Not the Last Picture Show

This photo was taken in October 1951. Here's what's written on the back of it: "Parkie in the process of getting undressed when he got sidetracked with the funnies."

That's right, that's me – the G.O.E. – in the picture. Just proof that I was, ahem, attracted to newspapers at an early age.

This is also the last post of the Grumpy Old Editor blog. I've been keeping this up daily for more than four years now, and I think it has run its course. It's time to move on to something else.

That something else is a continuation of what I've done here the past several weeks – "Picture Box" – a gallery of old and interesting photos from the archives of the O-R and area historical societies, and from boxes in attics and cellars all over Southwestern Pennsylvania. You can find the new blog here.

Answering complaints, sharing my gripes and telling serialized stories has been fun and rewarding, but this blog is starting to get green around the edges and smell funny. Besides, I've taken on some additional duties lately and must turn my attention to the editorial page in the old-fashioned paper newspaper.

I do thank all of you regular readers for your loyalty, your comments and for buying my book.

Your grumpy old friend,
Park

Picture Box

This West Middletown girl managed to scoot around town 100 years ago in her wagon powered by a one-goatpower engine. I guess before there were go-karts there were goat-karts.

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I call this one, "Shave and a haircut, two bits." It's yet another photo from the West Middletown collection, circa 1910.

Archie update

Longtime blog readers will remember Atyom "Archie" Sergazinov, the kid from Kazakhstan who worked so hard to live in America before Immigration told him to scram. Here's the latest from him...

"Yesterday I arrived in Austria. The country is truly beautiful - seems like everything was just built the other day. I've met some of the staff from my university; everyone is friendly and helpful so far. I moved in my dorm. It is a huge apartment! Sebastian and Christopher are the names of my Austrian roommates. There is a room for each of the three of us with pretty much everything in it. There are a kitchen, a toilet, and a bathroom that we have to share. Everything is clean and nice!"

(We're happy for you, Arch!)

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Here's another photo from the West Middletown collection, this one of the West Middletown School, circa 1910.

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Here's another scene of everyday life – this one of basket weavers – in West Middletown 100 years ago.

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Banking, as it was done 100 years ago in Avella.

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Here's a typical family portrait from perhaps the 1920s. It was taken by the Harbaugh Studio. Like so many group photos at the time, bodies do not touch, even though it is obvious that the photographer urged the people to move closer together.

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Here's what Washington looked like in the 1890s, during the height of the oil boom. Hundreds of wells in and around the city produced as much as 18,575 barrels a day from the Washington field.

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I call this one "Children of the Corn." It's from the West Middletown collection, circa 1900.

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This is difficult to make out, but I like it because it is rare: a photo from the 1880s that is not posed. It is a scene of the east side of North Main Street in Washington, when the Observer offices were located there.

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I could use some help on this one. That's the very recognizable Jessop Steel structure in the background, but I have no idea when this photo might have been taken or who the workers are. The photo was taken by Washington photographer Charles Rodgers.

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Remember when gas stations looked like this one operated by the Andy brothers? This photo was taken sometime during the 1940s, but I can't determine the location. City directories from that period do not list the station under this name.

Comments and questions

Q: Since the Postal Service has now found itself in a loss of mailing business, would it not be cheaper, now, for you to have the paper once again delivered through the mail?

A: No. Back in the 1970s, most of our home delivery – all of it not delivered on foot – was delivered by mail on the same day. It worked well for a while, and our circulation grew dramatically. But then the U.S. Postal Service began raising rates, placing more restrictions on content, and demanding that the papers be sorted and delivered to the post office earlier and earlier.

Eventually, it became more cost-efficient for us to hire independent contractors to deliver newspapers by vehicle. Going back to mail delivery would be impractical an illogical. Many subscribers now complain that delivery of their newspaper by 7 a.m. is not early enough; certainly, they would not stand for papers being delivered later in the day by mail. Postal rates keep rising. There is no mail delivery on Sunday, so we would still need to maintain a delivery service for that day, and we can't imagine why the Postal Service is still delivering mail on Saturday.

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We stopped sending our photographers to ribbon-cuttings and groundbreakings years ago. Here's a good example of what we used to publish – grim white men in shiny suits engaged in silly ritual. This was from the opening of the Franklin Mall in June 1970.

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Here's another detail from that photos of the plasterers in Washington around 1912. All of them are splattered with paint or plaster, but what's with the businessman in the suit in the middle of this group?

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This is a detail of a photo I found of a painting and plastering crew. The photo was taken in Washington around 1912. There are about 30 men in the original photo.

Today's gripe

You'd think it wouldn't be too much of a problem selling one stinking copy of the newspaper, but let me tell ya...

Got an e-mail from a guy yesterday who lives out of the area, wanting to read about his hole-in-one that was published on the sports pages recently. I wrote back that we didn't publish everything online, such as the sports agate, but that he could order a copy of the newspaper from our circulation department, and I gave him the toll-free number. He writes back, "That's about as cheap as one can get. Thanks but no thanks."

