A. Parker Burroughs

Not the Last Picture Show

2009-08-25T08:35:00.007-04:00

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

2009-08-24T10:02:00.003-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-21T08:56:00.003-04:00

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

Archie update

2009-08-18T11:01:00.004-04:00

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!)

Picture Box

2009-08-18T09:21:00.002-04:00

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

Picture box

2009-08-17T10:57:00.002-04:00

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

Picture Box

2009-08-14T08:46:00.001-04:00

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

Picture Box

2009-08-13T09:04:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-11T08:50:00.004-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-10T08:32:00.003-04:00

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

Picture Box

2009-08-07T09:38:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-06T08:44:00.003-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-05T10:10:00.002-04:00

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

2009-08-05T09:57:00.003-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-04T09:09:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-08-03T09:15:00.003-04:00

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?

Picture Box

2009-07-31T09:17:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-30T14:56:00.003-04:00

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

2009-07-30T09:30:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-29T09:55:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-28T09:01:00.002-04:00

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?

Picture Box

2009-07-27T21:06:00.003-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-22T09:36:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-21T09:23:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-20T09:39:00.001-04:00

"Hair Helmet No. 2."

Today's gripe

2009-07-17T09:31:00.003-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-17T09:02:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-16T09:12:00.002-04:00

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...

Picture Box

2009-07-15T08:57:00.003-04:00

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

Picture Box

2009-07-14T08:50:00.001-04:00

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

Picture Box

2009-07-13T09:34:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-10T08:35:00.002-04:00

Polly wanna quacker?

Picture Box

2009-07-09T09:19:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-08T08:22:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-07T08:44:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-06T08:45:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-03T09:07:00.002-04:00

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.

Picture Box

2009-07-02T11:41:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-01T08:36:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-29T13:34:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-25T09:34:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-24T10:44:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-22T13:21:00.002-04:00

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.

2009-06-19T09:19:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-18T09:11:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-18T08:51:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-17T08:39:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-16T08:38:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-15T09:11:00.003-04:00

"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

2009-06-11T08:45:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-09T09:21:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-08T10:39:00.002-04:00

(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

2009-06-04T09:01:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-04T08:51:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-03T10:42:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-02T08:59:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-01T10:22:00.002-04:00

(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

2009-05-29T10:19:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-29T09:39:00.005-04:00

(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

2009-05-28T09:22:00.001-04:00

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

2009-05-27T11:41:00.004-04:00

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

2009-05-26T09:04:00.006-04:00

(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.)

Road Trip, Part 5

2009-05-25T09:36:00.004-04:00

(Abandoned barn off Rote 40, Clayton, Ind.)

Beyond Indianapolis, Route 40 gets even lonelier: a straight and seldom-used highway interrupted ever 10 miles by a village. There are some gentle hills in eastern Illinois, but the road is as straight as a yardstick.
When they buy cars out here," I told Alice, "steering is just an option."

We reached Vandalia, Ill., which is the western terminus of the National Road, by early afternoon and had lunch at the Old Fashioned Soda Fountain, cater-corner to the Madonna of the Trails monument (left). The statue is identical to the one near Richeyville, and there are 10 others just like it across the country, all installed by the Daughters of the American Revolution to commemorate the pioneer spirit.

From the journal:
Arrived in Rocheport, Mo., at 4:40 p.m. and asked the proprietor of The School House B&B if we could get a room for the night. She said there had just been a cancellation and gave us the Spelling Bee Room, which is delightful, with a four-poster bed and a seven-foot-tall wardrobe. We went for a walk along the KATY Trail, a 190-mile rails-to trails path that took us between the bluffs – white cliffs with caves 40 feet above the ground – and the Missouri River.
There was another note in the journal. Seems we ate at a place in Rocheport call Le Bourgeois Bistro – "Excellent meal, great vegetarian dishes, 3 glasses of wine, bill was only $28," I wrote.
Ah, but that was 1996.

Today's gripe

2009-05-22T12:32:00.003-04:00

Call me a stickler, or call me a dinosaur, but I have a respect for the Parts of Speech. I get awfully irritated when I hear the expression, "My bad." I'm sure that if we could alter the vocal chords of chimpanzees to enable them to talk, even they would probably come up with a more comprehensible way to say, "I'm sorry, that's my fault."

Road Trip, Part 4

2009-05-21T16:10:00.003-04:00

(Lantz House proprietor Marcia Hoyt making quiche for breakfast)

From the journal:
After Columbus, the road became straight and flat, and we rolled through the monochrome landscape – made even more colorless by the cloudiness of the sky – almost alone on the highway.

We stopped for lunch in Lafayette at the Red Brick Inn, an historic tavern where the atmosphere is pleasant and the food simple and good.
How far is it from here to the Indiana state line?” I asked our waitress.
“Indiana? I don’t have any idea,” she said. No one ever uses this road to go there. It’s, like, real far. Three or four hours, maybe.
In fact, it took us less than two hours to reach Indiana, and 30 minutes later, we were in Centerville, where we planned to spend the night we had made a reservation at the Historic Lantz House, one of the town’s treasures, now run as a bed and breakfast.

Built in 1835, it was the home and shop of wagon-builder Daniel Lantz. Lantz built the Conestoga wagons that carried pioneers westward. During the Gold Rush, Centerville was awash in travelers. Their tales of riches for the taking finally became to much for Lantz, who at the age of 47 abandoned his business, wife and five children to join the company headed for California.
Poor Dan Lantz never made it. Along the arduous trail, he contracted dysentery and died in southwestern Wyoming, not too far from the Great Salt Lake. The fact that I, then also at the age of 47, had embarked on a foolish journey west to the Great Salt Lake and was sleeping in this man’s house and following in his footsteps sent a shiver up my spine.
But what was I worrying about? If Dan Lantz had a recreational vehicle and 2,000 miles of pavement in front of him, he would have lived to write about his trip, too.

Road Trip, Part 3

2009-05-20T16:12:00.003-04:00

(A bad-hair day at the National Road Museum)

We passed the S bridge at the intersection of Routes 221 and 40 at 8:05 a.m. on that damp and chilly morning of March 27. About 20 minutes later, in Triadelphia, W.Va., with Alice behind the wheel, we had our first argument.
“If you don’t chill out and quit stomping on the invisible brake, I’m going to turn this car around and go home!” she said.
I did chill out, sort of. But we never argued again for the next 4,135 miles. After our return, someone asked Alice if we’d taken a gun along, for our protection. Good God, no, she told them; if we’d had a gun in the car, someone would have been shot before we reached Wheeling.

