Occasionally someone will ask me where I get ideas for my column; I usually have a straightforward answer. This week’s column is an exception. I know where it started, but the path it took to get to this point is indeed convoluted. I have commented several times on the way remote communication has improved in direct response to the pandemic, and on the potential it provides for linking tiny groups of people interested in niche topics. This week’s example began with an email I received from an unknown sender, Jack Cohen, inviting me to a “Washington Trail Webinar”. My first…

Continue reading

When I was searching through old newspaper archives looking for information on the Pittsburgh Board Speedway, I kept running across articles that mentioned Mayer Field and realized that that storied institution deserved a proper history. Eventually I copied several hundred articles, sufficient for several columns. The first mention of Mayer Field was in Canonsburg’s “Daily Notes”. On September 4, 1920, it reported that Bridgeville businessman C. P. Mayer had opened “Mayer Aviation Field in the Lower Chartiers Valley”. Sixteen days later the same paper reported that two local residents had flown from Bridgeville, over Canonsburg to the outskirts of Washington…

Continue reading

One of my brother’s current projects is reading of the journals of our Uncle Emory Oyler and summarizing information from them. Emory began to keep a daily journal in 1901 when he went to work for the Cumberland Valley Railroad, a practice he continued until his death in 1960. In addition to being an interesting record of his life, the journals present a fascinating picture of the life of my Oyler ancestors twelve decades ago. My father was born to Adam Douglas Oyler and his wife Annie Malinda Smith Oyler on December 16, 1891. He was the youngest of six…

Continue reading

Our Book Club has been reading “Faster” by Neal Bascomb this month. It is an interesting non-fiction work dealing with the development of motorsports in Europe in the early twentieth century, culminating with the 1938 Pau Grand Prix race in which a French team led by heiress Lucy Schell upset the dominant German combine of Daimler-Benz and Auto Union in a heavily nationalistic environment. Driving a Delahaye 145 for the team was Rene Dreyfus, a major victim of the anti-Semitism prevalent at the time. Most of the book takes place in France, Germany, and Italy, with one foray across the…

Continue reading

For several decades my Saturday evenings have been dedicated to listening to “Saturday Night Swing Session”, on WQLN, Erie. The current host, Phil Atteberry, and I have developed an enjoyable friendship, via email. I enjoyed his Christmas program immensely and began to wonder what I would select if I had the opportunity to host a one hour show of my own. The results of my pondering is this week’s column. My wife always opened the Christmas season by listening to “The Messiah” on a set of scratchy records by Sir Malcom Sargent and the Huddlesfield Chorale that she had when…

Continue reading

I hope you folks have all been able to survive this very difficult year. I wish I could greet each of you in person; second best is for me to cobble together an old-fashioned Christmas letter.   I have been quarantined since mid-March except for a few forays into the outside world. Beth does my grocery shopping and odd chores; once a week I drive over to their house for dinner with her, Mike, and Rachael. We rented a house at Chautauqua in July and moved our cohort there for a week. Despite the pandemic,there were still sufficient amenities available…

Continue reading

The recent passing of Lou Cimarolli has brought back memories of Bridgeville’s glory days in high school football, over seven decades ago. In the 1940s Bridgeville still had its own high school, and the cultural tie between the school and the community was powerful. Pride in the high school was closely linked to pride in our home town. High school rivalries were also community rivalries. The three-way rivalry between Bridgeville, Carnegie, and Clark (Scott Township) was particularly passionate in the Universal Cyclops Steel mill where fans of all three teams worked. Its focus was the wall of on a furnace…

Continue reading

Our current situation with its off-and-on lockdowns and quarantines has certainly produced a vast collection of changes to the way we do things. A common belief among most of us is the old saying “The world will never be the same again”. There is considerable discussion about the long-range consequences of this experience we are all undergoing. We have learned to appreciate the contributions of the health care professionals and folks in the service industries, much as we did with first responders after 9/11. I am sure we all have gained a deeper appreciation of the blessings of friends and…

Continue reading

I was particularly interested in the October meeting of the Bridgeville Planning Commission as recorded on the Bridgeville.org website, and continue to be impressed with the power this medium has for connecting the general public with the workings of local government. The combination of clear, easy-to-read slides and individual microphones for each participant provides the viewer with an excellent capability of observing the meeting as if he/she were there in person. This specific meeting dealt with mitigation of flooding in McLaughlin Run and elimination of the devastation it has caused to the Baldwin Street neighborhood. Mr. John Heyl, representing the borough’s engineering…

Continue reading

I easily become discouraged these days; 2020 will be remembered for Covid-19 and a monumentally adversarial Presidential election, both of which make us wonder if we will ever return to better times. Fortunately for me I have just had an experience that gives me great confidence for the future – the completion of this year’s Senior Design Projects program. I have been involved in this program of the University of Pittsburgh Civil and Environmental Engineering Department for two and a half decades and watched it evolve into an impressive capstone to our students’ academic careers. They are required to participate…

Continue reading