So, I answer, "And someone who is too cheap to buy even a newspaper..."
He answers, "No thanks to you and your newspaper I did have someone buy a paper for me and send it to me at no cost to me. Can you say your paper would have sent it to me postage paid?"
I answer, "Of course not. We are in the business of selling newspapers, not giving them away, or mailing them at our expense."

Today, he writes again: "I will sleep soundly knowing you have never given a complimentary copy of your paper away to anyone for any reason. Even if asked for by the president of the United States."
So, I answer, "Let me know when you become president."

Jeez Louise! The Sunday paper costs a buck. Let the moths out of your wallet, pal.

Absurdistan

After I've made a commitment to read a book, I'm rarely disappointed so much that at finishing it I feel as if I've wasted my time. But that was the case with this novel by Gary Shteyngart.

This is a story about the obese son of a Russian oligarch, educated in the U.S., who gets caught up in a civil war in a country bordering the Caspian Sea. It is satire that pokes fun at what Russia and Russians have become, at American imperialism and at capitalism. There are already 109 reviews on the book on Amazon.com, and most of the reviewers seem to find the book hilarious. I found it so deeply cynical as to be remarkably unfunny.

The hero – sometimes called by his nickname, "Snackdaddy" – is a spoiled, overweight, glutinous, impulsive, naive, pill-popping, well-intentioned, sentimental buffoon. I couldn't help but feel some offense, seeing him as symbolizing the United States.

The best thing about this book is its title because it so aptly describes the content. All events in the novel are taken to the extreme, to the point at which believability evaporates, to the absurd. Maybe I just prefer my satire more subtle.
Not recommended.

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Another photo from the West Middletown collection, circal 1910... I call this one "Cowboy."
West Middletown and Avella have had a significant black population since before the Civil War, and this collection of photos is evidence.

Whine, whine, whine

C: This newspaper is the largest waste of money we pay, but my husband keeps reading it. -L.R.

A: I'm wondering what your husband believes is his largest waste of money.

C: Your paper is too expensive! - J.S.

A: Aw, c'mon! It's 50 cents! And it's free online. We haven't raised the newsstand price of the newspaper since the early 1990s. Can you think of anything else that has managed to do that?

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Another from the West Middletown collection...
This is Belva France, wife of Frank France, with her child on the stoop at the rear of the france Hotel at 3 East Main Street, around 1905.

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Call this one "A Man, a Woman, Two Horses and a Pit Bull." It is from a large collection of photos of everyday life in West Middletown around 100 years ago. I don't know how the Observer-Reporter came into possession of this collection, but I intend to find out. This one had no identification.

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I really like this photo of a group of friends taken in West Middletown around 1910. A hundred years distant, their personalities come through loud and clear. Kneeling in front is Ray Miller. First row, from left, are John Manson, Janet Bemis and Ruth Bemis; second row, Mary Hair, Emma Miller, Lela McCabe and Florence Miller; third row, Osborne Hair and Calvin Miller.

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"Hair Helmet No. 2."

Today's gripe

I have become wary of every oncoming vehicle on the road these days, and for good reason. It seems as if most of the drivers I see passing me in the opposite direction are talking on their phones – or worse.

Last evening on my way home, an oncoming car began drifting toward the center of the road in what has become an all-to-familiar fashion. As I steered toward the right berm, the car passed me, the driver oblivious of my presence, he cell phone propped on the top of her steering wheel, her thumbs busily texting away.

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Washington High School students take a tour of the Observer-Reporter pressroom on Sept. 10, 1968. Because of the dangerous machinery, all girls were required to wear hair helmets.

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I call this one "Hair Helmet No. 1." I'm not sure what the blank cardboard is for – perhaps to write your own caption, and I will entertain your submissions...

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Boarding a street car in Washington, Pa., in 1954. Note the teenager lighting up just before getting on the trolley.

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The Reed & Short Lumber Co. in Houston, Pa., offered speedy delivery.

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The Little Giant Fire Company of Washington, Pa., featured the "Little Giant," state-of-the-art equipment in 1885. Shown with it are Jim Curran, left, Jim Harter and Pat Curran. The steam-powered pumper may have been a great advance from the bucket brigade, but at the time many of the city's building were still made of wood, and often whole blocks would go up in flames.

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Polly wanna quacker?

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Ever wonder how they put up telephone poles, back in the days before trucks with cranes? I don't know where this was taken or when, but my guess is around 1915.

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You may have heard of the rock group, Big Head Todd and the Monsters. This photo of the class of 1916 at East Bethlehem Township School could have been the inspiration for the name. That's Big Head Todd seated at right, and the Monsters are the two guys on the left.

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Check out this dude, cruising for chicks on High Street in Waynesburg. That's Miller Hall in the background. I'll need a little help dating this photo. I'm guessing sometime around 1912.

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Fashion has a way of being circular – we keep coming back to the same style ideas many years later. but I don't think we're ever again going to see high school girls playing basketball in sailor suits, as this Washington Female Seminary team did in 1911.

