Fall 2021
A Lifelong Friend
I’ve been lucky to have many close friends. But as I look back, it’s clear to me that, of all of them, my life has been most closely intertwined with that of my friend Chris Bentley. Chris and I were born less than two months apart, in early 1962, and we met before either of …
Pittsburgh’s Huge Flathead Catfish Rule the Rivers
Late one August night last year, Dusty Learn, an Indiana County farmer and factory worker, caught what is, perhaps, the most spectacular catfish Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers have been known to ever yield. Although not the VW Beetle-sized beast of urban legend, Learn’s flathead — nabbed on a piece of cut bluegill — might have beaten …
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Norris Beach: “Swim Where You Will Be Welcomed”
Ninety years ago, on August 14, 1931, the city of Pittsburgh opened its largest and most luxurious public swimming pool in Highland Park. Opening day was one of great fanfare and pride. However, it was also a day that saw African Americans who tried to enter the pool turned away. When Black citizens returned the …
Just Askin’… Gretchen Baker
Q: What’s the most interesting thing about your job? A: Within a single day, I can spend time with dinosaur experts looking at fossils, review plans with talented exhibit designers, watch an energetic educator engage a group of kids in our galleries, meet with community partners, and work on a budget. My job activates almost …
Christopher Howard: Living Life in the Moment
I come from a family of proud people who didn’t have a lot. My great-great-grandfather started out as an “enslaved human being” in Texas. Later, he and my grandfather were sharecroppers until my grandfather got a job in a factory. It’s kind of a Pittsburgh story: Man becomes “blue collar” because of factory work. My …
How the Mighty Have Fallen
Last October, my husband and I were driving through the eastern Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills when our physics buff son Mark blurted out, “Hey, there’s an old atom smasher around here somewhere. Can we go see it?” “Atom smasher?” I asked, with a blank look. “What’s that? A Kennywood coaster?” “It’s a nuclear reactor,” …
The Long War Had Definite Pluses
We are speculating about how the Taliban will govern Afghanistan the second time around. Last week I concluded that one prevalent fear – that the Taliban would protect terrorist groups that are a major threat to the West – is unlikely to happen. Previously in this series: “The Taliban and Future Terrorism: A Positive Take (You …
Post-Pandemic Education Survey
More than a year after COVID-19 disrupted the education of 115,000 elementary, middle and high school students in Allegheny County, residents are concerned that it has impeded their progress and favor rethinking the way public schools go about teaching them. According to the results of a new survey, schools generally earn passing grades for the …
Is There Such a Thing as Exercise Addiction?
Question: I began an exercise program about a year ago? Initially I worked out two or three times a week, but I felt so good that I began exercising five days a week, and now it is every day per week – sometimes twice a day. Lately I feel tired most of the time and …
Shelley, Kiesel, Green, Lichtveld, Walker, Moynihan, Adore
The Rev. Austin Crenshaw Shelley will become the senior pastor and head of staff at Shadyside Presbyterian Church on Sept. 27. Currently associate minister at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Rev. Shelley is nearing completion of her Ph.D. in practical theology homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she received a master’s of …
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The Changing of the Guard
I have lived in Pittsburgh my entire 60 years, long enough to remember the smoke billowing from the South Side steel mills. I remember when they were shuttered and knocked down and, eventually, when the South Side Works rose from the ashes. Hard work, prosperity, disruption, change, renewal, prosperity: It’s a cycle I’ve seen over …
An Elegy for Oscar
Some say we love our pets, particularly our dogs, because it pleases and comforts us to do so. I’m not convinced. From my experience with my own dog, who died helplessly of heart failure in his thirteenth year, I felt and still feel a sense of loss that is more than the absence of self-comfort. …
PICT Emerges from the Darkness with a Brilliant “As You Like It”
It’s certainly more than a little ironic that the last play I reviewed before the pandemic shut down all the theaters nearly two years ago was a work by Shakespeare, set in a forest, and performed by PICT Classical Theatre in the Fred Rogers Studio at WQED. . . and now in reviewing the first …
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In the Used To Time
There was a guy who’d sing his way to work, walking on the path I’d bike down, and he’d sing at the top of his lungs, and sometimes he’d close his eyes and sometimes he’d throw his arms up and sometimes he’d do a little sway and snap of the fingers and the string bag …
Little Flower Blossoms
Little Flower stands with stately elegance where it has always stood, on a small bluff overlooking Woodland Road in Shadyside. Built in 1910 by Daniel Clemson, a steel executive who lived at Highmont on the corner of Fifth and Shady, it was a gift for his son, Ralph. With nine bedrooms and a large carriage …
