It certainly was a treat to have a “near-normal” Christmas this year. I was able to enjoy it in person with Elizabeth and her family, and remotely with Sara’s family in Colorado and John’s in China. One of the things that continues to link us together is the body of holiday traditions we practice. One tradition that we share with nearly one else whom we know is the exchange of Christmas cookies. My favorite continues to be the simple decorated sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees, Santas, and wreathes. When our children were small, my wife and my mother would…

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My attitude toward standardized Christmas letters has changed during the passing years. When we were first married, my wife reveled in writing long-hand Christmas letters to everyone on her Christmas card list. She came from a long line of letter-writing correspondents; for years she treasured a letter from her father that parodied “Hiawatha” and faithfully replicated its meter and rhyme scheme. In those days, whenever we received a printed form letter recounting the activities of the sender’s family for the previous year, she merely shook her head to communicate her displeasure with people too busy to personalize their letters, even…

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Someone recently asked me where I get my ideas for these columns. My response was that I frequently wrote about whatever happened to be dominating my thoughts that particular week. This week it was Pitt’s Civil Engineering Senior Design program. It is instructive to read about Senior Design years ago and note how it reflects changing interests in our society. Transportation projects are a perfect example. Fifteen years ago they were dominated by vehicular traffic — finding ways to move automobiles and trucks more efficiently. This term we had three different projects in three different communities, each focused on multi-modal…

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The November program meeting of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was an interesting presentation on Queen Elizabeth I, by one of the Society’s favorite speakers, Jack Puglisi. Mr. Puglisi is a multi-talented individual who graduated from Point Park in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in visual arts and currently is active producing art works based on pointillism, the subject of one of his previous presentations. He began his talk with a disclaimer – he considers himself a history enthusiast, in contrast to being a professional historian. I would classify him as a history scholar; his knowledge of whatever topic he…

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In my column on the Deuces Wild a few weeks ago, I mentioned Bridgeville’s own Lum Sams and promised to do a column on her in the future. In the interim I have learned a lot more about her and am convinced her story deserves to be told. LaMese Sams was born in Bridgeville on February 12, 1924, the youngest of six children of Joseph and Clara Sams. The Sams family were prominent members of the small Syrian community in Bridgeville, centered around St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church. Their home was at 722 Bower Hill Road, “three doors up” from…

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Thanksgiving has always been a unique holiday, with an unfortunate emphasis on eating. I confess to enjoying turkey and pumpkin pie, but for me the holiday has traditionally been important as a family gathering. When Joe and I were young, we went to my father’s home in Quincy and celebrated being with his family. When we both had our own families, it was a great treat to get together at my mother’s home.   This year I will spend the holiday with Elizabeth, Mike, and Rachael; I am sure it will be a very pleasant day and the culinary portion…

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Like most folks, my perception of the pioneers heading west in the mid-1800s is dominated by covered wagons pulled by oxen, certainly an uncomfortable way for a family to travel. Recently however I have come across an even more uncomfortable mode of transportation – walking and pulling a handcart. We have known for a long time that several branches of our Smith family ancestors had converted to Mormonism and moved to Utah. Their story turns out to be well worth relating. It begins in 1854 in Quincy, Pennsylvania, halfway between Waynesboro and Chambersburg, when Daniel Robison returned home from a…

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On one of my recent visits to the Woodville Experience I noticed something interesting framed on the wall inside the Smoke House. It apparently is the original survey for “The Mouth of Miller’s Run”, the property warranted to John Campbell in 1790, three hundred and seventy-four acres on the southwest shore of Chartiers Creek that includes, today, the I-79 Interchange.  It is not surprising that such a document should appear at Woodville – Presley Neville sold that specific block of land to Robert Johnson in 1807. We know that John Campbell still possessed the property in the 1790s and was…

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The October program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was an interesting presentation by Ron Baraff on the Carrie Furnace National Historic Site. Mr. Baraff is Director of Historic Resources and Facilities for Rivers of Steel Heritage Corporation, a nonprofit organization that works in partnership with the National Park Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to manage the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. Following the closing of US Steel’s Homestead Works in 1988, the Steel Industry Task Force was established to study the possibility of preserving the history of steel-making in the region. It…

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One weekend late in 1954 two of my buddies and I were enjoying a three-day pass at a luxurious “R & R” hotel in the Japan Alps, a welcome respite from our onerous duties in the U. S. Army. Whenever I visited such a hotel I invariably made a point of inspecting the Guest Register, looking for familiar names. This time I didn’t find any I recognized, but the comment of one soldier from Pittsburgh rang a bell – “Wish I was back at the Midway, diggin’ the Deuces”. “The Midway” referred to Pittsburgh’s most popular jazz venue at the…

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