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These citizens hold an anti-tax "Tea Party"... No, wait a minute, this is a bunch of folks in Greene County rallying for Republican William McKinley in his campaign for the presidency against William Jennings Bryan in 1896.

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Whoa! Someone call the EHTs (Emergency Hair Technicians)! Nineteenth-century folk wore their hair differently, but this guy must have been barbered by fraternity brothers while in a drunken slumber.

The man is Robert M. Gibson, a prominent and eloquent member of the Allegheny County Bar until his death in 1882. He was born in Washington at later made is home here.

A new feature

For the past four years, I have been complaining, answering complaints and telling stories on this blog. You folks seem to be running out of things to complain about, and so am I. And to tell you the truth, I'm about storied out. So I'm going to change the direction of this blog.

Starting today, I'm dipping into our newspaper's archives for old photos – humorous, thought-provoking, intriguing ones – to share them with you. We'll call it the Picture Box. Here we go...

I found this photo (a post card, actually) in the bottom of a file drawer not opened for many years. It was tucked into a little booklet called "Public School Souvenir 1915," apparently given to students at the end of the school year. From it, I've learned that the man seated front right is George W. Marshall Jr., teacher at the Time Public School in Morris Township, Greene County. The other young men are unidentified. Perhaps they were also teachers, or maybe just friends. Note the art vase on the steps, probably presented to the teacher as a gift from his pupils. It would probably fetch a good price on "Antiques Roadshow" today. Who knows what happened to George Marshall? Did he go off to war, and did he return? Why was this memorabilia in our archives? We may never know.

A thousand words

It doesn't happen that often, but sometimes, a newspaper photographer will find himself or herself in precisely the right spot and exactly the right time to capture an image that so perfectly tells a story that no words are even necessary.

So it was on Saturday morning, when Celeste Van Kirk took this photo (front page June 28) at the American Legion post in Washington. Here, Army Reserve Pfc. Donald Stark is hugged by his wife, Angela, before leaving for Fort Dix, N.J., en route to Iraq with the 619th Transportation Company.

We try to be strong, to be brave, not to give in to our emotions, but there is that moment when we can no longer hold back our feelings, when the dam breaks, and that is the moment we see in Angela's face. Can you look at this picture and not get choked up?

The morning after

I see by some of the comments on earlier posts that some of you are dying to talk about the layoffs that occurred here yesterday. Here are the facts: Observer Publishing Co. had 196 employees and now we have 184. Most of the 12 positions eliminated were in Observer-Reporter news and photo. We have not had to cut as deeply as most other newspapers, and newspapers are hardly the only industry suffering in this down economy. As newspapers in this part of the country go, we're doing much better than most. We are somewhat fortunate in that a good bit of our population in Washington and Greene counties is older, less computer-savvy than urban areas, and more dependent on the newspaper for not just local news, but regional, national and international news.

We have been around for 200 years and have no intention of going away. We have an obligation to survive, not just for ourselves as employees here, but for our readers who depend on us. In order to survive, we have to make painful decisions, and we have to keep redesigning our business model.

Our news staff will have to work even harder. Meanwhile, our advertising staff is hardly sitting on their hands. They have been working furiously for the past several weeks on a program we hope will attract new advertisers to a medium we believe is still the most effective at reaching customers for most businesses. And our circulation department has managed to hold our numbers while other papers have seen their circulation nosedive.

Some jackass from one of the Pittsburgh television stations called here yesterday and wanted to know if it was true that the Observer-Reporter was closing down.

No. We've done what we had to do to avoid that. We are not going away. Promise. - G.O.E.

Whine, whine, whine

C: It would be nice if like in the past, you provide a front page section, and a separate local section, that way 2 people could have a section to read in lieu of one person having to wait until the other person is finished. - R.B.

A: We have been printing two-section papers instead of four-section papers whenever we can these days, not to make dual reading of the paper more difficult, but for two reasons: 1) We sometimes don't have enough advertising to support four sections; and 2) to save paper. Maybe you haven't heard yet, but newspapers have been having this slight revenue problem lately. It costs a lot to produce a newspaper, and sometimes we have to sacrifice some convenience in order to keep publishing one.

Questions and complaints

C: DUI checkpoints of police should not be put in the paper. This only lets the drinkers avoid those roads. -M.S.

A: State police in Pennsylvania do not specify where the checkpoints will be, but only when they are conducting them. West Virginia's state troopers do specify the time and place of the checkpoints. We publish this information for the same reason we publish arrest and reports of crime and accidents: to inform the public what the police are doing at the expense of their tax dollars; and to distribute news, rather than rumor. If you see police stopping all cars at a road block, it is probably better to know they are fishing for drunks rather than, say, assuming they are hunting for escaped murderers.

Beyond that, the police want the public to know they are conducting checkpoints, because it discourages drivers from drinking in the first place. In West Virginia, the strategy might be to catch more drunken drivers by monitoring alternate routes around checkpoints.

Proud Dads Dept.

A few years ago, my son, Brody, as the artist in residence at Wash Arts, painted a mural off Shaffer Avenue in Washington behind Cafe Bean with the help of kids in the summer program. At the time, there were tables set in the area by the wall for outdoor coffee drinking in nice weather. Today, the area is overgrown with weeds, strewn with garbage, and graffiti has been sprayed on the mural.