I wrote this in my journal:
Our impressions of the road today – shabbiness and neglect dominate, particularly through West Virginia. “This looks really bad,” I said. ‘It looks like West Chestnut Street (in Washington),” Alice added.

The National Road – Zane Grey Museum in Norwich, Ohio, just east of Zanesville, is a pleasant surprise. In addition to a colorful and thorough history of the road, the museum offers exhibits about the life of Ohio native and American West author Zane Grey and an impressive collection of commercial pottery produced in the area.
The life-size figures in the exhibit are a little scary, though, and if they are really true to history, then the frontier must have experienced a critical shortage of hair stylists.

Road Trip, Part 2

2009-05-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

The National Road had its start before the birth of the nation. George Washington was among a company of men who blazed a trail from Cumberland, Md., to the Monongahela River. That route would be followed a half century later when, in 1805, a proposal was put through Congress for “a road from Cumberland… within the state on Maryland, to the river Ohio.” Begun in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, the highway would become the only one ever built directly by the federal government.

The road reached the Ohio in 1818, but it had not gone nearly far enough to serve the needs of pioneers pushing westward, nor the needs of farmers shipping produce eastward from the newly settled territories. By 1839, the road had reach Vandalia, Ill., where construction halted for good over a route dispute.

From Vandalia westward, the history of Route 40 (not to be confused with Interstate 40, which takes a more southerly course across the country and incorporates much of old Route 66) is not as old but just as rich. From the Mississippi, the road parallels the railroad tracks, which in turn follow the Smokey Hill Trail to Denver, along which Fort Hays, Fort Russell, Fort Wallace and other outposts of the U.S. Army were built in the 1800s.

From Atlantic City, N.J., to Park City, Utah, Route 40 today is a commercial route. It is used by shoppers, by local people, by school buses and farmers. But there are few travelers.
It was a road built and used by people brimming with optimism, and it is a road littered with the debris of their ambitions. This was our first impression as Alice and I set off on this road one dreary March morning in 1996.

Road Trip, Part 1

2009-05-18T08:42:00.002-04:00

It seemed like a crazy idea at first: Hop in the car and drive west on Route 40, to the end of the road.

U.S. Route 40. The National Pike. The federal highway begun during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson and over which pioneers plunged into the unexplored wilderness on Conestoga wagons. I had traveled the route eastward toward Cumberland, Md., many times, but the farthest west I had traveled had been just over the state line into West Virginia, 40 years earlier, when as college students we frequented bars like Morgan’s and Gebhardt’s to slake our thirst with 3.2 beer.

“How far does it go?” my wife, Alice, asked.
I thumbed through my road atlas, my finger tracing the thin black line through Wheeling and into eastern Ohio. Across Ohio, the line goes back and forth across the thick artery of Interstate 70 but remains its own road. On through Indiana and Illinois it meanders, cutting through the middle of every single town in its path.
Just before St. Louis, Route 40 merges with I-70, but it does not end there. It shares the pavement with the superhighway through Missouri and eastern Kansas, before splitting off into a two-lane secondary road. In western Kansas, it winds south on its own course, joining the interstate just east of Denver. In the foothills of the Rockies, it abandons I-70 for good and snakes across the Continental Divide through a pass almost 12,000 feet above sea level. From there it slithers across the vast expanses of western Colorado and eastern Utah, through the Uinta Mountains.

“The Great Salt Lake, that’s where it ends,” I replied. “It just sort of hits Interstate 80 and disappears.”

It would be a long trip – about 2,000 miles to Salt Lake City, mostly on two-lane road with who knew how many stoplights, through the heart of America, on a route that once stretched from Atlantic City to San Francisco.
We departed with the hope that in driving down Main Street of countless towns we would traverse not just distance but time, and witness a living history of our nation and its people, but we really had no idea what to expect.
Such is the intriguing nature of the Road Trip.

A new story

2009-05-15T09:40:00.005-04:00

Thirteen years ago, my wife, Alice, and I decided to get away from Western Pennsylvania for a while. We liked the idea of a road trip. We got this crazy idea that we'd hop in the car and drive west on Route 40 – the National Road that we traveled almost every day – and follow it west to the end.

So, on a rainy day in March 1996, we left our house, cut over the hills to the S Bridge and turned left on U.S. Route 40. Less than a week later, we were in Park City, Utah, where the road now ends and joins Interstate 80. Along the way, we experienced a part of America beyond our imagination. We stayed in bed-and-breakfasts along the way and met some awfully nice people, and I wrote about the trip in this newspaper's Sunday magazine upon our return.

Just the other day, I checked on the Internet and discovered that all those B&Bs are still in operation and are still run by the same people, so it is still possible to recreate the same experience. So, I'm going to dig out my journal and retell that journey. I am hoping that some of you will e-mail me photos and accounts of your own favorite road trips, just like some of you did for "Forever Cars," and I will insert your chapters between the chapters of my story.

We'll call this one "Road Trip," and it starts Monday.

Comments and complaints

2009-05-14T08:57:00.002-04:00

C: Your policy of honoring mothers on Mothers Day is commendable, but why exclusively choose mothers of large families? Is the value of a mother determined only by the number of children she has produced? There is a wide variety of mothers raising children. There are widowed mothers and single mothers struggling to raise one or two, there are foster mothers and adoptive mothers raising children who were not born to them, there are grandmothers raising the children of their ill or absent adult children and there are stepmothers raising "blended" families. Next year, please consider honoring all mothers in your celebratory addition. Where would families be without them? - M.K.

A: I have to assume that you are a new reader of our newspaper and unfamiliar with the Mothers Day stories we've published over the years. We've written about foster mothers, about foster grandmothers, about mothers of adopted children and children with disabilities, about single mothers, and, most controversial, about moms behind bars – criminal mothers incarcerated on Mothers Day. We've written about mothers from their children's point of view, and from the perspective of their husbands, friends, siblings, parents and themselves. This year, the "hook" for the story was moms with big families.

Next year, our writers will undoubtedly find another hook on which to hang a Mothers Day story. You'd think they'd run out of options, but society keeps coming up with new variations to write about. Who knows? Maybe this same-sex marriage business will open up a whole new box of hooks.

