of very effective imagery, as when Father called for "the infinite justice and wisdom of the Lord to split the uprights of our hearts."
Of course, as it turns out, the service ended a bit too soon. I got in the car just in time to hear the Patriots score the third touchdown of the first half.
If only we'd known, we could have stayed in church a few minutes longer, and asked for last rites.
...
For further meditation:
Big Ben is our Shepherd, I shall not want Maddox,
He leadeth us to the AFC Championship game,
But our receivers holdeth not the ball.
Yea, though we walk through the valley of the Field of Heinz,
We fear no Belichick, for thy Cowher art with us.
Though thy team kicketh on fourth down,
We shall not foresake them.
Thy Tunch and thy Bix comfort us.
Surely thy tailgaters shall returneth next year,
And shall dwell in the parking lots of the Rooneys for hours.
...
Give me the patience to accept the plays they could not change,
The courage to call the talk shows and complain about the ones they could have changed,
And the wisdom not to kick the television.
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