Brody now lives in Ithaca, N.Y., a city that recently sponsored a competition for public art. He won the competition, and as a result three of his painting will be reproduced on massive panels and hung on the sides of buildings in the city's center. (Read the story.)

He was quoted in an article in the Ithaca newspaper about his views on public art, which I found insightful:

"There's a part of me that says, you know, 'Why should people's tax dollars go for something they don't necessarily pay attention to or value?'But at the same time, if you don't have living arts in your society, it's a pretty bleak place.
"If you look back in history, it's really the only thing people are remembered for. There's some memory or history about military conquest and trade, but it's really not much. And yet we have a very rich history of almost every culture that's ever existed through their artwork.
"Not that I necessarily think the paintings I've made are going to go down in history as being great, but maybe they'll inspire some kid somewhere to want to make something like that someday."

Whine, whine, whine

A couple of weeks ago, we published an article about Clarksville's centennial celebration. Clarksville is a little borough that straddles the Washington County-Greene County line. Not too much of note has happened there since the Yablonski murders 40 years ago.
It was a nice little story about Clarksville's history and the veterans memorial they would dedicate during the festivities. It was a cheery story about a town that rarely gets much attention, so we decided to run it on the front page. We weren't ready for the negative reaction we received from Clarksvillians.

My phone started ringing off the hook the next day, with people - including the mayor – complaining that we had published an incomplete list of all the centennial activities. We apologized, and we published a complete list of all the activities in the very next edition.
Next day, the calls started coming in again. This time, the complaint was that we hadn't placed the schedule on the front page of the paper, but rather on Page 2, and that no one would ever see it there.

This morning, we received an angry letter from Clarksville, blasting us for not sending a reporter and photographer to cover the unveiling of the memorial.

I think from now on we ought to let that sleeping dog lie.

Archie's Story, Part 4

Artyom Sergazinov (Archie) is a serious student of the English language. When he spoke to the Washington Rotary Club, members were amazed at his command of grammar and usage, with one club member commenting afterward that she had rarely encountered even an American-born student his age who had an understanding of the subjunctive mood.

Archie quickly picked up on the Western Pennsylvania dialect, and in the following post, he has a little fun with it...

Ten Things a Foreigner Will Miss After He Leaves Warshinton, Pensivania

1. Walmart
a. Lines; those people trying to check out 72 buggies with paper towels and three cupboards and 13 microwaves at the register that says "10 items or less;"
b. The cheapest and, perhaps, freshest donuts from last Christmas;
c. All of 'em Bars franks'n hot dogs for 77 cents a pack – the cheapest you can find in the whole country;
d. Turkey'n all at meat in the deli section in 'em Ziploc bags - wait in line, don't be a jagoff!
e. Buggies all over the place - with food in 'em;
f. Grannies "riding dirty;"
g. Them five-pound hoagies for $4.98 a piece;
h. The best store to go to - compared to other stores, just a few cars and people on Saturdays and Sundays;
i. the place where you can get the best job in the entire world - a greeter.

2. Shop'n'Save - Save A Lot!

3. Four Star Pizza - the place where the same people call and complain every day that we've been messing their food up for the past couple of days; then, after having had a nice try, they order again hoping we put a rubber glove or somebody's hair in their pizza.

4. WashJeff - free tuition.

5. Jynt Igel.

6. Shorty's - ispeshelly the won in dahntahn.

7. The VIP - get your knuckles ready!

8. Highland Bar - check it out with your white friends at 2 a.m. on a Friday night; lots of fun guaranteed!

9. The Outlets - watch the empty parking lot! Crisis in America!

10. The Wash Crahn Cenner.

Cloud Atlas

One of my favorite recent reads is "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell. Now I add to that list "Cloud Atlas," an earlier novel by the young British writer. (Well, to me 40 is young.)

This is a fascinating book that spans hundreds of years, from 1849 to several centuries into the future. Six characters tell their stories in six different styles of narration: a journal, letters to a friend, a murder-mystery, memoir, interview and oral history. The characters are loosely tied to one another by strands of coincidence that transcend time.

It's Mitchell's versatility as a writer that so impresses me. Like Eric Clapton wowing a crowd with his electric guitar licks, Mitchell flashes up and down the fingerboard of language in a long, inventive, improvisational riff.

I can't wait to get to "Cloud9dream" and "Ghostwritten."

