Category: default || By jt3y

Allow me to talk about myself for a minute, hmm? I try not to do that at the Almanac, but I think I'm entitled once in a while, and if yinz don't like it, well, see you later.

If it seems like I am filling the Almanac with more scrawls than bloviations lately, there is a simple reason for that --- the book is due to the publisher by May, so I'm frantically trying to whip the manuscript into some sort of shape.

Add to that a number of writing projects at my real job and the need to write copy at my weekend job, and there's not much verbiage left in the tank some days. Sitting down at the drawing table and scribbling out a cartoon, on the other hand, provides a certain amount of relaxation. Your indulgence is appreciated.

Incidentally, regarding the book --- if you haven't checked out the website lately (www.gcmurphy.org), you might like to. I've been trying to keep it updated with fresh material, and one new feature is called "Photo of the Month." I'm posting images that I've acquired that are probably not going to make it into the book.

The current photo is a February image --- a Valentine's Day display window --- and there will be a new one for March on Thursday.

One of the "good news, bad news" situations is that I presently have enough material to fill three volumes. Former G.C. Murphy Co. employees and customers have been extraordinarily generous, and I continue to get emails and letters (it's "G.C. Murphy Book Project, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, PA 15134") on a weekly basis.

Unfortunately, Penn State Press wants 90,000 words. So we're going to have to figure out what to do with the rest of the material.

Just last week I received an email from someone in Indianapolis. He was a union steward at Murphy's Indianapolis warehouse from 1971 to 1978, and while going to night school at Indiana University, he wrote a master's thesis on working conditions and employee job satisfaction. Would I like to read it?

"Would I like to read it?" Does it rain in Indianapolis in the summertime?

Ultimately, much of what we collect going to end up with the rest of the G.C. Murphy Co. archive at McKeesport Heritage Center. The Murphy material (much of it stuff that was covertly spirited out of 531 Fifth Ave. before Ames could throw it away) currently fills several large file drawers.

It's some measure of the affection that people continue to have for Murphy's that since starting the book project, we have now collected at least two more good-sized boxes full of stories, newspaper clippings and mementos more than 20 years after Murphy's ceased to exist as an independent company. And that's not counting material I've acquired on my own over the last two years.

By comparison, the entire corporate archive of the McCrory Corporation --- a competing variety-store company that was once three times the size of G.C. Murphy Co., and controlled by one of the richest men in the United States, Meshulam Riklis --- fits into two standard boxes at the Historical Society of York County.

Since we can't publish all this stuff, and since not everyone is going to want to trek to McKeesport to see it, we may use the G.C. Murphy website to distribute some of the choicer bits. I would hate the stories and memories to not have a wider audience.

. . .

Meanwhile, Alert Reader Eric sends along a link to a common misspelling of the editor's last name. According to the website "toygers.org":

The Toyger is a designer cat. It is designed and bred with the demands of modern apartment life as a human companion foremost in mind. Glittered, pelted, dramatic pattern appeals to both the high-tech glamour and nature-loving, wild dreams of city-caught people while the laid back, easily trained character of these cats make them a joy to live with.

Maybe this explains why the Tube City Tiger and I get along so well, even though I went to Serra. I never thought of myself as a cat person, but obviously my "laid-back, easily-trained character" appeals to him. (That, and I lick myself clean.)

I don't mind it when the Tube City Tiger visits, by the way, but I wish he would stop drinking the milk right out of the carton.

And since many people ask me about this, the name ("G" first, then "Y," let's make sure it's spelled properly on the hate mail, please) is Hungarian, pronounced like "magyar" --- that is to say, with difficulty.

. . .

In other news, the Post-Gazette (motto: "Still in Business") editorial board yesterday recommended selling the state-owned liquor stores instead of raising the sales tax and selling the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Several Alert Readers have now pointed out that they saw something similar in the Almanac more than two weeks ago. They wonder if someone at the P-G was inspired by my screed.

Eh, possibly, but it's more likely that the idea is so gob-smackingly obvious that both I and the P-G thought of it.

Speaking of: My old boss, Park Burroughs, had a complaint or or two recently about our state store system. I wish I could tell when Park is being sarcastic.

. . .

Finally, a couple of stories of local interest from the Noo Yawk papers. Friend and former cow-orker Dave Copeland made the New York Daily News after the subject of his forthcoming book Blood and Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia was kicked out of the federal Witness Protection Program. I'm guessing that former mobsters who lose their anonymity don't buy any green bananas.

Also, someone is leaving soup cans on Andy Warhol's grave in Bethel Park, according to the Times (which calls the South Hills community "bland"). Well, it's no Wilmerding, I'll admit that. (Tube City hard hat tip: Ol' Froth.)