Alert Reader Jonathan, proprietor of The Conversation, reminds me that today is the 25th anniversary of the day that President Reagan was shot. He also passed along a link to a retrospective in The Washington Post that includes video of the shooting: "I'm sure (you've) seen better footage than this, in which you get a good look at the agent who opened the door turning his body to face the shooter. That still gets to me."
Jonathan's referring to the fact that the Secret Service agent --- as trained --- put himself directly in the path of danger to save the President's life. How many of us would so quickly lay down our life for someone else's? Probably not many.
March 30, 1981, was a memorable day for residents of Our Fair City for other reasons. That afternoon, one of the largest fires the valley had seen since the 1976 blaze Downtown broke out at the Steelmet plant under the old 15th Avenue Bridge.
The Steelmet plant was built as the McKeesport Tin Plate Company at the turn of the 20th century, and by the 1920s, ranked as one of the world's leading producers of tin-plated steel, which was used for (among other things) canned goods. It also made McKeesport businessman Edwin Crawford one of the wealthiest people in Pennsylvania.
But Crawford wasn't investing any of the profits back into the firm to modernize its products, and bigger steel companies were turning out better and cheaper tinplate. The Depression soon knocked the pins out from under McKeesport Tin Plate, and when Crawford died Sept. 11, 1936 (leaving an estate of $1.5 million, about $20 million by today's standards), the company was already in decline.
In 1937, the company merged with one of its subsidiaries, National Can Co. The following year, it reported a net loss of $679,000, and that December, officials it demanded that employees take a steep wage cut; they went out on strike, instead, closing the mill for much of 1939. Though it reopened, by 1940, it was moribund.
The plant was taken over for defense work (I think by Jones & Laughlin) during World War II. Kelsey-Hayes purchased it after the war to stamp out automobile wheels. Eventually, it fell into the hands of Steelmet, a metal recycling company that specialized in expensive alloys.
In 1981, despite the rapid decline of the steel industry in the Mon Valley, Steelmet was one of the few metal handling firms that were still hiring. Then came the fire.
If I recall correctly, someone using a torch ignited a pile of titanium shavings. The blaze jumped to the roof of one of the old tinplate buildings and soon, much of the complex was on fire.
I remember this because my dad was working for Steelmet at the time as a purchasing agent. I was watching TV after school --- cartoons, on Channel 53, I think, because I seem to remember Ted Sohier breaking in with a bulletin about Reagan's shooting.
My grandparents were visiting that Monday evening. When they came in the house, my grandmother said something like, "Oh, it's so terrible."
I said, "Yes! The president was shot! The president was shot!"
She said, "No, your daddy's work is on fire."
Indeed it was. The smoke was visible for miles around. Though Steelmet (which had other facilities around the United States) eventually reopened, the Port Vue plant never really seemed to recover from the blaze, and the damage to the buildings was evident for years to come. Steelmet filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1983, and dad and many of Steelmet's other employees were eventually laid off.
There is a happy ending of sorts; the company was sold to a German firm, ELG Haniel Metals, which invested millions of dollars to renovate the plant, much to the astonishment of us who had watched it decline over the years.
The McKeesport plant also houses the U.S. headquarters for the firm, which has locations in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Louisville, Ky., and Mobile, Ala. Today, the old tinplate mill is probably in better shape than at any time since Edwin Crawford's death.
Meanwhile, Dad went back to college, got his teaching certificate, and has spent the last two decades as an educator. So, Reagan recovered, the tinplate mill recovered, and our family recovered.
Andrew Carnegie used to say, "All is well since all grows better." While I don't always share the Old Scot's optimism about life, I can appreciate the sentiment. Eventually, traumatic events get put into their proper perspective, and things are rarely as tragic or catastrophic as they seem at the time.
Even James Brady, Reagan's press secretary, who was permanently disabled in the shooting, has retained a positive outlook on life, according to the Post. He and his wife are retired on the Delaware shore, visit with their friends and adult son frequently, and are still proud of being able, in the wake of Reagan's shooting, to get legislation passed that requires criminal background checks for people buying handguns.
"When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade," Jim Brady says. "I have several stands around here."
A sad note today: My deepest sympathies to the family of Frank Striffler, the McKeesport funeral director and entrepreneur, who died Sunday after an illness. There was a fine obituary in Monday's News (it doesn't seem to be online), while Francine Garrone wrote a obituary for the Tribune-Review.
Mr. Striffler was a regular fixture around town, and absolutely did not fit the stereotypical Hollywood ideal of a funeral director. Where popular culture depicts morticians as dour, unhappy, dark people, Mr. Striffler --- in my experiences --- was outgoing, friendly and funny.
Nothing illustrates that better, perhaps, than Frank Striffler's favorite color, a joyous green hue that has long been the trademark of his company's funeral homes, hearses and limousines, and even his own wardrobe.
I know that some people found his sense of showmanship off-putting, but I found him charming, with a talent for putting grieving families and friends at ease. After all, if you're coming from a Judeo-Christian tradition, then a funeral isn't a time to be sad, is it? And even if you don't believe in an afterlife, shouldn't a funeral be a time to celebrate the life of the deceased, as well as mourn their loss?
Mr. Striffler also should be commended for long being a supporter of charitable organizations in the Mon-Yough area and a booster of civic activities in and around Our Fair City.