Archie's Story, Part 3

More of the Archie's interview by his friend, Rinat:

Rinat: Let's talk about people. Do you think Americans are really different from our Soviet people?
Artyom: Sure! Cultures are always amazing to discover! Now I really know what rudeness and ignorant customer service all Americans who have visited Kazakhstan are talking about. I never noticed that until I came back to KZ after having spent 2 years in America.
Rinat: Lots of people in the world say Americans are fat. True?
Artyom: Well, these people can't say it that way because some of them have never been to the U.S. This is one. Two – there are fat people everywhere. There
might be more skinny people in Kazakhstan, but I can't claim the fact that all Americans are fat.
Rinat: They also make a statement that people from Uncle Sam are greedy and do things for money only. In other words, people over there are more materialistic and help people when they try to get benefits from others.
Artyom: You are right, some people do say it that way about Americans. Even when I was getting ready to leave for the States, they warned me about that. But as I was settling with my life and making friends, it became more of a myth or some kind of envious gossip to me. My American families and friends, my employer, everyone who gave me a hand when I needed their help never said 'no' to me. Never ever in my American life. This being said, I have an idea that somebody has been very jealous of Americans' wealth, and decided to call them 'greedy.' I myself, having been helped and assisted by the citizens of the United States countless times, in my mind, possess no absolute background that all my friends and both families were seeking some kind of profit from me.
Rinat: (joking) Maybe you simply had nothing that could be taken?
Artyom: (laughing) Exactly!
Rinat: Well, thank you, Art, for such an interesting conversation.
Artyom: You are welcome. Let me know if you have more questions to ask.

Archie's Story, Part 2

"Do you want to know more about me? Do you want to find information? Are you curious about something? Interested? Ask me!" is exactly what I tell my fellow-country people if some of them - at times, it is very obvious - want to tell or ask me something. And here we are - a live interview with one of my Kazakhstani friends who has known me for a long time, yet has never asked me anything about America. He questions me, I reply. I find it very interesting as many Americans are eager to hear opinions of foreigners about themselves. Enjoy.

Rinat (my friend): When was the first time you traveled to the States? How old were you?
Artyom (myself): In May of 2006. I was 18.
Rinat: Did you like it in the beginning?
Artyom: I liked it through my whole journey – very much! But life was tough at times.
Rinat: Oh, I see. What do you mean 'it was tough'?
Artyom: Well, the immigration problems are ridiculous.
Rinat: But why did you choose America? What was your goal?
Artyom: My goal was to get into an American college and receive a degree.
Rinat: Why America?
Artyom: Several reasons: Education in English and English-speaking environment which is good for my future employment, high standards, world recognition. As far as everyone over here, in Kazakhstan, knows that there isn't a single college in our country that offers a degree completely taught in English. And this is a very important factor.
Rinat: That's very true. Did your American friends ask you why you had come to their country?
Artyom: I told them absolutely the same thing – to get educated in English.
Rinat: Were they surprised?
Artyom: Well, some of them didn't understand why I hadn't wanted to study in Kazakhstan.
Rinat: And how did you explain that to them?
Artyom: It wasn't that easy. In order to truly comprehend one's situation, you have to be in his shoes. In other words, if some of my friends spent some time in Kazakhstan and saw everything with their own eyes, they would have understood me the best. That's the whole point. Americans are first-world citizens. We, on the opposite, have passports from a developing country. I put it this way: Employers all over the world, especially internationally-recognized companies, regardless of the country, are looking for people who are professionally advanced in English despite their native tongue. If we are talking about entrepreneurs, international business managers, IT developers, the very first requirement on your resume has to be your great English. And the only way to become advanced in the English language is to receive your work experience and education in an English-speaking country. In addition to that, we are also talking about the quality of education.

(More of the interview tomorrow...)

Archie's Story, Part 1

The touchdown was at 9:30 in the morning. Although my first plane was late, my second, international flight landed in Moscow 30 minutes earlier. I couldn't say I was exhausted due to the long trip, but I know for sure there was a great deal of excitement - I was waiting to see what had happened to my country for the fastest and, perhaps, the best two years in my life.

It took me almost three days of traveling from Moscow to the north of the Asian part of the former USSR, and there I was – back in Kazakhstan! Could I believe myself I was there? Was I hearing people speak Russian?

My mother gave me a great hug and lots of kisses after I rang the doorbell. My stepfather smiled at me, shook my hand, and helped me carry in my humongous, ridiculously heavy pieces of luggage which I, believe
it or not, had managed to bring home safe and clean. The dog - named Bill when President Clinton was elected – started to bark at me. Apparently, he wasn't able to recall who I was. Two years aren't that much of time, but, obviously, it was enough for him to forget the person who once bought him from a woman on the street. His amnesia didn't last that long; he nicely caught a couple of thrown pieces of meat with
his jaw, got some water, and, after having looked at me for half hour, started to wag his tale.

The next day I woke up thinking something like, “I need to call my manager and see if I can come in earlier today...” I opened my eyes, stretched a bit, and... realized that... It would take me a while, approximately 17 to 20 hours by plane, to get to work even if I flew straight from my town to Four Star Pizza in Washington, Pa. So I figured they wouldn't need me by the time I get there.

Yes, I understood I was missing my job right at that moment. It felt unusual to wake up in your parents' house and to have your breakfast ready. However, little did I understand that there were no... sandwiches on the table! My goodness! Where is my triple-mayo BLT hoagie and Ramen noodles? No way...

