Gumby does yoga

Gumby Doing Yoga, originally uploaded by pranksterjay.

You think?

A riot going on

The Suit, originally uploaded by mknobil.

There are riot-gear photos from the G-20 in Pittsburgh, Pa., and then there is this RIOT-gear shot from that global summit.
This is another fantastic photograph from Pittsburgh filmmaker Mark Knobil.

A heavy church

God loves fat people at the Webster United Methodist Church in this Pennsylvania village named after statesman Daniel Webster.

An old town full of ghost stories

Sue Bowers, president of the Monongahela Area Historical Society, with one of many strange artifacts in the group's museum in Monongahela, Pa. Photo: Observer-Reporter

By Scott Beveridge

MONONGAHELA, Pa. – Sue Bowers believes in ghosts and she’s convinced at least one is haunting the shelves of the historical society museum she runs in an old Monongahela River town.

She’s not the only member of the Monongahela Area Historical Society who is creeped out by the things in the group’s collection of local treasures.

“Some members are afraid to be here alone,” said Bowers, a retired elementary schoolteacher and president of the society in Monongahela, Pa.

Maybe it’s the human skull sitting on a shelf near the front door to the museum that gives people the chills. No one knows how the society came by that artifact, or to whom it once belonged, Bowers said.

Maybe it's simply the age of this city that gives it so many strange beliefs. Monongahela, which traces its roots to a ferry crossing on the Monongahela River in the late 1700s, is among the oldest settlements in the Mon Valley.

“A lot of these places are old, and they come with baggage,” Bowers said.

She still can’t believe what she unexpectedly found sitting out of place not too long ago in the museum at 230 W. Main St.

A spooky, century-old photograph of a woman in her 30s had been pulled out of storage and placed beside a black funeral card for Sadie Patterson, who died in 1892 at 35. Bowers said she had never before seen the photograph or card, and that none of the society’s members admitted to having ever come into contact with them, either.

Bowers doesn’t even know if the woman in the photograph was Sadie Patterson, but this is a ghost story that she surely will add to the collection of them she has been gathering for more than a decade.

She will tell a whole bunch more of them later this month when she leads visitors on candlelight ghost walks past the many historic houses that line the city’s Main Street.

The tours will begin at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 and 24 in Chess Park, 600 block of Main Street. Reservations are required and can be arranged by calling 724-258-2377.

This unidentified old photo was mysteriously found one day next to a funeral card for Sadie Patterson in a museum of local history in Monongahela, Pa. Photo: Observer-Reporter

"Ella" patters beautifully in Pittsburgh

"Ella," the season-opening play at Pittsburgh Public Theater, bears some resemblance to an older production about Billie Holiday, but it ends on a happier note.

By Scott Beveridge

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Ella Fitzgerald doesn’t do chatting between songs, a gimmick that is better suited to such performers as "Lady Day" Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

Holiday has something interesting to say on stage because she’s lived through more than enough drama with a drug addiction and string of bad men to drip melancholy with the blues, according to a play underway in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Fitzgerald is known as “the good one” because she never captures headlines for making bad choices, says actress Tina Fabrique, who lends her perfect-pitched voice to “Ella,” a hit play that is opening the 2009-10 season at Pittsburgh Public Theater.

“Lady Day does patter,” Fabrique said while her character’s manager urges her to cut a song in an upcoming concert lineup to make time to talk to the audience in Nice, France.

It’s 1966, two days after Fitzgerald buried her beloved sister, Frances, and the crowd not only wants to hear her voice, but needs to know if she’s OK, the manager, Norman Granz, explains during rehearsals.

Directed and co-conceived by Rob Ruggiero, the Public’s showing of “Ella” is the 20th time this two-act play has gone to production since it’s world premier in 2005 at TheaterWorks in Hartford, Conn.

There can be no doubt that Ruggiero’s “Ella” draws its inspiration from “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” a play about jazz singer Billie Holiday by Lanie Robertson that took the stage at the Public in 1995.

Both stories are told in similar fashion between songs about black women who crossed racial boundaries to make hit records. But while “Lady Day” that starred Debra Tidwell is a story about self destruction, “Ella” leaves the stage on a good note and without the singer having to turn to heroin to get through the show.

And, Fabrique seems to channel the late Fitzgerald with every slight degree.

The first act takes the audience to the rehearsal for the Nice concert where Fabrique is wearing an ordinarily black dress suited for a funeral. It doesn’t take long, though, for the story line to reveal some of Fitzgerald’s darkest moments that defined her sultry voice and made her the “First Lady of Song.”

The story touches on the time Fitzgerald spent in a New York reform school after her mother died young, how she escaped it only to be molested by her stepfather and then went to work for a pimp dancing on the street to lure customers into his brothel.

A new manager – Norman Granz – eventually helps to make Ella a star by encouraging her to sing scat, or improvised music where random syllables mimic the sounds of the instruments.

“I’m no glamor puss Mr. Granz but I will sing you songs that barely have a word,” she says at the prospect of playing Carnegie Hall.

Fitzgerald would go on to perform on that esteemed New York stage 26 times before her death in 1996 at 81 from complications of heart disease and diabetes.

Meanwhile, Fabrique belts out 23 Fitzgerald favorites in vocal a range that allows the audience to pretend for just two hours that maybe Ella is still alive.

Her version of “Something to Live For” is the song from this show to remember.