Afghan History and the Taliban
It’s difficult to remain an atoll of sanity in a typhoon of madness. Previously in this series: “A Positive Take (You Heard That Right) on Afghanistan, Part I” For two decades – from the 1970s to the 1990s – Afghanistan was constantly at war, either with outside states (the USSR) or with itself via civil wars …
Unemployment, Labor Force Numbers Disappoint
Students returned to college campuses in September, but they failed to trigger a much-needed surge in the southwestern Pennsylvania labor force and employment, according to the latest Pennsylvania Department of Labor data. At the same time, the region’s unemployment rate moved little, dipping from 6.2 percent in August to 6.1 percent in September – considerably …
Casting a Net
You never know what you’re going to pull in when you cast a net. Not long ago, walking along Caswell Beach on Oak Island, N.C., I stopped to watch three elderly Asian men casting their nets. Now, I’ve done this many times. But not like they were doing it. I use a four-foot net, hold …
Characters Successfully Drive Drue Heinz Prize-Winning Work “Now You Know It All”
Fiction is full of self-deception. Perhaps what makes J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield and Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert two of the most interesting narrators in contemporary literature is the way they continually delude themselves into believing whatever they’re selling. In a similar vein, author Joanna Pearson shows herself to be a deserving winner of the 2021 …
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Big Time
If you are not yet awoke, Pittsburgh native Jen Spyra is on your side. Her jaw-dropping debut of 14 short stories runs the gamut from totally un-PC to downright offensive, but with such imagination and dark, disturbing humor that it’s kind of refreshing. Remember when it was okay to laugh at ourselves, to acknowledge that …
A New Old Fashioned
As far as cocktails are concerned, it doesn’t get more classic than the Old Fashioned, a libation made with bourbon or rye whiskey, a sugar cube and a few dashes of bitters. The drink was supposedly invented by a bartender in Louisville, Ky. in 1880 and has become a staple in American bars. This play …
Steelers vs. Browns: Assessing the Turnpike Rivalry
Dedicated to “all the sons who watched their first Steelers-Browns game with their fathers,” The Turnpike Rivalry: The Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns ($24.95 Black Squirrel Books) is a sure thing, sparking nostalgia in even the most hardcore of these cities rabid fanbase. Penned by father-son duo Richard and Stephen Peterson, the book takes it …
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Trumka, Strassburger, Deitch, Krupp, Frank, Parham
Richard Trumka, 72: A native of Eighty Four, Pa., Trumka was the president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States. He followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather as a coal miner, working shifts in both college and law school. At the age of 33, he successfully ran …
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Survey: Businesses Can’t Find Workers
Southwestern Pennsylvania businesses are navigating a rough patch in their recovery from the disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic, with many delaying plans for returning to normal operations and most reporting trouble finding workers to fill open positions, a regional survey suggests. The findings reflect problems reported across the U.S. as the Delta variant of …
Building Health Systems and Addressing Climate Change and Diversity
Q: With 18 years at the CDC and 40 years in public health, you’re particularly well qualified to analyze how the CDC has done during the pandemic. How would you judge its performance overall, and what specific strengths and weakness have been brought to light? A: Rather than critique the CDC, I’ll attempt to approach …
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The Best-laid Plans…
I’d collapsed into a chair beside the desk of the woman named Eth. Eth had her elbow on her desk and was resting her head on her hand. She was drinking coffee sideways so as not to have to move her head too much. Previously in this series: “My Big Moment” “If you don’t mind,” I …
Brothers & Keepers?
Editor’s note: Between 1984 and 2019, attorney Mark Schwartz represented convicted felon Robert Wideman, ultimately securing a commutation of his sentence in 2019. This is his account of what transpired in the 35 years he dealt with Wideman and his famous older brother, the author of “Brothers and Keepers.” Over the past 40 years, I’ve …
Franklin, Cosetti, Mann, Robinson, Hillebrand, Eide
Don Franklin, 82: A renowned Baroque musicologist, Franklin was professor of music, emeritus, at the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as chair twice from 1970 until his retirement in 2009. A Willmar, Minn. native, he was the youngest trumpet player to play taps at the Willmar Cemetery and was a gifted pianist who earned …
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What’s that Otherworldly Sound in the Wee Hours?