I tried to hurry up and eat my original Kazakhstani food, because I knew I needed to get online. All of a sudden, my mother said, “Why are you eating so fast?” I explained that I promised to write my American families and friends as soon as I would get home. She replied, “I don't know how you do that at daylight. We can only use the Net after 11 p.m. - it's impossible to dial it up when the traffic is busy.”

TV, the “Soviet” type of people on the street, buses and cars, Russian letters and names of shops everywhere. Wow! Was I really born here, or has my mind made America my permanent country of living? In psychology they call it “the cultural shock.” You are “shocked” when you go to a foreign country, mostly if the country of your visit is of higher quality of living than your native place. You see how well-developed, as in my case, America is, how high the standards are, where people live and work, what they eat, what they do, how much they get paid. “The reverse cultural shock,” as in my case again, takes place when you get back to where you originally came from.

I've been keeping my own journal practically since I landed in America for the first time in my life. It contains as much information so I would write a book or two; also do I possess a huge desire to tell others about my adventure through newspaper articles. My American families and friends deserve lots of thanks for being a great nation on the whole as well as caring about others. I wasn't lucky enough to
inherit millions of dollars, or, let's say, to be born in America, but I received a lucky life ticket to go to America, and understand how to live for others.

Questions and complaints

Q: I would like to have Greene and Washington County news in my Greene paper. Why have two editions? - J.D.

A: The Observer-Reporter publishes two editions of the newspaper Tuesday through Sunday – one for Washington County and one for Greene County. The news and advertising on the local pages are different, and sometimes the front page is different, too. We are often asked why we don't simply publish one edition, with all the news and advertising of both counties in it. That's a good question, and the answer is complicated.

An awful lot of our Greene County readers get upset when they see any news from Washington County on their local pages. They tell us they are not the least bit interested in anything happening in Washington County. But that's not the reason we have two editions.

Before 1981, we had a morning and an evening edition of the newspaper. Greene County advertisers could get a lower rate by advertising in only the morning paper, because the evening edition was not circulated in Greene County. But in 1981, the evening edition was suspended. Many Greene County advertisers could not afford to purchase ads for the entire circulation of the paper, so a vehicle for their ads had to be devised; thus, the Greene County edition. Today, there are about 6,000 papers circulated in Greene and 27,000 in Washington County. Advertisers have the option of purchasing ads in papers that go only to those 6,000 subscribers, and, of course, they pay a lower rate than ads going to 33,000 homes.

Because a newspaper survives on advertising revenue, having this option is vital. We're stuck with it.

We do try to put news from Washington County that we think might be important to Greene County readers into the Greene edition, and vice versa. But doing so seems to only increase the number of complaints we receive. Since 1981, we've been searching for a better solution but have yet to come up with one. But we're still trying.

Road Trip, Part 14

(The Virginian hotel in Medicine Bow, Wyoming)

Leaving Rawlins, we saw a sign for Medicine Bow, about 40 miles distant on Route 30. We jumped at the chance to detour from I-80.

Medicine Bow, at the time, had a population of 389. A visit to its Web site shows that fewer than 300 still live there. The novel “The Virginian” is set there, and that is the name of the hotel that is the town’s main building. We stopped there for coffee and tea, then walked upstairs and looked into rooms. From the looks of things, my guess is the guests were college kids working as ranch hands.
From that oasis, we headed southeast through the high desert, eventually rejoining the interstate at Laramie. From there, all the way home, through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, it was Super-8s and high-speed highway with no time for dawdling, fancy meals or cute B&Bs.

We arrived at home on the evening of April 5, having traveled 4,168 miles in nine days. That works out to 463 miles a day, so if you’re planning to duplicate our experience, take a little longer or don’t count on getting much rest.
As I mentioned at the start of this tale, all the B&Bs are still in operation by the same people, as is the Aspen House restaurant. Stop by and see them, and meet some genuinely nice people while experiencing the emptiness that is much of this country.

THE END

Today's gripe

The crew from Sony Pictures is coming back today to do more filming, and as far as the outside world knows, the Observer-Reporter is still the Bank of Harlan. I just hope today's scenes don't involve any more gunfire. After yesterday, I feel as if I've just done a tour of duty in Iraq.

I am the jumpy type. Watching movies on TV at home, loud noises and sudden movements tend to lift my backside off the couch, send popcorn flying. So, you can imagine what sort of state I was in yesterday, when every 15 minutes my heart was stopped by bursts of gunfire in the street right outside our building. Hey! The first take looked pretty good to me; was it really necessary to do 12 more?

Road Trip, Part 13

The Aspen House Restaurant was just down the street from the Ferris mansion. A former doctor’s office with additions tacked on to it every which way, it was a bit of a surprise, “specializing in Singapore and American cuisine,” according to the menu.

After we ordered dessert, the owners of the restaurant, Jim and Lena Dirck, joined us at our table. They were highly interested in who we were and where we came from. They were desperate for news from the outside, they told us only half-jokingly. Lena, a Singapore native, handles most of the work at the restaurant, and Jim teaches school during the day, in the direction of Medicine Bow. He told us he had only nine students that year - in all grades. And here we thought one-room schools were a thing of the past.