Forever Cars, Part 10

2009-05-13T13:20:00.003-04:00

By Caitlyn Burroughs

My first car had been in the family for over half of my life before it became mine – a 1986 silver-blue Honda Accord with standard transmission (similar to the one above). It pops up in my childhood memories here and there – being in the passenger seat, emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel with my Mom as she spilled her drink all over the stick shift and was so frustrated that she declared, “This is the WORST day of my LIFE!” I remember not understanding why she was so upset about spilling some Pepsi, but looking back, I am sure there were other factors contributing to her bad day, including having to drag her “sick” kid to work in Pittsburgh with her. I also have a vague memory of standing in the driveway and sticking skinny little twigs in the key holes on the doors of that car, and then breaking them off so that they were flush with the lock – I don't think I even knew why I was doing that as I did it, but I do know that it made my dad madder than all get out.

Once I was older, there were the torturous lessons in learning how to drive a stick. After having taught me enough that I knew what was supposed to happen, my dad left me in the car at the bottom of the driveway (which is on an incline) and said, “Just keep trying, and when I see you at the top, you will know how to drive stick.” He was wrong. When I finally arrived at the top, it was on foot, stomping up and crying… “I CAN’T do it. I’m NEVER going to learn how to drive a stick!” Of course, I did eventually get it, and the car was officially deemed mine at some point when I was in college.

The sad part for me is the ending of my story. For graduation, I was excited to get got a “newer” used car – and picked out a teal 1990 Acura Integra. Despite my attachment to the old Honda, I couldn't help but be smitten by this slightly newer and fancier car, despite the fact that it was an automatic. I don’t think I realized that I would miss the Honda until the day after we traded it in, when I drove by the dealership on the way to work and saw it sitting in the back parking lot, looking betrayed and abandoned. To make matters worse, three months later I decided to move to New York City, which meant I had to sell the Acura. I wasn’t too sad about losing the Acura, although it was a fun car for the short time that I had it, but I sure wished I had just kept my dear Honda for a few more months.

Forever Cars, Part 9

2009-05-12T08:43:00.002-04:00

By Brody Burroughs

It’s hard to forget a car that bursts into flames as you’re pumping gas into its tank, and I’ll never forget that faded blue ’74 Saab 99.

It was purchased for $25 when both the car and I were 15. While awaiting resurrection at the local mechanic’s shop, it was struck by my newly licensed buddy, who plowed his parents’ wagon through the mechanic’s lawn and into the lot of cars awaiting repair, totaling a Trans-Am and smashing my taillight.

His insurance company gave me $350 for the damage, and that was enough to get it rewired and road-ready, and for a year we roamed from Prosperity to West Alexander in the bliss of newfound freedom.

Driving it was like driving a car you just found somewhere, abandoned – the thrill of what should not be. It soon developed a heavy smoking habit, and on the way to trade it in the fire happened. I had barely heard my father (the G.O.E.) cuss, let alone scream profanity as an alarm to all. After calmly extinguishing the fire, the attendant loaned us the extinguisher for the day and we went from dealer to dealer, parking around back in case we had to put the fire out again.

Photo gallery

2009-05-11T08:45:00.004-04:00

OK, you guys had a lot of fun with the photo of my Polish relatives, so here's another one to talk about. This photo was taken by my father with a Polaroid camera at a party in our basement in October 1961. The 12-year-old girls here are trying to avoid being photographed. Aside from how different their attire is from what pre-teens wear today, what I like about this shot is the kitsch in the background - how 1950s! And how about the returnable glass Coke bottle. (This one did not make it into the book.)

Whine, whine, whine

2009-05-08T08:46:00.002-04:00

C: During wrestling season, we would like to see more articles about wrestlers/wrestling. It seems as though this sport no longer receives the coverage it once did. - T.F.

A: There was a time – 35 years ago – when wrestling was THE sport in Washington and Greene counties. Thousands packed gyms and spilled into the halls and outdoors for big matches.Today, some of those schools have trouble finding wrestlers for half the weight classes, and other schools have dropped the sport altogether. There have been dual meets at which only a couple of dozen spectators have shown up to watch match after match be forfeited for lack of an opponent. Naturally, the newspaper coverage of this sport has followed this trend.

Today, there is much more competition for readers' and spectators' attention. Scholastic girls sports, particularly basketball, soccer, volleyball and softball, have attracted attention they never had 20 or 30 years ago. Football has emerged as the No. 1 high school sport in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and newer team sports like lacrosse and hockey have elbowed their way into scholastic athletics.

Nevertheless, wrestling still receives (my own opinion here) a disproportionate share of space in our sports section. I challenge you to find another daily newspaper in this state that devotes more space to wrestling than the Observer-Reporter, or that can boast of a more experienced and respected wrestling writer than Joe Tuscano. And don't forget, Mat Matters, Joe's Internet blog, covers a great deal more about the sport here than could ever be squeezed into the newspaper.

Shameless, shameless!

2009-05-07T10:27:00.003-04:00

More shameless self-promotion from the Grumpy Old Editor...
The above photo is of some of my relatives in Poland, taken sometime in the 1950s. It's one of 68 photos included in my book, "Enter, With Torches."

If you didn't already buy the book online, you can still do so (click on the ad at right). Or, if you live around here, you can buy it at these locations:
- Border's Book Store, Bethel Park
- W&J College Book Store
- Bounce Back Books, S. Main St., Washington
- The Book Exchange, E. Maiden St., Washington
- World West Galleries, N. Main Street, Washington
- Sri Yantra Yoga Center, Houston
- Observer-Reporter offices in Washington and Waynesburg
- The Almanac, Valley Brook Road, McMurray

Today's gripe

2009-05-05T08:49:00.002-04:00

OK, this is really picky, but have you noticed lately that television broadcasters seem to be having more and more trouble synchronizing the audio and visual components of their programs?
I just can't stand to see someone's lips moving a half-second behind or ahead of the words they are speaking. It's like watching a poorly dubbed foreign movie. It's confusing and distracting. So, fix it, already.

We get mail

2009-05-05T08:34:00.002-04:00

The snail mail we receive here at the newspaper has diminished in recent years, but we still get plenty of it. Much of it is costly promotional material that goes straight into the "circular file," as we call the waste can. For instance: This morning I received a brochure from the National Watermelon Promotion Board. This organization's slogan is, "Make every day a picnic with watermelon."

