Category: Water Under the Bridge

The Bridgeville area recently lost one its most distinguished citizens with the passing of centenarian Amy Perkins. Aimee Purnell was born on May 20, 1915, the daughter of Leroy and Viola Purnell. Before she was old enough to know her father, World War I took him to France, where he died. We believe he was the first African-American from the Bridgeville area to lose his life in the service of his country. Years later the government arranged for mothers and widows of servicemen buried in France to visit the cemeteries in which their loved ones were buried. Over six thousand…

Continue reading

Gully Washer was my father’s term for the abrupt, heavy rainstorm that immediately forces small streams to overflow and for temporary streams to suddenly appear in every crevice running downhill. We had one late in the evening recently; severe enough that I was eager to inspect its aftereffects on my morning walk in the woods the next day. It was also severe enough to make the morning news – the Bridgeville Fire Department had to a rescue a motorist stuck in two feet of water on Baldwin Street. Sure enough there was evidence of a massive over-wash where the path…

Continue reading

This month the Bridgeville Area Historical Society “Second Tuesday” workshop series returned to its review of the history of Bridgeville High School, this time focusing on the classes of 1950 and 1951. The summer of 1949 found local high school football fans full of optimism. Although there were only four players returning who had been starters on the previous year’s championship team, the supporting cast appeared to be ready for another competitive season. The backfield featured quarterback Elmer Villani, halfbacks Ken Beadling and Roger Bradford, and fullback Lou Cimarolli. The line included end Aldo Mosso, tackle Bob Verdinek, guards Don…

Continue reading

I have been privileged for the past twenty-five years to be associated with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh, as an adjunct professor. Legally my assignment has been half-time, teaching two courses each semester. Despite being an outsider I have managed to insert myself into the department structure sufficiently to be invited to Faculty meetings. Commencement at a large University tends to be highly impersonal because so many students are involved. Traditionally the School of Engineering has had a separate, additional ceremony in which each student is recognized individually. Even that process has become unwieldy,…

Continue reading

The April program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was an interesting presentation on a progressive (at least at that time) planned development in Donora early in the twentieth center. The speaker was Brian Charlton, a self-described “conceptual historian” whose talk was focused on connecting concepts: social, economic, industrial and demographics. Mr. Charlton’s credentials include teaching history in the Belle Vernon School District, serving as curator of the Donora Smog Museum, and being a co-author of the Arcadia publication, “Donora”. His specific subject was “Cement City”, a Donora neighborhood that includes about eighty residences constructed from concrete. The speaker…

Continue reading

According to the Third Amendment of the Octogenarian Bill of Rights, it is permissible for people eighty years of age or older to engage in mind wandering rather than thinking logically. I certainly am taking full advantage of this right lately. I begin focusing on one subject and, a few minutes later, am obsessed with something completely different. For example, at our recent workshop on George Washington in southwestern Pennsylvania, I mentioned that the primary unit for length used in Washington’s surveys was the “pole”. Washington’s survey of a 400 acre plot of land was a perfect square with sides…

Continue reading

The Bridgeville Area Historical Society interrupted its series of “Second Tuesday” workshops dealing with the history of Bridgeville High School this month and focused instead on significant events that occurred in this area over two and a half centuries ago. The Society recently submitted a proposal to the Robert R. Banks Foundation for funding required for establishment of a significant permanent exhibit dedicated to George Washington’s seven visits to Western Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century and the impact they had on this area. This is an extremely ambitious endeavor, but one that would be of great benefit to the local…

Continue reading

My enthusiasm about Japanese wood-block prints began in the mid-1950s when I spent sixteen months in Japan, in the service. The genre is unique, and the landscapes by Utagawa Hiroshige are easily my favorite examples of it. Recently my daughter Elizabeth and I attended a lecture sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania celebrating the opening of a new exhibition of prints from Hiroshige’s most famous series, “Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido”. It is an outstanding example of the ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world). Dr. Brenda Jordan, the Director of the University of Pittsburgh national coordinating site for the…

Continue reading

The March program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society nearly had to be cancelled when the scheduled speaker called in sick the day of the meeting. Fortunately, program chairperson Rosemary Kasper was able to come up with a last-minute substitute, the speaker scheduled for next month. The person who came to the rescue was a young man named Rob Hilt. He and his partner had announced a subject, “History Hounds: Preserving and Saving Local History Through Metal Detecting”. The topic did not arouse much enthusiasm in me; my exposure to metal detectors had been limited to watching a pair…

Continue reading

The abrupt collapse of the FIU bridge has generated a lot of excitement in the structural engineers’ community. If it weren’t for the fact that at least six people lost their lives, I suspect we would be happy that it occurred and provided us with the opportunity to act as amateur forensic investigators and attempt to understand what went wrong. Actually, as a structural engineer, I am embarrassed on behalf of our profession. We are obligated to provide safe structures for their users and should be technically capable of doing that. The first problem was sorting through the available information…

Continue reading