The Dircks held onto us as long as they could, taking us on a tour of the kitchen and then their living quarters. They were proud of their restaurant, which they had begun just six months earlier. A glance at the Internet shows that the Dircks still own the place and are still amazing passersby with Asian food in the middle on nowhere.

The treatment we received from the Dircks made Alice and I feel so special that night. That is the charm of unpeopled places, I guess, and perhaps the curse.

Road Trip, Part 12

What really boggles the mind on a road trip like this one is how vacant much of this country is. Along most of Interstate 80 in Wyoming, there is no speed limit, only signs that ask motorists to drive safely. So, you set your cruise control at 80 or so, and speed through the moonscape, hoping that you’ll catch a glimpse of another vehicle every 20 minutes or so, just to break the monotony.
Eventually, you come to Rawlins, population 8,538. For Wyoming, that's a pretty good-sized city. It came to be that way because it once had a prison and a mining industry. The prison is closed, but the mines are not, and being situated on I-80 has helped it, too.

Most of the people in Carbon County live in Rawlins. The entire population of the county is only 15,639, and the county is huge - 7,991 square miles. That means there are slightly fewer than two people per square mile. By contrast, Washington County's population density is 240 people per square mile.


We spent the night in Rawlins at the Ferris Mansion B&B (above), run by two sisters that brought “Arsenic and Old Lace” to mind. The bedrooms were kitschy Victorian, the downstairs featured a display of the sisters’ large, antique toaster collection. We sat in our rockers, draped with doilies, and relaxed for a while. I drank a liter bottle of Fat Tire beer that I’d been hauling around in the cooler since Denver. Then we went downstairs to ask the sisters where we might find someplace to eat. They were watching the Rawlins town council meeting – live – on television.
“There’s only one restaurant in town, “ Janice Lubbers said. “But you’re going to like it.”

Road Trip, Part 11

We didn’t hang out in Utah very long. We drove 30 miles into Salt Lake City, then north along the shore of the lake. We had lunch with Tom Laabs-Johnson (right), a classmate of mine from the high school days, a social worker who helps troubled youth.

Tom is one of those people who has never uttered an unkind word about anyone. In the three years we spent together in a dormitory at the Darrow School, I never saw him without a smile on his face. He showed up to meet us in shorts, despite the chilly March weather. “I wear shorts 365 days a year,” he said.
“You guys are perfectly welcome to stay at our place for the Winter Olympics in 2002,” Tom offered.

It was a touching invitation, but we were in rather a hurry to get back home. We had just a 9-day window to travel while our daughter was in France on a McGuffey High School French Club trip, and she was due back in a couple of days. Still, the scenery was so breathtaking around Salt Lake that I wouldn’t have minded spending the next six years at Tom’s house.

Instead, we pointed our vehicle eastward on Interstate 80, and in a few hours we were in Wyoming, headed for at least one more unforgettable experience.

Road Trip, Part 10

(Along a lonely stretch in western Colorado)

We stopped for lunch in Steamboat Springs, once a pathetic little mining hamlet and now a yuppie-fern bar-ski haven where the parking lots are packed with BMWs and Volvos. Just outside town, at exactly 1,804 miles from home, we encountered our first orange construction barrels and flag people. “You see, Pennsylvania is not the only state paralyzed by road construction,” I said to Alice. But I was wrong. There was nothing wrong with the road; the crew was just clearing a rock slide.

From the journal:
We could scarcely believe it, but western Colorado was even lonelier and more desolate than eastern Colorado. We sped along at 75 mph, hour after hour, for hundreds of miles, hardly seeing another soul.

As we passed into Utah, the landscape began to change again, and wind-eroded, red rocks erupted from the desert plain, purple with sage. We came down from the Uinta Mountains in the dark, the lights of civilization in the Great Salt Lake basin glimmering ahead of us like some distant galaxy.

Road weary, sleepy and hungry, we drove north through Heber City, looking for a comfortable place to stop. We kept driving, and then, suddenly, Route 40 came to an end, near Park City, where the road intersects with I-80. We found a motel nearby and spent the night, and when we awoke the next morning, snow was falling in huge, white flakes, and the restaurant was crowded with skiers in neon parkas.

Complaints and questions

We received this letter this morning:
"I'm motivated to write to you because I think less of the Observer-Reporter in its present form. I changed my purchase from daily to Sunday only because I grew tired of seeing President Obama's picture(s) on the front page, with supporting information. A newspaper, in my opinion, is supposed to report factual news, designed to stimulate my thinking. Instead the O-R appears to be very Democratically-biased, so that I believe that your publication is controlled externally somehow and I can't accept that.
"I am also subjected to news of rapes, murders and other stories of criminal nature; I'm tired of it. Thanks for your attention and interest. - G.C.

A: I'd like to answer your letter, but I'll need to get President Obama's permission first. - G.O.E.

