Category: Water Under the Bridge

I celebrated my ninety-fifth birthday at Chautauqua nearly two weeks ago. Jonathan and Marsha Maddy drove up from Franklin to help us celebrate. We had a lovely dinner and a magnificent German chocolate cake. Elizabeth had reminded my friends of the significance of the occasion, and I was inundated with phone calls, emails, text messages, birthday cards, E-cards, and letters. I felt like the Rhinestone Cowboy. One of my favorites was a call from my barber, Ted Evangelista, who reported that he was interested in the mathematical equation necessary to fit ninety-five candles on a circular cake. All told, I…

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We have just returned from two memorable weeks at the Chautauqua Institution, Weeks Two and Three of “the Season”. Located on the western shore of LChautauqua, the Institution is a self-contained resort community with a bipolar personality. For forty-three weeks of the year it is a pleasant, quiet village with a population that shrinks during the dead of the New York winter and grows gradually during the Spring. Late in June everything changes and it becomes a bustling beehive of cultural activity for the next nine weeks. It is transformed into a gated community in which even permanent residents are…

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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society completed its 2025/2026 program series with an interesting presentation by Richard Murphy dealing with the veterans of World War II who witnessed the horror of the Nazi concentration camps when they were liberated at the end of the war. Mr. Murphy is a resident of Carnegie with a deep commitment to honoring members of “The Greatest Generation” and to keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust. The speaker is a fourth generation Army combat veteran who has spent most of his life in public service. He enlisted in the Army at the age of eighteen…

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My dear friend Kevin Abt treated me to another memorable adventure last month. This time our destination was at my suggestion. I have been aware of the historical significance of Hanna’s Town for many years but had never visited the actual site. Currently owned by the Westmoreland County Parks and Recreation Department and operated by the Westmoreland County Historical Society, it is an impressive recreation of a frontier village. The original Hanna’s Town had a significant amount of history crammed into the nine years during which it prospered. Located on Forbes Road, halfway between Fort Ligonier and Fort Pitt, it…

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This year’s Public Art Bridgeville display of outdoor sculptures is now complete. It is an appealing combination of new pieces and welcome carryovers, spanning the spectrum from realistic to abstract in a variety of forms. The easiest way for us to review them is by taking a tour through “downtown Bridgeville” with an unsophisticated art critic as a guide. He will meet you at La Bella Bean for coffee and a midday snack before initiating the tour. Our first stop is at the bench in the adjacent parking lot facing Washington Avenue. There we find “Crossing Paths”, an extremely popular…

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In general, I have mixed feelings about the celebration of ethnic holidays; part of me wants to focus solely on the serving of Mulligan Stew that our nation’s melting pot has produced and another part is eager to emphasize retaining and enhancing the heritage of each of its ingredients. When I first heard about Juneteenth being considered a national holiday, my initial reaction was negative. This opinion changed dramatically last year when I went to Woodville and observed the way the folks there treated this opportunity. A return trip this year reinforced my opinion. Slavery was not a significant part…

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Two weeks ago my daughter and I were at Chautauqua on a lovely Saturday morning and she asked me if there was anything special that I wanted to do that afternoon. For once I had an immediate answer – “Let’s ride the ferry to Bemus Point and have lunch there!”. The result was yet another enjoyable experience. Chautauqua Lake is about eighteen miles long and two miles wide at its widest point, running in a general northwest to southeast direction. About halfway down its length, it narrows down to about one thousand feet, at a spot known, appropriately, as the…

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Two weeks ago, I published a column on an extremely memorable (for me) trip across our state on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It ended at the appropriately named Midway rest stop. This week we will pick up the trip at that point and head on east. Back on the road we negotiate the lovely gap in Tussey Mountain cut by the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River and then cross the valley between Tussey and Wray’s Hill. We go through the Clear Ridge Cut, so deep that it has a pair of benches on each side to intercept falling rock. Passing…

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Last month the Bridgeville Area Historical Society diverged from its traditional program format by staging a dramatic reading of an original play based on a key event during the Whiskey Rebellion. Entitled “Interrogation”, the play examines in detail Alexander Hamilton’s attempt to indict Pittsburgh’s most prominent citizen, Attorney Hugh Henry Brackenridge, for treason. Production of this play is the Society’s contribution to “USA250”, our nation’s celebration of the semiquincentennial (two hundred and fiftieth) anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The dramatic reading version of the play is designed to facilitate its presentation by cultural institutions without extensive…

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I suspect most people forced to drive across Pennsylvania on the Turnpike consider that to be a boring, unpleasant chore. I am not in that category and the opportunity for me to ride, as a passenger, the 270 miles east from Monroeville to King of Prussia on the ‘Pike’ on Friday, and to retrace the trip west on Sunday was a great thrill. The purpose of the trip was for us to attend my granddaughter Rachael’s graduation from Bryn Mawr, and to retrieve her belongings. Consequently, Beth and Mike chose to borrow my van, a request I honored in return…

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