The medical residents were gathered in the library of the house on Pembroke Place in Shadyside for their monthly journal club when a knock came at the home’s entrance. After a brief exchange, there was a strange request: “Doctors,” said the convening surgeon, “we’re needed next door. There is an unusual intruder.” It seems an …
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The Last Liberal Republican: An Insider’s Perspective on Nixon’s Surprising Social Policy
“The Last Liberal Republican” is a memoir of my decade in politics, especially the first three years in Richard Nixon’s White House. As special assistant to the president, I worked with him on his universal health insurance proposal, his overhaul of the Food Stamp program and, most significantly, his Family Assistance Plan (FAP), to place …
My Big Moment
As I mentioned earlier, the Republican convention was being held that year in Miami Beach and it was being run by Gerald Ford, then Speaker of the House. Previously in this series: “Lugar for Veep” Ford had the nifty idea of having a woman give the keynote address. It turned out that in the history of …
A Trashy Ordeal
Last year, I rode my bike on back roads near our farm. I prefer swimming, but our YMCA was closed, so I dusted off my 30-year-old red Cannondale and set out in a beautiful valley between two ridges of the Allegheny Mountains. My favorite ride was a seven-mile loop with steep hills and as I …
Wertz, Wilde, Zappala, Rosenberg, Rangos, Blasier
Ricki Wertz, 86: From 1959 to 1969, Wertz hosted the popular children’s show ”Ricki and Copper” on WTAE. Her co-host was a retriever mix who came from a shelter and was Wertz’s own pet, a wedding gift from her husband. She went on to host “Junior High Quiz” on WTAE for the next 20 years …
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The Glacial Landscape of French Creek’s West Branch
Prehistoric continental glaciers sculpted the broad valleys and rounded hills of the northwest corner of Pennsylvania. And much of this region — Erie, Crawford, Mercer and Lawrence counties — is within the watershed of French Creek, a major tributary of the Allegheny River. French Creek is known for its abundance of freshwater mussels and fish, …
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Lugar for Veep?
I’ll close out my series on Richard Lugar with a three-part episode I’ll call “Veep.” Previously in this series: “The Hug that Rocked Indianapolis: Richard Lugar, Part VII” Richard Lugar wasn’t just the Mayor of Indianapolis and he wasn’t just running for the U.S. Senate – he was also being mooted as President Nixon’s running mate. …
The Global Supply Chain is Collapsing
Over the past 18 months, I’m betting there isn’t a single person who hasn’t been affected by supply chain issues. From toilet paper to home appliances to semiconductor chips, it has become obvious that the global supply chain we have blindly depended on for so long is collapsing. Today we’re experiencing a period of massive …
Reforming Education on the Fly
It was against the backdrop of war and pandemic that public education in America underwent radical innovation during the early decades of the 20th century. While the nation endured World War I and the Spanish flu, public education was quietly reshaped by a surge in public school enrollment and a wave of reform. It was …
On a Pedestal, Fall 2021
Jeffrey Romoff After nearly 50 years at the university of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Jeffrey Romoff can look back at what he has created with a sense of accomplishment that few, if any, people in Pittsburgh during that period can match. He is the visionary leader who, along with the man who hired him 48 years …
Roberto Clemente in Retrospect
The last time Roberto Clemente stepped up to home plate was on a field on Puerto Rico’s west coast where he was teaching boys to play baseball. Locals had coaxed him into taking a swing, and he obliged, hitting the ball out of the park. It’s not surprising that one of the world’s greatest athletes …
A Trip to Corning and the Southern Finger Lakes
With fall approaching, who isn’t itching to hit the road? No matter your age or interests, Corning, N.Y. and the Southern Finger Lakes region might provide the perfect escape. Much of the 4 1/2-hour drive goes through beautiful tree-filled valleys that will be exploding with autumn color. Charming, walkable Corning sits along the Chemung River …
Lie Down with Dogs…
“On my honor, I will never betray my integrity, my character, or the public trust.” –Indianapolis Police Dept. Oath Previously in this series: “You Meet the Strangest People…: Richard Lugar, Part V” Only a day or two after the episode of Drinking the Kool-Aid, there was the episode I’ll call: See No Evil Late in the afternoon a guy …