As I read this aloud with a chuckle, one office wag suggested that a watermelon a day will keep the doctor away, or at the very least, dehydration.

Forever Cars, Part 8

2009-05-04T09:07:00.003-04:00

By Nancy Bennett

The first car I bought myself was an Austin-America. It looked just like
the picture above, except it was blue. The only problem I had with
it was the hydraulic suspension. Every so often I would lose it on one
side of the car, which made it look lopsided. I took it to British
Motors in San Diego (run by an Englishman), and after my third trip in for the same problem, I asked him why this kept happening. He said,
“Remember when the colonists dumped the tea in the Boston Harbor? Well, this is the way we are getting even.”

When I got married, my husband wanted to get rid of it right away. He called it a death trap. I thought it was cute and fun to drive. Needless to say, we traded it in for a “safer” car.

Forever Cars, Part 7

2009-05-01T09:43:00.002-04:00

Well, it looks as if no one else out there has a good car story, so I’ll just add one more anecdote and leave the door open in case anyone else wants to walk in with a car story sometime in the future.

Around 1977, we couldn’t manage anymore with just one vehicle, so I bought another. I didn’t have much money to spend and ended up with a 1969 GMC pickup truck (similar to the one in this photo). Its color was a sort of rust brown, which was great, because that made it difficult to see the real rust. It was as basic as a truck comes: V6, standard transmission (“three on the tree”) and no power steering.

One day, I was in West Alexander and needed to get to our newspaper’s office in Waynesburg. Rather than take the interstates, I decided to find a shortcut on the back roads through “the Finleys,” as the sparsely populated townships of East Finley and West Finley are called locally. Little did I know how steep and twisting those back roads could be. Driving across the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan would have been easier.

That night, my right arm began to ache and swell. By the time I climbed into bed, the pain was excruciating, and I had to sleep with it propped up on pillows. The next morning, I looked like Popeye the Sailor Man. I was sure it was broken.
My doctor and an intern following him around examined me. The intern said it must be broken. My doctor disagreed. “Tendonitis,” he proclaimed, preparing plaster for a cast. “What the hell were you doing?” he asked me.
“I was in a fight,” I said, “with my truck.”

Complaints and questions

2009-04-30T08:40:00.003-04:00

"Did you notice the glaring error on the front page this morning?" a caller asked a few minutes ago. Well, yes, I nearly spit my coffee onto my newspaper at the breakfast table, as a matter of fact.
The headline on the story about the new casino at The Meadows stated, "Permanent venue rakes in $175M in first two weeks." The headline writer pulled the wrong figure from the article; it should have read "$15.3M."

The new casino cost $175 million to build. Even in their wildest fantasies, the casino's owner could not have imagined paying for their new complex in just two weeks!

Forever Cars, Part 6

2009-04-29T11:03:00.001-04:00

Word came the other day of the impending death of the Pontiac, one of the makes that General Motors will ax next year. This can’t be a shock. Anyone who’s ever owned a GM car or truck has wondered about the redundancy of its brands. Still, it’s hard not to feel a shiver of nostalgia.

My second car was a Pontiac. My father was a little worried about me driving back and forth from home in New York to college in Washington, Pa., in the old Karmann Ghia, with not even a radio to help keep me awake, and not enough pickup to get me out of the way of tractor-trailers barreling along the Turnpike. And so I found myself heading back to school in a 1968 Pontiac LeMans. It was goldish-green (they called it “champagne”) with a black vinyl top, a 326 V8 delivering 250 horsepower under its enormously long hood. No problem getting out of the way of trucks.

I was never caught speeding in that car, but I did get a ticket, which is a story worth telling. Two friends and I were heading to our fraternity’s rented farm house in the country for a party. We were hauling a couple of boxes of potato chips and a half-keg of beer, in the trunk. I did not notice the red light at the intersection of East Maiden Street and Route 19 and was pulled over by a state trooper. (About 35 years later, a state police cruiser and another car would be involved in a tragic collision at the same intersection.) The trooper saw the potato chips in the back seat and asked where we were going. We told him the truth, that we were asked to take the chips to the party. “Anything in the trunk?” he asked. “Nah,” I lied. I had to. I was only 20 years old. No one in the car was of legal age.

The trooper asked me to follow him to the office of the Justice of the Peace, Evogene Smith, just up the road. The trooper told her what I had done. She picked up a gavel on her desk, banged it down, and said, “Guilty! Thirty-five dollar fine.” My friends and I pooled our money and paid the fine and left, driving away slowly and carefully, all the way thanking the Creator for allowing us to get away with one and keeping us out of jail.

Forever Cars, Part 5

2009-04-27T08:49:00.001-04:00

By Dave Molter

My first car was a 1951 Cadillac hearse. No, I am not descended from a long line of undertakers, nor am I particularly morbid. But there is a story behind my purchase. In 1967 I was 18 years old and newly graduated from high school. I was also in a rock band, and it was by no means cool to show up at gig in my father's 1965 Rambler American. One of my friends hauled around his band's equipment in a 1956 Cadillac hearse, and it was love at first sight. I found my ride in a vacant lot behind our singer's apartment. Unfortunately, I never took pictures of my hearse, but it was pretty much the same as the one pictured here, with one big – and, to an 18-year-old, great – difference. The guy I bought it from had a venetian blind repair company, and he had stencilled above the windshield, in huge, white block letters, “THIS DRIVER IS BLIND MAN.”

I paid $35 for what many people called my "deathmobile." Because hearses don't drive very far, it had only 15,000 original miles. It was an eight-cylinder with a three-speed stick on the column. Black leather interior with red leather headliner in the cab, red velvet in the back with rollers for a coffin. I loved the toothy metallic grin of its grille.

My one venture into morbidity – it was unintentional – took place when I parked across from my high school to pick up my girlfriend, who was two years younger than I. I was happily sitting behind the wheel minding my own business when a man dressed in a suit appeared at the driver's side window.
“Perhaps you think this is amusing, but I don't,” he said. “I own this business,” he added, gesturing toward the sidewalk.
I realized that I had parked in front of the funeral home catty corner to the school. I drove away sheepishly, never to park there again. My hearse served me well for more than a year before my mother made me sell it because I could no longer find anyone willing to insure such a behemoth. But I have many fond memories of hauling equipment slowly up the West Virginia hills – this was before I-70 and I-79 had been completed – and of turning heads wherever I drove.

