An expression heard frequently these days is that “things will never be the same again”. It’s easy to believe that, and indeed it does appear that major catastrophes like our current pandemic do have long ranging effects on many aspects of our lives.
However it is also true that gradual evolutionary changes have a similar effect and perhaps an even greater one. Every time our Octogenarian Brunch Club gets together someone brings up incidents from our youth that demonstrate how much things have changed since then.
In an effort to shift our intention away from today’s problems, we have decided to roll the calendar backwards sixty-six years and attempt to recall what everyday life was like in this area in 1954. Thanks to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society we have access to a few archived issues of the “Bridgeville News”, including one dated April 15, 1954.
On that date I had just arrived in Japan and been assigned to the 64th Engineer Battalion Base Topographic in the Oji neighborhood in northern Tokyo. That is just about the extreme of social distancing – nine thousand miles from Bridgeville.
The Bridgeville News was an eight-page weekly paper in those days, published by John L. McCracken and Ralph E. Hennon at News Square, which I remember as a small concrete block print shop on Jane Way.
The paper cost seven cents a copy, but could be supplied by mail for an annual fee of three dollars. The equivalent cost today would be thirty dollars a year. I wonder how many families today would be willing to pay that amount for a weekly newspaper of this quality? Similarly, the paper had forty-five advertisements from local businesses. How much support of this type would a paper get today? Seventeen word classified ads cost fifty cents (equivalent to five dollars today).
The front page had twenty-three different news items plus a strange cartoon addressing society’s concern about the behavior of the younger generation. The featured article was headlined “Little League Sets Tryouts”. Methodist minister Reverend Kerr was the commissioner of the four-team league with teams sponsored by the Kwanis, the Rotary, American Legion Post 54, and the Reliable Fraternal Association. I remember playing softball against the Reverend in a church league – he was highly competitive!
Sticking with baseball, another article reported that third baseman Marvin McCormick had been named captain of the BHS baseball team. My high school classmate John Mechtel, a U. S. Navy hospitalman, was reported to be serving on the cruiser USS Salem. Post 54 had honored Past Commander Angelo Pennetti for his service that netted the post a loving cup from the State Legion.
The Chamber of Commerce was about to honor C. Godwin, A. A. Pepe, J. H Rankin, J. H. Lutz, and Dr. W. C. Thompson for their fifty years of being in business in Bridgeville at a dinner at Bethany Presbyterian Church. Organizers of the dinner were William McDivitt (Bridgeville Trust Company), Cyrus Holman (Bridgeville National Bank), Ralph Weise (Weises’s), and Samuel Fryer (Fryer’s Funeral Home).
Frank Cherry had been discharged from the Navy after forty months on the U. S. S. Blackwood. A graduate of Bridgeville High School (1948) and of barber school, he planned to join his father as a local barber.
A long article by Civil Defense Director Ed Giuliani had the headline, “Local CD Director Urges Calm Thought”. Tests of the hydrogen bomb had just been completed, magnifying the panic associated with the atomic bomb. Director Giuliani promised to publish recommendations for preparedness in future issues of the paper.
Pages two and three were a combination of a few news items, some local ads, and a lot of “boilerplate” filler. Capelli’s ad reported live entertainment – the Tune Toppers on Fridays and Perry Vincent’s Orchestra on Saturdays. Isaly’s advertised “candy eggs, peeps, and rabbits” for next week’s Easter baskets.
Sergio Bernardi’s “Belltown News” reported complaints about folks burning rubbish on wash day. Congressman Jimmy Fulton’s “Congressional Newsletter” discussed planning for the new Air Force Academy. My favorite bit of boilerplate in this issue is “Solve a Crime” by A. C. Gordon, a simple logic puzzle much like today’s “Slylock Fox” in the comic strips, with the solution printed upside down at the end of the article.
Page four is a full-page ad announcing Louis Russo’s new Bar and Grill at 615 Washington Avenue, “the most modern bar in town”, supplemented by support ads by both local banks, Silhol Lumber and Supply Company, Dreon Building Supplies, Heating and Roofer Dave Nervo, and bar/restaurant equipment supplier William Delp.
The fifth page is dominated by sports – an ad for fishing gear by Kay’s Sporting Goods store, standings of the County Industrial League, and a column “Sportsmen Outdoors” by Outdoor Editor (?) Frank Floss. Floss mentions fishing at Lake Jo Ann, so it must be a local column. These are supplemented by local news columns for Oakdale and Cuddy/Gladden, and church news. Bethany Church announced Easter Sunrise services at 6:30 am with Reverend Yount, Mayview State Hospital Chaplain presiding.
The final three pages are an amalgam of loosely related items. Bridgeville Borough legal announcements included Ordinance 443, requiring a permit for solicitation for charitable causes; Ordinance 444, regulating truck traffic on residential streets; and the Borough Auditors’ Report for the Previous year. According to Auditors Keith Bee, Guy Russell, and Virgil Dal Bon, receipts and expenditures balanced at $288,251.46. My favorite classified ad was placed by a lady wanting to swap a ten-acre farm in Hickory for “a house near Bridgeville”.
This has been an interesting trip back six and a half decades to a time when our concerns ranged from the hydrogen bomb to soot on clothes hanging outside to dry, and we still were buoyed up by the prospect of attending the grand opening of Russo’s Bar and Grill on Saturday night followed by an Easter sunrise service at Bethany Church the next morning.