Category: Mon Valley Miscellany, Our Far-Flung National Correspondents, Politics || By Jason Togyer

This isn't local, but I love this story (and a tip o' the Tube City hard hat to Nancy Nall):

An armed and bullying motorist found he picked on the wrong driver Saturday when he was subdued by a retired St. Tammany Parish sheriff's deputy, according to Slidell Police.

Armed only with a walking cane and quick reflexes, Richard Singletary, 73, fought off a gun-wielding motorist who had been driving aggressively and threatening him as he drove on Old Spanish Trail in Slidell ...

Singletary, who retired as a Sheriff's Office lieutenant in 1987 after more than 26 years with the department, uses a cane because he has two bad knees and a heart problem, Foltz said. (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

Two bad knees and a heart problem, and he still whupped the other guy, who was packing a .357 Magnum. They build 'em tough in Loosiana, they do.

. . .

The Inevitable Mon-Yough Area Connection, Part I: Whenever a scandal breaks, I cross my fingers and mumble, "Please don't have a connection to the Mon-Yough area, please don't have a connection to the Mon-Yough area."

You heard about the female gym teacher at Moon Area High School who's accused of having sex with a 14-year-old male student? She's from Scott Township. I was really hoping we dodged a bullet, but no, because according to Bobbi Mercandante of the Beaver County Times, her husband is coach of the men's basketball team at Penn State Greater Allegheny.

. . .

The Inevitable Mon-Yough Area Connection, Part II: The boyfriend of the poor woman whose body was found in a trash bin in Charleroi is now the prime suspect in her murder. Yeah, he's from McKeesport, according to Scott Beveridge in the Observer-Reporter. Oh, and she's from West Mifflin. And she was related to the woman whose remains were found over a hillside in Clairton a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Jen Reeger of the Tribune-Review reports that the victim in the Charleroi slaying was charged with assault by Clairton police on the very day her body was found; she allegedly was found by police kicking her boyfriend, who was passed out in the street, apparently from an heroin overdose.

As we wrote this Almanac, the cops were looking for 28-year-old Joseph Natale, who is on parole from a September 2006 drug arrest in Clairton. If you have any information, call the Charleroi police at (724) 483-8010 or state police at the Belle Vernon barracks at (724) 929-6262.

. . .

Sing along with Tom Lehrer: "Oh, yes indeed, the people there are just plain folks, in my home town ..."

. . .

Meanwhile: Woodland Hills School District Superintendent Ros Wilson has announced her retirement. Her decision to step down comes after complaints that the school district was too slow to respond to discipline problems at the high school in Churchill, and at Junior High West in Swissvale.

Those complaints were fanned into white-hot heat by KDKA-TV "investigative" "reporter" Marty Griffin, who hammered Wilson relentlessly on his daily KDKA radio talk show for weeks at a time in November and December.

Griffin, you'll recall, also hectored a Ben Avon church pastor over his purchases of (legal) pornography at the dirty bookstore near the Mansfield Bridge (note the inevitable Mon Valley connection!) until the man killed himself in a Mercer County motel room.

Do you think Marty actually attaches the scalps to his belt?

Or does he just stamp a skull-and-crossbones on the side of a KDKA mobile unit, like the Red Baron?