Forever Cars, Part 4

2009-04-24T07:59:00.002-04:00

By Margaret Conaway

My husband’s truck was in the garage for repairs and I drove him in my red VW fastback to pick it up. As we left the garage I was in the lead and decided to show him a short cut through some back streets. To my surprise a construction project was in progress at the first main intersection on West Chestnut Street in Washington that I had to cross. The construction was pouring concrete at the entrance of the street I wanted to enter. Instead of going straight across, traffic was being routed left, right, then left again to run around the newly cemented entry.

Due to the construction, and the fact it was high noon, traffic was backed up. I was concentrating on a break in traffic to allow me to pull out. I did NOT take notice of WHY the street was barricaded or the cement finisher who had just risen from his knees and was surveying a job well done. I DID notice the street was only two-thirds barricaded and that my small car would fit in the one-third that was NOT barricaded.

Yep! You guessed it! Kerplop! Into the fresh concrete I dove with my front wheels. My face was as red as my car. (Where was the O-R photographer?)
The workmen merely smiled; I had made their day. What a story they would have to tell about a woman driver. My husband of many years simply drove off and left me there to suffer my embarrassment alone. I really couldn’t blame him. He later described his reaction: “As soon as the clutch was out, I knew where she was headed, so I hollered WHOA! When I realized that wouldn't work, I just prayed. Oh, Please... not all four wheels.”

I backed my little car out of the wet concrete, and as the construction crew held up traffic and directed me out, one of them shouted, “OK, Lady! Give’er hell! See if you can get all the way across this time!”

Forever Cars, Part 3

2009-04-23T09:05:00.002-04:00

By Margaret Conaway

My first and favorite car was a 1953 Mercury sedan purchased used in the late 1950s. I drove it for about 10 years, all the while staving off my husband’s male wish to trade it.

My Mercury had a flathead 8 with a dual downdraft carburetor. That was not a car. It was an Automobile! My son (just a kid then) tells me that he and his brother loved when we entered the four-lane, when I tramped on the gas and the engine gave out that whoosh sound.
My husband nagged me constantly to trade my Mercury, saying, “I can’t understand what you like about that car!” My response was “I like the word PAID that is stamped on the title.”

Came a weak moment when I was talked into trading my beloved 53 Merc for a used fire-truck red’63 Ford Country Squire station wagon (above). I suspect it was wanted for camping trips. What a comedown! Straight 6, standard three-speed on a tree, NO POWER STEERING, and I parallel parked it on city streets. How in the hell did I do that?

I hated that boat, and one day when I tired of parking it I went to a VW dealer (with no advice or help from anyone, meaning my husband) and traded that monster for a’68 VW fastback. This was my first car bought NEW. It did not last long as my son, now a high school senior, totaled it two days before his graduation. (He was not hurt).
It was replaced with a’69 VW fastback and this is the car in which I suffered my most embarrassing moment...
(Continued tomorrow.)

Forever Cars, Part 2

2009-04-22T08:50:00.002-04:00

By Bob Von Scio
I turned 16 glorious years of age on a sunny October day in 1999. I had already obtained my learner’s permit and soon I would be a licensed driver. Due to a decent collection of savings bonds, I was able to go “car shopping” at some area dealerships, but the selection was limited to vehicles that were… past their prime.

I settled on an atrocious vehicle – a 1993 Plymouth Duster (not mine in this photo).
I think two years’ worth of insurance exceeded the purchase price of the car. The new water pump, electrical relay, radiator, front bumper (snow-crash), rear bumper (parking lot crash), three sets of tires, cam seals, overdrive thingamabobber, assorted belts, and windshield (rock) essentially doubled that once more.

I drove that sunovabitch like I stole it, and it returned the favor by acting as if I had it hostage.
My wife fondly recalls the day we went for a drive and the timing belt broke out by the Copper Kettle.
I recall the gallon jug of water I kept in the back seat for trips of more than 5 miles because the water pump was as water-retentive as a burlap sack.

I didn’t learn how to fix anything with that car. No, that would be left to my next one – the one that I would modify, pimp, slam, learn to take apart and put back together.
No, with THIS car, I learned how much all the individual component parts of a car cost. I learned that a 3.0liter V-6 with 119 horsepower was more than enough to shred cheap tires as long as you were flooring it out of a turn. I learned that a plastic wood dash insert doesn't take superglue very well when it snaps in half. I learned that sunroofs retain their hermetic seal for only three months into their second owner, and then leak like a basket full of milk.

I learned to appreciate and value a car that reliably starts when you turn the key; to appreciate cars that can operate at highway speeds without vibrating or pulling further to the right than Sean Hannity at a gun show in a church basement; to appreciate a car that accelerates without question, without hesitation, and with the confidence of a bullet-proof German shepherd.
I recall that car fondly, the way an old man recalls the nuns who would slap his knuckles with a ruler.

Don’t get me wrong, though... I would NEVER want to drive one again, and I feel that all of the surviving models need to be euthanized immediately.
But, it was my automotive purgatory.

Whine, whine, whine

2009-04-21T09:35:00.002-04:00

C: We only get your biased paper for the obituary (sic). The editor/owners are horrible.

A: This comment appeared on a subscription form, the subscriber being not an individual but a labor union. Exactly what our bias is supposed to be, I don't know. During the Bush administration, we were accused more often of being a left-wing mouthpiece for the Democrats. Now that the Democrats are in power and the harping on the editorial page is coming from the right, I suspect that we will be most accused of sympathy with Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

Truth is, newspapers make a habit of being a pain in the butt to those in power, regardless of their political affiliation. It's our job to question authority.

Now, as for being "horrible"...
Well, it is a fact that babies tend to cry the moment I look at them. Maybe it's the scars, the bolts in the side of my neck and my green complexion.

Forever Cars, Part 1

2009-04-20T09:21:00.002-04:00

One spring evening in 1961, in the suburbs of New York City, a gentleman who normally took the train home from the city each day instead pulled into his driveway in an odd little car, purchased that very afternoon.
The man’s family came running out of his house, and neighbors came from across the street to examine the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. The dark gray car with its bulbous snout and rounded fenders was not much more than half the size of the family’s other car – an Oldsmobile station wagon. Few people in the neighborhood owned more than one car, and no one owned anything like this.

