Category: History, The Blacktop Jungle || By

Well, I figured that four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline was going to hit the Mon-Yough area sooner or later. (I paid $3.999 in Whitaker on Saturday. G'wan, guess which gas station. You have your choice of one.)

Yet this was still provided a nasty little surprise when I was driving home from work Sunday night. I grabbed my chest, Fred Sanford-style, and said, "This is the big one, 'Lisbeth! I'm comin'!"

Right about now, I'm wondering if Ford has made any progress on that hybrid version of the Grand Marquis. Probably not.

Actually, the car I'm kind of coveting is the five-speed stickshift Mercury Milan. The car seems to get good reviews for performance and quality, and I like the looks, too. (I'd like a two-door version --- a la the Toyota Solara and Honda Accord --- even better. Please, Ford?)

Of course, I've never actually owned a new car, and since I'm still a writer, the chances of me being able to afford a new one are somewhere between slim and none.

I was waiting for Ed McMahon to finally deliver my check from that publishers' sweepstakes dealie, but it turns out that Ed has troubles of his own, so now I've got to wait until they're five years old and hitting the used car lots.

By then, unfortunately, gasoline might be six dollars a gallon and the Turnpike Commission will still be "10 years away" from completing the Mo-Fo Excessway.

I wonder if I should get to work on the Fred Flintstone version of my present car. A couple more Pennsylvania winters ought to take care of the floor quite nicely. Yabba-dabba-doo!

. . .

S.S. McKeesport: Yes, that was me in your Sunday Post-Gazette, writing about the S.S. McKeesport.

My story was just a sidebar to a larger story about the USS Pittsburgh written by Chris Briem, who's trying to rally support for bringing a World War II-vintage LST to Pittsburgh. As he notes, many warships were constructed around our rivers --- especially at Dravo Corp.'s shipyards on Neville Island.

Although the Mon-Yough area was a hub for building riverboats, especially before World War II, I don't know that any U.S. Navy craft were ever built in McKeesport or Elizabeth during the 20th century.

If they were, it would have been at Elizabeth Marine Ways, I suppose.