Is there any spot on the earth that compare with Western Pennsylvania on a warm, sunny Spring day? One such day can make up for all the depressing days of “Pittsburgh gray” skies that preceded it. This Spring has been particularly spectacular, perhaps because it came a little later than usual. In our woods the first signs of color are “snow drops”; their vivid white flowers are a pleasant contrast to the blanket of dead leaves that they penetrate. They are members of the amaryllis family; I assume the ones along the paths in the woods have been planted there…

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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s April program meeting featured a presentation by the Senator John Heinz History Center curator Emily Ruby on their recent exhibit “Destination Moon: the Apollo 11 Mission”. The Center was justly proud of being one of four national museums dedicated to history being honored by hosting this epic exhibition created by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. She began by reviewing the history of our space program. Toward the end of World War II it became obvious that Germany’s military rocket program was well ahead of anything the Allies had developed. When the War ended the…

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The receptionist at the dental office I frequent is a long-time reader of this column and an uninhibited critic. She recently complained that the columns have become too impersonal and that she missed reading about my children and grand-children occasionally. Fortunately we have just had an informal family reunion, an appropriate excuse to reply to her request. The occasion for the reunion was my retirement banquet. I formally retired from teaching in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Pitt in December and am still in the process of slowly disengaging myself from an activity I have enjoyed greatly for…

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In 1991 the Landis family established the Landis Lectureship in honor of Donald Landis, a 1952 alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh. Since then twelve world-class structural engineers have come to the campus to present relevant lectures. This year, in honor of my retirement, I had the privilege of presenting the Landis Lecture. Since I had been asked to focus on the insight that a long career generates, I titled the talk “Eight Decades of Gathering Wisdom”. I defined wisdom as the subconscious memory of thousands of relative experiences that have been properly evaluated and then discussed three traits that…

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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s “Second Tuesday” series had its sixteenth and final workshop dealing with the history of Bridgeville High School this month, focusing on the Class of 1960. This was the final class of Bridgeville High School; the following year marked the opening of Chartiers Valley High School. The 1960 Class dedicated its Yearbook, the Lincoln Log, to all the classes that had preceded it at Lincoln High School, beginning with the Class of 1925. In addition to listing the names of all the graduates of each year accompanied by their class photographs, the Yearbook includes other valuable…

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My initial reaction to the news that there would be a special election this Spring to fill the State Senate seat in the 37th District was “Who cares?” This attitude ended abruptly when I got to work on this year’s income taxes and realized how much I owe the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and began to wonder what the state does for me. Perhaps I should pay attention to this election after all. The Democratic candidate for this office was a woman named Pam Iovino. I was familiar with her because a group of my neighbors who are dedicated Democrats had…

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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society program meeting for March was an entertaining presentation on Benjamin Franklin by Jack Puglisi, in his annual visit to Bridgeville. Mr. Puglisi began with a disclaimer; he considers himself a history enthusiast rather than historian. I would classify him as a history scholar; he certainly has a comprehensive knowledge of whatever topic he presents. Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, the fifteenth of seventeen children of a candlemaker. His formal schooling was limited to two years at the Boston Latin School; he supplemented his modest education by reading voraciously. At age twelve he was…

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Last month the Bridgeville Area Historical Society presented a workshop on George Washington’s visit to western Pennsylvania in 1784 as part of its “Second Tuesday” series. This was the sixth workshop dedicated to Washington and western Pennsylvania, part of a project to develop information for a permanent historical exhibit dealing with that subject. Following the Battle of Yorktown and the cessation of hostilities in 1783, Washington gave his famous farewell address to the troops and returned to civilian life at Mount Vernon. He was pleased to find that neither Mount Vernon nor his wife Martha’s plantations near Williamsburg had suffered…

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I have been a sports fan most of my life, but in recent years my interest in big time sports has declined significantly. I try to keep up with what is happening with the local professional and college teams, mostly so I can discuss them with my friends who are still addicted to following them. Dog sled racing is an exception; I still find it extremely interesting and am a little frustrated no one else is aware of it and that the local media ignore it completely. I realize that writing a column about this subject will automatically trigger vehement…

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Last month’s selection for our Book Club was Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo da Vinci. After spending most of the month reading the book, we went to the Carnegie Science Center to see the new da Vinci exhibition there, before meeting to review the book. Leonardo was certainly a remarkable human being, possessing a wide variety of characteristics that combined to produce a bona fide genius. Indeed, it is easy to agree with observers who consider him to be the greatest mind in history. He was the prototype polymath, possessing a curiosity about everything he saw or experienced His powers…

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