I have been a nonagenarian for three months, an experience I never expected but one for which I am grateful. When I was young I assumed that my life span would be the traditional “three score and ten”. When my father and two of his brothers each passed away around their seventieth birthdays, this assumption was reinforced. Somehow I have dodged that bullet and am currently enjoying exploring my tenth decade. These days, when people inquire “How are you?”, the inquiry is closer to being a question regarding my current life expectancy rather than a polite inquiry into my overall…

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It was my privilege recently to give a talk to a combined meeting of the Pennsylvania Canal Society, the Ohio Canal Society, and the Northern Ohio Chapter of the Society of Industrial Archaeology. The occasion was their annual Fall Tour, which was located in the Pittsburgh area this year. I chose for my subject the history of the twenty-three sets of dams and locks that make up the Pittsburgh District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, with particular emphasis on the role of the Dravo Corporation in their development.   I chose to parse the subject geographically (Monongahela…

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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society kicked off its twenty-first year with its first Fall program meeting last month. The speaker was Norene Beatty, President of The Pittsburgh Old Stone Tavern Friends Trust, a non-profit organization with the mission of preserving one of Pittsburgh’s oldest buildings. Located at the intersection of Greentree Road and Woodville Avenue in the city’s West End neighborhood, the tavern was originally built in the late 1700s and functioned commercially until 2008. In 2009 it was scheduled for demolition, a threat that mobilized concerned citizens to organize the trust and initiate a program to acquire the property…

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One of the best things about this time of year is the proliferation of festivals. They didn’t amount to much last year, but now we seem to be ignoring the pandemic and are supporting this kind of event bigger and better than ever. The Washington-Greene County Covered Bridge Festival is one of my favorites; it was highlighted on my calendar. I determined that there would be ten festival sites this year, two in Greene County (a little too far for this nonagenarian) and eight in Washington County. Checking the list, I realized that I had visited six of the closer…

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Our Book Club meeting this month was delayed to avoid Rosh Hashanah, prompting me to investigate that holiday. My initial investigation determined that it was Jewish New Year, celebrated on the first day of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. I also learned that this calendar was a lunar one and that its first month, Nisan, occurs coincident with the first new moon after the vernal equinox. In addition, Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the Creation of the Earth, halfway through year one, 5781 years ago.   Armed with this new knowledge I set out to make fun…

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In a previous column I remember writing that “Ed Weise was the best ‘best friend’ a teen-aged boy could ever have”. And indeed he was; his passing has triggered an avalanche of memories for me. Despite being saddened by his death, it is easy for me to celebrate his life and the portion of it that he shared with me. Ed was less than nine months older than me, but his big-brotherly wisdom and counsel would have been appropriate for someone with far more years. He was the accepted leader of the kids in our neighborhood and a major influence…

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Noblemen in Scotland employed ghillies as caretakers of the forests and streams on their extensive estates; that seems like an appropriate description of the role I have assumed in my regular visits to the natural park adjacent to my home. Part of my responsibility is to inspect all parts of the park. It is a distorted rectangle, running roughly east and west. The east/west length is about one thousand yards; the north/south width varies from five hundred to one thousand feet. Its area is just over fifty acres. Most of it is a hillside, sloping up several hundred feet in…

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One of the most rewarding things about being an amateur historian is researching an unknown person or event successfully and ending up learning a little bit more about life in an earlier era. I recently had an inquiry from a lady named Nancy Komatz with a question regarding her great-grandfather, Richard Biddle Davis. She knows he had a sawmill and lumber business in Bridgeville in the late 1800s and wondered if I had any information regarding him. My immediate reaction was that I had never heard of any Davis family in Bridgeville, but would be happy to do a little…

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I have just returned from a delightful week’s vacation at Chautauqua with my daughter Elizabeth and her family. We have visited there off and on for many years; last year we decided to rent a house for a week inside the Institution, a pleasant experience although the pandemic had eliminated nearly all of the regularly scheduled activities. This year was a different story. The Institution had decided to present a full slate of lectures, concerts, and other interesting events. Consequently, we found our days filled with things to do. Each week the Institution chooses a theme and presents a morning…

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Representing the University of Pittsburgh, my daughter Elizabeth was the co-sponsor of a short course this month in conjunction with Konan University in Kobe, Japan. Its subject was “Global Cities: Pittsburgh and Kobe – Livability, Resilience, and Sustainability”; its objective was to explore the future potential for the two cities. When she first discussed the project with me, I volunteered to help out and was rewarded by being permitted to provide one lecture, focusing on Pittsburgh’s resilience heritage. After all, how many times have we boasted of our ability to overcome major problems as “the Comeback City”? I gave my…

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