Five years later, the man’s son, now 17, after taking his driving test in the little gray car, waited anxiously each day for the arrival of the mail, and the results of the test: Would the letter announce another failure, or would it contain a license to drive? The letter arrived. Ecstasy! On a bright, cool day in June, he slid onto the rust-colored vinyl seat, started the 40-horsepower motor and shifted into first gear, then rolled out the driveway and onto the road to freedom, at last, with an excitement not far from sexual.

A couple years later, the boy returned from college in the old Ghia, its right fender crumpled, its hubcaps missing, its faded body now decorated with two wide racing stripes the boy had fashioned from vinyl cupboard liner with a floral design that he had purchased at Kmart. The boy’s father stood in the driveway and considered the condition of the car and the length of the boy’s hair, and not being able to decide which made him angrier, raised his hands in exasperation and retreated to his house.

The boy returned to college the following fall in another car, a bigger, much safer one, and the little Karmann Ghia was relegated to the garage, later to be sold to a friend of the family, and never seen again.

The boy was happy with the new car and its power, and the fact that it had a radio. He forgot about the Ghia. Years later, he would wake in the middle of the night, full of regret. In his sleep he had heard the whine of its little air-cooled engine, felt its vibration through the shifter, and suddenly he realized that he had ignored, and then lost, his first love.

A differnt story

2009-04-16T16:25:00.001-04:00

Boys love cars. It starts in the crib and never stops.

Oh, sure, some girls love cars, too. When they grow up, some give their vehicles cute names. And I’m sure that there are some girls who know more about the mechanics of automobiles than their fathers and brothers. But generally, it’s different with boys.

When it comes to cars, women are practical, cost-conscious and sensible. They prize convenience and comfort. They like to sit on heated seats and steer. Men are impulsive and irrational. They like style, power and personality. They wear their cars like clothing. When they drive, they are connected to the machine through their feet and their backsides.

Men never forget, never stop loving their first car. The middle-aged man has this dream: He has forgotten that he owns a garage; he goes there and finds his first car, covered in dust but still in existence; he says, “I’d forgotten I still had this. This is great – I could fix it up and drive it again!” and then he wakes up, realizing there is no old car, his youth is gone, and life is cruel.

Do women have this dream, too? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. So we’re going to start another story, but this one will be different. You’re going to write it.

I will write the first chapter, about my first car. Then you e-mail me your stories and photos of your first car, or vehicles that you’ve owned that will forever be popping up in your dreams. I’ll sort them out in a rough chronological order, and in the end, we might have a successful narrative of that special relationship – call it love if you will – between human and machine.

History R Us

2009-04-15T10:45:00.002-04:00

Ever since "200 Years," our newspaper's history book, was published last year, I've been getting calls from folks asking me to assist them in their research. I could tell them that I'm too busy to do their work for them, but the truth is I enjoy it.

Got a call yesterday from a man in Wheeling who has silverware engraved with "Henry Clay Tavern" on it. He said the tavern was on Old Route 40 between West Alexander and Claysville and was a posh place in the 1920s and '30s. He was looking for more information about it and perhaps some newspaper advertisements.

A quick Google search revealed that Leon "Chu" Berry (right), a premier tenor saxophone player, was playing with a band called Perry's Broadway Buddies, which was a fixture at the Henry Clay Tavern in 1928. Berry was born in Wheeling in 1908. He went on to play with many of the great figures in jazz and was a member of Cab Calloway's Cotton Club orchestra when he died in an auto accident at age 33 in 1941.

I took a gander at a bound volume of The Washington Observer from 1928, searching for advertisements for the place. There were none, and it became obvious to me why very quickly. The headlines in the papers were about G-men taking axes to barrels of whiskey; these were the days of prohibition. More than likely, the Henry Clay Tavern, located far out in the sticks, hosting wicked jazz jam sessions, was very likely a speakeasy. The last thing its proprietors wished for was publicity.

If anyone else out there has information about this place, please chime in.

Gripe followup

2009-04-14T16:20:00.002-04:00

Some people have been sending me gardening tips. A good friend has suggested I read Ruth Stout's "No Work Gardening Book."

First of all, I don't believe the title of this book. "No work gardening" is when someone goes to the farmer's market, buys some produce and then gives it to you. Anything else involves work.

She must be the same person who wrote "Death Without Dying," "Never Pay Taxes" and "Eat All You Want, Never Exercise, and Lose Weight!"

Today's gripe

2009-04-13T13:38:00.002-04:00

Some of you who have followed this blog for a long time might remember my problems with groundhogs. There was the time when one of them crawled into the engine compartment of my truck, ripped the insulation off the hood and chewed my rubber hoses. Unlucky for him, he was still in the vicinity of the fan when I started the truck one morning. Took a mechanic an hour to extract his corpse. Serves him right.

Then there was the ground hog who lived under my deck, who, when he wasn't chewing the siding off my house, was eating every last vegetale from my garden. Not a single tomato made it to my plate that summer. I tried to shoot him, but he was a quick little bugger; I never got a shot off.

This year, I'm putting in a garden, but I've learned my lesson. I've surrounded it with a 4-foot-high wire fence with a gate... a locked gate. I'm also considering pounding re-bar into the ground all around it to create a subterranean fence to prevent the furry fiend from burrowing in. I'm stopping short of surveillance cameras and a security guard.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Complaints and questions

2009-04-10T09:11:00.002-04:00

C: Let's have more coverage from the Fredericktown area! - E.C.

A: This comment was written on the survey that readers fill out when they resubscribe for home delivery. We receive comments just like this one all the time from small communities all over our coverage area, which encompasses Washington and Greene counties. With 89 municipalities in that area, it is impossible for a small staff of reporters to cover everything that might be going on. Fredericktown is a 45-minute drive from our main office in Washington, and it's not on the way to anywhere, so it is often overlooked. Not a great deal happens there that is of interest to the rest of the circulation area, but it's not as if nothing happens in Fredericktown. We could do more.

We did do more, years ago, when the newspaper had "country correspondents" who mailed in columns with information about who was in the hospital and who was visiting from out of town. They were called upon to cover breaking news when that occurred, too. The correspondents disappeared, for a number of reasons: That sort of social news fell out of fashion; people became more reluctant to have their private business publicized; the number of people willing to be correspondents for little or no money dwindled.

But the Internet is changing things. Newspapers are struggling to hold on to subscribers and to serve new readers with online editions. Newspapers are beginning to realize that their future is in being "hyper local," and they are now recruiting "citizen journalists," to serve areas their own reporting staffs cannot. The Internet has made gathering and disseminating community news much easier, and more people are willing to spend time doing this.

