My daughter Elizabeth and I took advantage of a lovely June afternoon to take in “Bridgeville Day on the Avenue” this year, and were very impressed with the event. In some respects this is the direct descendant of the “firemen’s’” street fairs I remember from my youth. I think they were sponsored as fund-raisers for the volunteer fire department and combined with travelling carnivals. I remember them as the one time that gambling was not considered a sin, with the pitchman encouraging gullible kids to put a quarter on a number and watch the big wheel spin. The twenty-first century…

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We Pittsburghers are proud of the fact that our fair city has successfully made the transition from its iron and steel reputation a century ago to a “Tech-Med-Ed” economy focused on leading edge technology in robotics, artificial intelligence, and whatever glamorous buzz word shows up next. We are proudly leading the rest of the country into a “Brave New World” with prosperity for all. In 2015 three young CMU entrepreneurs launched a new business that they called “RoBotany”. Their mission statement was “We believe that solving the world’s most pressing problems requires bold vision and thoughtful action.” Difficult to quarrel…

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Regular readers of this column are aware of my obsession for reading and occasionally ask me “What are you reading these days?” This column is dedicated to them. My reading habits often are dominated by diversions, one book requiring me to do supplemental reading on a subject that intrigues me. I recently came across three 1847 vintage letters home from a volunteer soldier, Frederick Burkle, during the Mexican War. These are part of a series of sixteen letters that have been in our family’s possession for 175 years.  Skimming over these letters re-kindled my interest in the Mexican War, so I…

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My recent trip to the West got me thinking about the significance of water to society and the blessings we in this area have in that regard. News about the drought in the Colorado River basin and the recent agreement between California, Arizona, and Nevada to reduce their removal of water from the Colorado River highlights this significance. I can recall my surprise when I first learned that the western states and Mexico actually harvested every drop of water from the Colorado, and that the river no longer reached the ocean in the Gulf of California. A 1944 treaty committed…

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I have just returned from a week in Fort Collins, Colorado, visiting Sara’s family and sharing in their celebration of Nora’s graduation from Rocky Mountain High School and Ian’s official introduction into adulthood. The coincidence of the McCance children all attending Rocky Mountain High School and John Denver’s classic song, “Rocky Mountain High” is too great to be ignored. I have been a Denver fan for many years, and this song has always typified Colorado for me. “I have seen it raining fire from the sky” and “climbed cathedral mountains” make it a natural to be the state’s official song. Turns…

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Public Art Bridgeville has done it again! This year’s outdoor sculpture exhibit has popped up all over the community, bigger and better than ever. Let’s take a self-guided auto tour and check out all ten pieces. We will begin entering Washington Avenue from Kirwan Heights. As soon as we cross the bridge we encounter, on the left, “Open Doors”, a masterpiece of red-orange folded steel plates that we instantly recognize as a Dan Droz signature piece. A well-known Pittsburgh artist, he was featured in last year’s exhibit as well. His work relies on folding and cutting plates to enhance reflection…

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On behalf of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, I recently made a presentation on local history to a group of residents at Providence Point, focused on twenty-three persons who figured prominently in it. The first three were Native Americans, leading off with the anonymous PaleoIndian who visited the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter eighteen thousand years ago and left behind a spearhead that may well be the oldest evidence of human habitation ever in North America. By 1200 AD his descendants had evolved into a peaceful, semi-civilized society with impressive colonies across North America. In this area they had an extensive village…

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Dr. Carleton Young paid a return visit to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society last month. He is a legitimate historian with a long career teaching AP history at Thomas Jefferson High School and an earned doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh in the history of education. His subject, “All about Family Education”, was an interesting discussion of his experience researching the history of his family. The speaker began his talk by showing a conventional descendancy chart and illustrating the various confusing terms –  great-great-grandfather; second or third cousin; and (best of all) second cousin, once removed. His research into his father’s…

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My column last week focused on one of the Pitt Senior Design Projects, a proposed roundabout in Bridgeville. This week I want to review the other nine projects and highlight the efforts of this year’s crop of future engineers. A major objective of this program is to introduce the students to “near-real-world” projects; seven of the ten actually have real world clients. Two of them were requested by officials of the Borough of Carnegie, a direct consequence of successful projects performed on their behalf in the past. Carnegie has an Action Plan that includes consideration of installing solar panel farms…

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One of my favorite pastimes is serving as a mentor for the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s Senior Design Project Program at the University of Pittsburgh each semester. During my academic career there, I was heavily involved in the program; since my retirement I have been privileged to participate in a greatly reduced role. Transportation Engineering is one of the major disciplines within the Civil Engineering profession. Each year we have a few teams interested in projects appropriate to it. I carefully followed the construction of the roundabout at Pine Bridge Mall on McLaughlin Run Road and have been quite…

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