Category: default || By jt3y

Alert Reader Arden notes that the Tanya Kach case made the "Overheard in Pittsburgh" blog:

Point Brugge Café, Point Breeze:

Guy: Only in McKeesport can you be abducted in McKeesport and stay in McKeesport!

Well, truthfully, why would you need to leave Our Fair City for any reason?

Other than to catch a train or a bus.

Or eat in a Mexican restaurant.

Or buy a new suit or shoes.

Or ... eh, we could go on for a while, so I'd better stop before I get depressed.

All kidding aside (were we?), I'm always amazed by the number of Mon-Yough residents I meet who've never been to Picksberg (except, perhaps, to a Stiller game), have never seen the Carnegie Museums, have never even been to Cranberry Township, for goodness' sake.

I know a few people who get nosebleeds if they're more than five miles from, say, Glassport. I know others who complain incessantly if they have to go to Pittsburgh International Airport or Washington County, as if they're outposts at the far reaches of the solar system. I have friends who can't find addresses on the opposite side of their own boroughs or townships because they rarely leave their neighborhoods.

What accounts for this insularity? There's nothing wrong with hometown pride (which is hardly in short supply at the Almanac and the rest of Tube City Online), but there's also nothing wrong with getting out to see the rest of the big, wide world. In fact, it's hard to understand your own world without seeing how other people live.

Sometimes I think that World War II was a good thing, because at the very least it forced our grandparents' generation to get out of their hometowns, work and live with people from other parts of the world, and see that there was more to life that what could be defined by the borders of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers.

Personally, I love to explore --- on foot, in a car, on a train, in a plane --- and I only wish I had the time and money to travel more. Locally, there probably aren't many communities in the 412 and 724 area codes that I haven't seen at least once. There's no place like home, but seeing someplace else can make you appreciate home a little bit more --- and maybe give you some ideas for improving your surroundings.

And as for Point Breeze guy, eh, I've seen your neighborhood. No offense, but I wouldn't brag too much.

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Meanwhile, fill-in Post-Gazette "Morning File" colyumist Bill Toland is out to make amends with several local blogs that claim they're not getting their proper respect from the news media --- AldoCoffee.com, run by a Caketown coffee shop, and Jonathan Barnes' "Barnestormin."

Interesting, isn't it, that while many bloggers claim that the mainstream media is dying, they "cry for attention" (Toland's words) when they don't get mentioned by the mainstream media?

Personally, I couldn't care less if this "blog" gets mentioned in any publication. Besides, I hate calling this a "blog." It's like a newspaper column, only without any coupons printed on the back.

And it's sure not a "cry for attention." It may, however, be a "cry for help."

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Found On The Internet While Looking For Other Things:

Anyone who's worked in customer service will appreciate "Behind The Counter", the regular journal of a Wal-Mart employee somewhere in Florida.

In honor of the late Morgantown, W.Va., native Don Knotts, who very much got out of his own neighborhood, here's The Onion A.V. Club's list of the 20 best "wonderfully irrelevant" Andy Griffith Show conversations.

The Stiller Who Would Be Governor gets profiled by The Washington Post. Some people say that Lynn Swann has absolutely no idea what he would do if elected --- and that may be true, but others might say that Ed Rendell doesn't either. Unfortunately, he's been in office for more than three years.

Remember those ads in the back of comic books for Grit, "America's Family Weekly Newspaper" or "Weekly Family Newspaper" or "One of American's Weekest Newspapers"? I can't remember the exact slogan, but I do know they promised wealth and prizes if you took up a Grit route in your neighborhood. Well, I never met anyone who actually read Grit (maybe if I'd taken a route of my own, I'd be rich right now), but it's still in business.

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Next Week: We answer your letters. Assuming the one that's ticking hasn't gone off by then.

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To Do This Weekend: Penn State McKeesport Campus hosts a spring open house for high school juniors from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the Ostermayer Room of the Student Community Center. The agenda includes a welcome from the chancellor, an Admissions presentation, talks from current students, tours and a free lunch. Call (412) 675-9010. Walk-ins are welcome ... McKeesport Recreation Board hosts an Easter Egg Hunt for kids 12 and under at Jacob Woll Pavilion, Renziehausen Park, starting at 12 noon Saturday. (Rain date April 15.) Call (412) 675-5068. ... Salsa Pittsburgh starts its "Spring Salsa Spectacular" dance tonight at the Palisades, Fifth Avenue at Water Street. Events begin at 8:30, and there will be lessons as well as performances by two Latin bands. Call (412) 881-9237.