It's more than likely that the enormous changes newspapers are going through will benefit small communities like Fredericktown, and that's a good thing.

Will there be jobs?

2009-04-08T11:01:00.002-04:00

Last night, I was at Washington & Jefferson College speaking to a group of students about what they will do when college is over. I was a panelist for a discussion called, "What Can I Do With an English Major?" I was asked to participate because I am a W&J gad who was an English major and managed to find a job in which my education was useful.

While the other panelists talked about graduate school and internship, I scanned the faces, detecting here and there a wince or a widening of the eyes that betrayed bewilderment, even dread. It's understandable; it's a tough world out there now, where no one seems to be hiring.

These kids are under a lot of pressure to choose a course in life. Many of their parents are insisting that their college education be practical and vocational. I was there to defend liberal arts, to talk them out of switching their majors to accounting.

I told them how lucky they were to be able to learn about so many different things – languages, history, psychology, art – and that they should soak up all of this that they can. As English majors, they will go out into the working world as effective communicators, so necessary when abbreviated text messages just won't do. And as English majors they study literature, and in doing so they learn so much of the human condition. Anyone who is an effective communicator and has a good understanding of the human condition can do anything he or she chooses.

I'm not sure I got my point across; in the end, there were few questions. But if they take advantage of all the knowledge that's offered to them now, and if they are willing to start work at the bottom, they'll be just fine. Even now, when things seem so bad.

Honest, you will be OK.

Today's gripe

2009-04-07T13:22:00.003-04:00

Today isn't one of them, but on warm days in spring, it's a given that the peace will be disturbed by someone driving up Main Street with the stereo up full blast, the bass speakers creating vibrations that imitate an earthquake, and the lyrics are the staccato obscenities of gangsta rap.

It's not so much the volume that bothers me, but the message. Ever listened? Here are a few lines from the rapper Mdc:

Let's kill all the cops and throw 'em in bags
Set it on fire on a pile of rags
Time for a little anarchy on the streets
Doesn't really matter if we all get beat
'Cause the world is really going to hell in a handbasket...
So let's kill all the cops, kill all the
cops, kill all the cops today
Let's kill all the cops it has a certain ring
They are not really real human beings
They got a job a uniform and a gun
Of course they are stupid and devoid of fun...

Oh, what a world we live in.

Complaints and questions

2009-04-06T09:56:00.003-04:00

C: I am writing to you about your biased reporting on the gamblers that your paper has crucified. Their names have appeared in your paper so many time you make them sound like thugs. They are good people who didn't pay enough taxes. They never forced anyone to bet and yet their names have appeared more than any murderer, any rapist, any drug dealer. - A.C.

A: Believe it or not, we stock no crosses and nails here. And we don't have the power to charge and arrest people, or try them in court. In this case, it was the state police and the Internal Revenue Service who filed the charges, and the federal court that did the sentencing, which, by the way, fell a little short of crucifixion.

We report the activities of the police and courts. We have suggested before in editorials that the enforcers of the law might spend a little more energy pursuing murderers, rapists and drug dealers, rather than concentrating their efforts on crimes in which the victims, if you can call them that, are at least willing. Nevertheless, these are the criminals they choose to pursue, and so we report that.

Fathers, Part 15

2009-04-03T09:29:00.006-04:00

(Four generations, photographed in 1977)

Some families are made differently. In them, a business is started, and it is handed down for generations. This newspaper is a good example; right now it is being run by the fourth generation of family members. Some editors in this 200-year-old business have ended up sitting in the same chairs once occupied by their fathers.

If there could be an opposite to this, my own family would be an example. In keeping with tradition, what I have passed down to my children is a path NOT to take. They chose instead to follow their mother. After college, both went to work and then put themselves through graduate school, both earning master’s degrees in fine arts. They live frugally, as painters must do.

Had things worked out a little differently, they might not have to worry so much about money and might not be so burdened by their grad-school loans. After all, the Burroughs family at one time had great wealth, way back before 1929. There was still a considerable estate left after the death of A.H. Burroughs and the market crash, but my wayward grandfather was effectively disinherited and benefited little. Nothing of that fortune trickled down to my generation or to our children.

In the early 1950s, Woodlawn, the estate in Irvington, N.Y., was sold and Florence – A.H. Burroughs’ widow – moved to Ashville, N.C., where she died at the age of 97. Woodlawn was demolished and replaced by an apartment complex.

(The Lynchburg house buned in August 2006)

Florence and her husband and the remains of several of their children, including my grandfather Alfred, are entombed in a mausoleum in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, right next to the old Dutch cemetery through which Ichabod Crane fled the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

The grand, castle-like house that A.H. Burroughs built in Lynchburg, Va., suffered a long, slow deterioration. It was used for a while as a fraternity house, then divided into apartments. It was destroyed by fire just a few years ago.

So goes the march of a family through history.
As fathers, we are glad to have made the walk.

THE END

Letters from Siberia

2009-04-02T09:14:00.003-04:00

You may remember Misha Zelenchukov, the former Russian journalist now working as a security guard, though infrequently paid, and living outside Novokuznetsk in an old house with no running water. Here's the photo I received from him today, with a note explaining that his dog had "perished," but that now he has this new dog.

Fathers, Part 14

2009-04-01T10:24:00.003-04:00

Letting go is tough. It’s hard enough taking your kids to college and leaving them there, but at least they’re still living at home during breaks. It’s quite another thing when they leave for good. This column is from September 2000:

Cardboard boxes and plastic milk crates filled with shoes, clothing, books and makeup were piled on the landing and stacked at the top of the stairs. The man worked his way around them in the predawn darkness and entered his daughter’s room. At the foot of the bed he found and ankle and gave it a vigorous shake.
“Wake up!” he said to the sleeping lump beneath the comforter. “It’s time to go. Your childhood is over.”

The man and his wife were used to packing her off to college every fall, but this was different; college was over. Now she was moving away for good.
Had she been moving down the street or across town, or to another town in the same state, the event would not have seemed so ominous. But she was moving to New York, the great black hole of the American galaxy of cities, where the density of its 8 million souls is so great that not even letters home can escape its gravity.