It comes near the end when Ella – dressed in a sparkling blue ballgown - cries uncontrollably over the loss of a sister, while also acknowledging her shortcomings as a mother. The spotlight shifts to a fantastic trumpet player, Ron Haynes, only to reappear moments later on the star at the microphone after she regains her composure, knowing the stage is her one true love.

Fabrique takes the song home, delivering Ella on stage in a performance that is worth seeing a second time before the final curtain is drawn November 1 on this production.

More info: www.ppt.org or 412-316-1600.

Gunmaker with a sound work ethic

Gunsmith Frank Robinson in his Waynesburg, Pa., workshop. Observer-Reporter photo

Master gunsmith says...

It's custom-made that counts

By Jon Stevens

WAYNESBURG, Pa. – Frank Robinson, like many 15-year-olds in the 1950s, wanted a rifle so he could go hunting with his friends.

But also like many 15-year-olds in the 1950s, Robinson didn't have any money to buy a factory-made rifle.

He sent away to Klein's, a mail order company in Chicago, and for $29, purchased a 1917 Enfield ex-military rifle.

The teenager, who was living in Richhill Township just outside of Wind Ridge at the time, also purchased a kit from a company in Waseka, Minn., to reblue the gun metal.

"And, I also bought some Japanese woodworking chisels," said Robinson, 67, who owns and operates Robinson Custom Guns at 861 Ridge Road, Waynesburg.

So, with his 1917 Enfield, his bluing agent and chisels, Robinson "sat down, fitted things up" and proceeded to strip down the rifle.

His neighbors and friends saw the finished work and decided they would like to have something like that.

Soon, he was taking orders and was making some money, "which I needed as a kid.

"You have to remember, there were no gun laws, no restrictions and no licensing we have today," Robinson said.

Now, nearly 52 years after he made that first rifle, Robinson is considered to be one of the premier gunsmiths in the country.

And, he is not reluctant to say he was self-taught.

"Working from my basement, I developed my talents. This presented a challenge, one that I really enjoyed, with my hobby becoming a very big part of my life," he said.

Robinson's day job, so to speak, was working for Carnegie Gas Co., but since his retirement in 1997, his "hobby" has become his livelihood.

And he is doing quite well at it.

Many, if not most, of his customer business comes from long-distance advertising or from the Internet.

"My work has been written up in Rifle magazine and people from around the country who are very interested in buying a custom-made gun know where to look," he said.

Robinson begins his most popular custom creations with Greene County walnut wood.

"We make only a true custom wood stock, no synthetics, and our rifles are as accurate as they are beautiful," he said.

Robinson buys stump wood and pieces of walnut from the part of the trunk where the limbs attach, where he says the grain is best.

He has the wood cut by a portable sawmill, leaving bark in place, and then dries the wood for nine to 12 months before cutting it into planks.

He often orders English walnut and other select woods from as far away as California.

Customers can choose the wood and the design specifications, including checkering. They can expect delivery within 12 months. The rifle is created to order. Accuracy is guaranteed.

"No two guns are ever alike," Robinson said. "Cookie-cutter guns are produced from manufacturers. Our rifles, that are worked on between 40 and 50 hours each, provide the finest materials handcrafted for outstanding accuracy and appearance at an affordable price to our customers."

Robinson said in a good year, he can make 30 rifles. "We do shotguns and bolt-action rifles. No assault weapons," he said.

He also said he does very little repair work, "except for the convenience of some customers. We are now listed as a manufacturer and most of our business is creating rifles."

To eliminate time and reduce costs, Robinson built his own power carver, a machine that duplicates stocks from original and old patterns. It cost him $1,200 to make. A similar cutter from the factory costs about $16,000.

The most Robinson has ever charged for making a rifle is $5,000, but actually, "When it comes to financial considerations, there are some people willing to pay two to three times what I charge," he said.

Robinson said many gunmakers require the buyer to purchase the action (the metal working that actually fires the weapons). "Some will charge $8,000 to $10,000 for a custom-made gun," he said.

He remembered being at a gun show in Pittsburgh where he and others had their products on display.

People would walk past and admire his guns, but would leave without making a purchase.

A few booths away, another gunsmith from Harrisburg told Robinson that he had a "fine product," but Robinson said no one was buying.

"That man told me I had to charge higher prices because buyers feel the more expensive the gun the better the quality. All I was trying to do was give a good product at a reasonable price."

And just how much people are willing to pay for a quality custom-made rifle was demonstrated when a man came in to his shop in Waynesburg carrying an English Purdy.

"He asked me if I knew what I was looking at and I said, 'Yes, it is a Purdy.'"

The man wanted the stock replaced with English walnut and asked Robinson, "how much?"

"I told him about $3,000 and he told me I was $17,000 cheaper than Purdy. The weapon he had cost $165,000," Robinson said.

Purdy is a London-based company and Robinson said many times prices are dictated by the name. Purdy is top-of-the-line.

Robinson is a man with a sound work ethic. Having worked two jobs – the gas company and gun-making for most of his life – he was able to put four kids through college, including one through medical school.

"Forbes magazine did a story once on the best investments. It ranked the top three this way: Guns, real estate and gold."

(Jon Stevens is bureau chief of the Observer-Reporter/Greene County. His story originally appeared in Greene County Living, a publication of the Observer-Reporter. It was reprinted with permission.)