Road Trip, Part 9

(A ranch house along Route 40 in eastern Colorado)

The road took us to tiny towns with romantic names in eastern Colorado: Cheyenne Wells, and Kit Carson, along the banks of Big Sandy Creek. But the land is desolate and unpeopled. There is no civilization almost until Denver comes into view.
At the foot of the Rockies, we diverted from our route and headed north toward Loveland, where the Hendricks had recommended a bed and breakfast called Wild Lane. Hmmm. Wild Lane, in Loveland. It sounded… erotic.

Steve Wild inherited the early-1900s house a few years earlier and had turned it into an extraordinary inn crammed full of antiques. Wild’s roots are in Pittsburgh, and he is a graduate of Chartiers Valley High School.

We spent the night in a spacious Victorian bedchamber with a stunning view of the snow-capped mountains. Our host served us crepes Dijon and fresh strawberries in amaretto sauce for breakfast. Wild Lane was the most elegant and expensive of the five B&Bs we stayed in on our trip, but the cost was well worth it.

(Along the Berthoud Pass through the Rockies)

Just beyond Idaho Springs, Route 40 breaks away from I-70 for good and twists its way through the Berthoud Pass at 11,315 feet. There, under the brilliant blue sky along the Continental Divide, open-country skiers trekked on snowshoes across fields of snow as deep as eight feet. It was a thrilling moment, to be thrust back into winter, to watch the wind blow snow into a cloud on a far-off mountaintop. And it was a moment we would not have experienced had we arrived a week earlier, when the pass was still closed.

Road Trip, Part 8

Near Wakeeny, Route 40 is a gravel road that parallels Interstate 70. Heading west, if you take a left and drive straight south for two hours at high speed, you’ll reach Dodge City, the closest place with a familiar name.

As much as we would have liked to pay a visit to Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty, we were on a mission. At Oakley, Old 40 splits off from the interstate and meanders southwest through an endless expanse of champagne-colored short grasses. We had been told that Kansas was boring, that driving through it would be an agony of tedium, but we found it awesome and beautiful.

From the journal:
People are in short supply in western Kansas. As we traveled along 40, motorists coming in the other direction waved to us. A sign by the side of this empty road read, “Abortion stops a beating heart.” It’s easy to understand that kind of emotion on the high plains, because there are precious few beating hearts in western Kansas. They need all the beating hearts they can to keep them company and tend this land.

Road Trip, Part 7

We arrived at Dave and Mary Hendricks’ farm just before sunset and took one of their two guest rooms. Early the next morning, we awoke to the smell of bacon frying and sat down in the kitchen with the couple for eggs and biscuits. Dave said a grace, with everyone holding hands. “It looks to be just about a perfect day,” he said later. “And it being Sunday makes it all the more so.”

The Hendricks grow wheat on 625 acres and raise draft horses. While our wives did the dishes and talked, Dave and I hauled pails of grain to the barn and walked about.
“Why do you call this place ‘Thistle Hill’?” I asked.
“Well, we’re up on a rise here,” he answered.
“What rise? This land is as flat as a skillet!” I said.
“I guess it’s all a matter of perception.”

We leaned on the fence, watched the horses mosey in their corral. The constant breeze was starting to make my ear ache. Turning 360 degrees, all I could see beyond the house and barn was wheat and sky.
“Doesn’t the loneliness of this place get to you?” I asked Dave.
“You get used to it,” he said. “You learn to appreciate people more when you don’t see them so often. I tell you, what drives people crazy out here isn’t the loneliness. It’s the wind.”

We lingered as long as we could at Thistle Hill, but we had a long drive to Denver ahead of us. You can never forget that chilling feeling of standing beside a gravel road on which the only tire tracks are your own, feeling so separated from mankind, sensing what the Indians and the pioneers must have felt standing on this windswept ground so long ago – that realization of how small and inconsequential Self is to Nature, on the prairie and under the big sky.

Road Trip, Part 6

(The School House B&B in Rocheport, Mo.)

The drive west from Missouri was rough. We fought a gale from the northwest all day, and in eastern Kansas, the rain turned to sleet, and then hail smacked against the windows of our vehicle as we rocked down the highway through an ocean of orange grass.
From the journal:
We stopped for gas and to add a quart of oil, and the force of the wind was almost enough to take the hood off. I had to hold the hood with one hand while I poured the sluggish oil with the other. My fingers became numb in just a few seconds.

Our vehicle was a Mitsubishi Montero, the older, boxy 4-wheel-drive model with the straight-up windshield. Against that wind, I figured we were getting barely more than 10 miles to the gallon.
We drove into Russell, hometown of U.S. Senators Bob Dole and Arlen Specter, late in the afternoon. A squall had passed through before us, leaving on the streets three inches of wet snow that melted quickly in the sunshine just breaking through the clouds in the immense sky. Dole was definitely Russell’s choice to be president of the U.S. at the time, even though it was obvious that this poor town had never received a smidgen of pork from its favorite sons in Washington.
At dusk, we pulled off the highway and traveled gravel roads across the prairie to Thistle Hill, a bed and breakfast sheltered from the wind by an enclosure of cedars, about seven miles from Wakeeny (population 2,300). Our brief experience there would be unforgettable.

(The Dream theater in downtown Russell, Kan.)