The couple and their daughter drove all morning, mostly in silence, and in the static electricity of their anxiety.
Across the Delaware River and into New Jersey, the man began to feel the pull of the city, the traffic converging on ever-widening highways, swirling faster and faster in a vast whirlpool of speeding machinery.
Half a century ago, he thought, his own father had felt the pull of the great metropolis, too. To him, living and working in New York was what gave life meaning. And so, most of the man's own childhood was spent around the city. Maybe that's why, given the chance, he escaped from New York, fleeing on this very route to Western Pennsylvania and college, never looking back.
He raised his children in the country where, when the farm animals are not in an uproar, the nights as are quiet as death and the sky is a hood of black velvet sparkling with tiny diamonds; where there is solitude, where there is peace, where there are few people.
It’s no wonder she wanted to leave.

Just outside the Holland Tunnel, 16 lanes of traffic merged to two in the carbon monoxide haze of Jersey City. On the other side of the river, the traffic poured out of the tunnel and onto Manhattan Island, where signs for Brooklyn, Uptown, Downtown and Canal Street flashed by, and in a panic accompanied by a chorus of honking horns, he chose a direction, a ramp that dumped them into a maze of narrow, twisting alleys jammed with stationary cars and trucks over and around which swarmed a mass of people, racing about their business like fire ants.
For 40 minutes they inched through the steaming, teeming crush of the city.
“Where are we, exactly?” his wife asked. “I have absolutely no idea,” the man admitted. His knuckles became white as he clutched the steering wheel, and he fought an urge to leave, just get out of the car, leave it in the middle of traffic, just leave and find some movie theater or bar, or another job, and never, ever return.
“Why in the hell would anyone ever want to live in this place?” he fumed.

Eventually, they found their way clear of the mess and managed to get to the tip of the island, into another tunnel and on to Brooklyn. By the time they reached the apartment where the girl would be living with friends for a while, the man really needed to be restrained and hosed down.

But he calmed down. He had found a parking space right away. The apartment was on a quiet street, right around the corner from an outdoor cafe. There were kids zooming by on scooters, parents pushing strollers, people everywhere, different people of every conceivable color and nationality. This was a neighborhood, a place with a sense of community.
The couple knew they could leave their child in that place and not feel terrible about it. It was not their sort of place, but it was interesting. As they had shared their daughter's anxiety, now they shared her excitement about being young, about starting fresh in life.
And about living in the center of the universe.
And about not being a child anymore.

Fathers, Part 13

2009-03-31T09:19:00.002-04:00

From a column published Nov. 11, 1990...

Oh, my father takes such delight in my parental misery.
I talk to him about teenager troubles. I expect a little sympathy, maybe a little advice. Instead, he rubs his palms together and grins. His eyes twinkle, and he has to suppress laughter. This is the joy of revenge.
I say: “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the kid, Dad. He wears combat boots and a motorcycle jacket. I think his role model is Sid Vicious. And his hair!”
My father snickers. He says: “You can’t imagine how good this makes me feel. Now you know.”
I say: “What am I supposed to do when I tell the kid he has to be home no later than a certain time – absolutely, not a minute later – and he shows up two hours later? And when I confront him, he puts on this puzzled look, glances at his watch and shrugs. What am I supposed to do?”
My father says: “Ha ha ha.”
He puts his arm around my shoulder, gives me a poke or two in the arm and says, “Now you know.”

Yes, now I know what the punishment is for being a troubling teenager: You goof on your parents, and 25 years later it comes around and hits you in the back of the head like some nuclear-age boomerang.
I can recall, back in 1965, a dinner-table exchange that went something like this:
Father: “If you would get that ridiculous hank of hair out of your eyes and off your face, maybe you could actually see what you’re eating!”
Son: “I can see just fine. We’re eating bourgeois food in a bourgeois house.”
Father: “There’s that communist talk again.”
Son: “Oh, Dad, the communists aren’t such bad guys. They’re just like us, and they want to be our friends.” (Yes, I really did say that.)
Father: “Oh, they want to be our friends, do they? And I suppose those things on top of their intercontinental ballistic missiles are just invitations to a garden party.”
Son: “That’s a typical imperialist reaction, but I can’t argue this anymore – the band is coming over to practice.”
Father: “Oh great. And I was looking forward to an evening of peace and quiet. Well, at least I can take off my socks and stand in the kitchen, above the basement, and get a foot massage from the vibrations.”
Son: “We have to play loud. The volume is the music, but I don’t expect you to understand that.”
(A long pause ensues in which the elder silently counts to 10.)
Father: “You’ll see. Oh, you’ll see.”

So, 25 years later, I see. I come home from work, put my hand on the doorknob and feel the tickle of vibration. I open the door and am blasted with noise from the stereo. I cup my hands to my face and yell, “WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?”
He yells back, “JANE”S ADDICTION.”
I’m puzzled. “NO, I MEAN WHAT GROUP ARE YOU LISTENING TO?”
“JANE’S ADDICTION! THAT IS THE GROUP.”
I yell: “WELL, COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN A BIT?”
“WHAT?”
“OH, NEVER MIND!” I yell in disgust and storm out of the room. Then I turn, rub my palms together and yell back, “YOU’LL SEE!”

Fathers, Part 12

2009-03-30T10:01:00.001-04:00

My father and I manage to see each other once or twice a year now. We’ve discussed that adventure in Biscayne Bay several times over the years, but I think my dad would rather forget about it; it was too embarrassing for him. But it will always remain a fond memory for me.

A few years after that, I began writing a column for the Observer-Reporter in which I frequently shared my experiences in raising our children. For 15 years, my kids had their personal lives exposed in the newspaper. Some of those columns were reproduced on this blog in the story, “Dreams of My Children,” which can be accessed in this blog’s archives.

Neither of my children chose to follow me into journalism. When they were young, I worked nights and long hours and saw them not nearly enough. When they saw me, I was often weighed down with the frustrations of my job, harried by angry readers, and they wanted no part of that. They chose, instead, to emulate their mother, an artist of considerable talent. (My children share deep roots in this area with their mother, whose family – pioneer Scots-Irish and Dutch – arrived her in the late 1ate 18th century.) They would develop their own talent and become artists themselves. Like all the other Burroughs children before them going back to the 18th century, they chose a different path than their father.

Fatherhood was a frequent theme of those old columns in the 1980s and 1990s. I’ll share a couple of them with you this week. Tomorrow’s installment first ran in 1990 under the headline, “It took 25 years, but Dad’s finally getting his revenge.”