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.
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.
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.”
... 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."
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