A funeral Mass is to be held tomorrow morning at St. Martin de Porres Parish, St. Peter's Church, with interment to follow in North Versailles Township. Requeiscat in pace, Mr. Striffler.
...
I don't know much about art, but I do know that my alma mater is erecting an appalling piece of garbage on its campus. It looks for all the world like something constructed out of Lego people, or possibly model railroad parts.
It might be tolerable if it wasn't so large ... but it's 100 feet tall and is going to be garishly colored. That's as tall as a si
tory building. And they're erecting it along Forbes Avenue near the intersection with Morewood Avenue, so it will be impossible to miss.
Oh, well. Maybe it will take some of the attention away from the student union and the theater arts building, two structures that lack only fasces, concrete eagles and balconies to have been right at home in Albert Speer's plans for Berlin, circa 1937.
The dean of the fine arts school calls the sculpture in question "an optimistic piece of work, about being ambitious." Yes, but to paraphrase John Kerry, one can be ambitious and wrong, too.
Others are justifying it on the grounds that the artist is an alumnus of the college, and that he deserves the college's support. Perhaps, but the campus is not a refrigerator that must be used to display art work from its children.
In fairness, there's a lot of ugly art on that campus, like the orange abstract blocks in front of the engineering and computer science building. Those are a product of their time (the 1970s) and I'm certain they were also hailed as optimistic, groundbreaking and ambitious.
This sculpture is also a product of its time, and is going to look just as out of date a few years from now. In 20 years, this giant piece of "art" will be looked at with the same disdain that people now look at those orange cubes. People will stare, shake their heads, and say: "What were they thinking?"
(Naturally, views expressed at the Almanac are not those of my employers, the management of KDKA, or the commissioner of the National Football League.)
...
Speaking of new buildings, when in the name of Frank Lloyd Wrong did that massive shed go up along Walnut Street in Christy Park? I saw it for the first time the other evening.
It's next to an auto repair shop north of 30th Street. I assume it's going to be used for car repairs, but for a split second, I thought they might be opening an airport, and that it was going to be used as a hangar. Egad.
...
Are you bugged by that automated voice that now answers "directory assistance" calls for Verizon? So was Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post. So are Verizon's operators.
As it turns out, the voice belongs to a real person named Darby Bailey, and the Boston Globe interviewed her about two years ago. (They wouldn't let her talk to Weingarten, who just demolishes the system and the company that sells it, as he often does.)
In that Globe story, by the way, a Verizon spokesman claimed that the system only fails when callers give it incorrect information: "You know, garbage in, garbage out ... People don't have good information."
Good plan. Blame your customers.
Out of the dozen times I've dealt with Verizon's automated directory assistance, I've only got the computer to give me a correct answer once. I felt like a child who had finally learned to use the potty when it happened.
I've been tempted to say really rude things to the computer prompts, or else to talk in nonsense words. But since Weingarten reports that actual human beings do listen to those calls, I'm glad I don't, I suppose.
Our Fair City (or as we like to call it, "Paris on the Mon") continues to be the center of a media circus, as national reporters hash and rehash the same facts about the Tanya Kach case.
(Warning: If Geraldo Rivera shows up at the Eat'n Park on Lysle Boulevard, watch him carefully. I hear he's a lousy tipper, and he never takes a clean plate when he goes back to the salad bar.)
No new details have emerged, though everyone seems to have had the same reaction to a magistrate's decision to set bond for the man accused of holding her hostage at a phenomenally low 10 percent of $2,000.
And that reaction can be summed up by the legal term, qualis coeunt, or "what the f---?"
That's right. If the suspect had scraped up $200, he could have been free to go to Olympia Shopping Center and say goodbye to the Giant Eagle. District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. convinced the court to hold him for a couple more days until a new bond hearing could be set.
According to the Post-Gazette, the magistrate, District Judge Tom Miller of White Oak, defended the bond, "saying the suspect has ties to the community, a job, a home, no prior criminal record and other indications of stability."
Yes, the suspect certainly had a stable address and home life for the past 10 years. After all, the police are accusing him of holding someone against their will at the same location for most of a decade.
(Note to self: Don't get any speeding tickets while driving through White Oak, because I think I've just lost my case.)
I take it back --- there were some new details, notably the reports that a hairdresser is wanted for questioning. Police believe she may have altered the victim's appearance in an attempt to conceal her identity.
You know, if giving girls bad haircuts is a crime, then most of the beauticians in the Mon Valley should be under arrest. Those convicted of committing "mall hair" should be sentenced to life without parole.
Oh, and what are those national writers scribbling about Our Fair City? Well, we made the front page of the New York Daily News: "The decade-long disappearance of a woman who resurfaced this week after running away as a 14-year-old has baffled cops and neighbors in her gritty western Pennsylvania town. ... Some residents in the steel-mill town are anxious to learn more."
"Steel-mill town"? Yeah, we wish. The economy would be better.
For 20 years, image consultants, branding experts, chamber of commerce nattering nabobs and assorted other yobbos have been spending money (a lot of it from the taxpayers) to change perceptions of the Pittsburgh region.
Nice use of public funds. Real effective. They might as well have taken the money out in cash and buried it, in hopes a dollar-bill tree might sprout.
Why, just once, can't we make the national news for something good?
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