This history-making flood was not breaking news

The Monongahela River was rising like never before in 1985, spilling into such places as West Brownsville, Pa., above, while many were unaware of the problem until it was too late. Jim McNutt  Observer-Reporter

By Scott Beveridge

It's hard to recall how the word first slipped into the office at the small Monongahela newspaper where I worked 25 years ago the nearby river that shares the city's name was spilling its banks.

But having grown up on along the Mon in nearby Webster, Pa., I was a born-and-raised river watcher and dropped everything at my artist desk at the Daily-Herald as soon as I heard there was a flood and walked two blocks to check the river.

The crowd was growing beside the riverside stage known as the Noble J. Dick Aquatorium, where the river was raging at a speed and running a deep mud color that I had never before witnessed.

I counted down the steps to the stage that mid-afternoon on Nov. 5, 1985, to gauge how fast the water might be rising because I knew I would soon return.

Back at the paper where I produced advertisements, the handful of newsroom workers ignored my anxieties about the river. An hour later I returned to the aquatorium only to be shocked at discovering the river was rising at an unprecedented speed without warning.

In short order the water was rising, too, in the basement of the newspaper offices in the 400  block of West Main Street.

When it reached a step or two away from spilling into the newsroom, I announced my departure while the editor focused on her gossip column and the few reporters hacked away at their computers, otherwise uninterested in the flood.

It took me two hours to make what would have been a 10-minute drive home on a good day. Luckily I managed to get out of Monongahela moments before Pigeon Creek overflowed there onto Route 88.

Every low-lying road leading into Webster was underwater. Not knowing how much higher the river would swell, I parked my 1974 Plymouth Valiant high on a hill and walked to our house situated far enough away from the river that it would make it through the night without damages.

However, at one entrance to the village a pregnant neighbor had gone into labor and was being delivered by rowboat across Webster Hollow Road to an ambulance. All of the houses close to the river were underwater.

It was too late by then for most homeowners to do much to save their belongings. All they could do was wait for the water to recede and begin cleaning up the mess.

The Daily-Herald's coverage of the worst flood on record in the upper and middle Mon River would be sketchy.

Even more pathetic, one of its reporters never left her desk to check on the river and, when she went to leave, found her car submerged under 3 feet of water in the lot across the street from the newspaper.

It should not have come as surprise that the newspaper would close four months later when purchased by the Observer-Reporter.

The flood of all floods

WEST BROWNSVILLE, Pa. – The small borough of West Brownsville, Pa., shown above while under water during the Election Day Flood of 1985, will be featured in a story Sunday in the Observer-Reporter newspaper about the worst flooding in history along the middle and upper reaches of the Monongahela River.

A view of some of 118 barges that broke free of their moorings and piled up above Maxwell Locks and Dam in LaBelle, Fayette County, Pa.

Marilyn Monroe: Life as a legend

 

By Scott Beveridge

It struck me years ago while painting the portrait, above, of Marilyn Monroe that she had a perfectly symmetrical face except for that famous mole on her lower left cheek.

That balance of genetics could have gone a long way to explain why the screen icon was so beautiful and photogenic, and also became the subject of works created by internationally-known artists.

This phenom has been wonderfully documented in a new exhibit, Marilyn Monroe: Life as a Legend, at Pittsburgh's The Warhol museum dedicated to the artist whose career was launched by his images of the blond actress. Andy Warhol's earliest Monroe portraits were included in his first solo show at Stable Gallery in New York in 1962.

Warhol's "rise to fame is inextricably linked to his art" of Monroe, the museum explained in a description of the Monroe exhibit. This has become the largest museum in the world dedicated to one artist, and the perfect place to celebrate the life of such a gifted and tragic Hollywood legend.

The elevator to the top floor opens to a large photo of her from the Ballerina Series captured by photographer Milton H. Greene, the shot with her pointed toes, body leaning forward and right index finger extended toward her face. It had to be among the most-recognized pictures of Monroe, having been included in millions of pinup calendars since her 1962 death.

The Warhol attempts to explain Monroe's allure and sex appeal in a nearby wallboard that states the portraits around these rooms captured her "determination, innocence and vulnerability," as well as her "vibrant personality, femininity and sensuality."

Around the corner the walls are lined with black-and-white photos, including many movie stills, that caught Warhol's eye, including the one of her wearing that white pleated dress blowing upward while she stands on a subway grate outside Wright's Food store to promote the 1955 film "The Seventh Year Itch." Nearby is the portrait that inspired Andy's Monroe silkscreens, 10 of which also line a wall there.

The following telling Monroe quote can be seen on a wall: "An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine." Yet the many images survive as evidence she might have found much pleasure in toying before the lens. The same went for Warhol, who posed for a series of photos on display showing him dressed in drag and wearing a blond Monroe-style wig.

Monroe's final photo shoot months before her apparent suicide probably gave her fans her best performance for a photographer. Bert Stern forever caught her then-beautiful mature body, breasts fully exposed behind see-through material.

"I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity," she told a reporter for Vogue magazine, which published Stern's images. She also told that writer she "didn't want to look like a joke."

Visitors at the museum today lingered silently before the images as if they were worshiping her features. No one was laughing. I walked away reminded of my own brief obsession with her, and understood it better.

This exhibit on the seventh and fourth floors at 117 Sandusky St. runs through Jan. 2, 2011.

Scary art

"The Three Graces," by Jennifer Dinovitz exhibited in the jury show at Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh last June might have been better shown in October. Happy Halloween.

Menaced by stink bugs

Stink Bug, originally uploaded by juliealicea1947.

“Laugh it off, laugh it off; it’s all part of life’s rich pageant.” – Arthur Marshall

“He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.” – Socrates

By Amanda Gillooly

I don’t want to get all Tom Petty on anybody, but I don’t scare easy.

Unless it has to do with needles, open wounds or bugs.

While I can steer clear of most enterprises that involve the first two, I’ve been unable to avoid that last one. In fact – stink bugs have been an aggressive menace to my mornings.

I’ll admit: I’m a bit of a superstitious writer. To successfully compose copy on deadline, many things must go right – myriad stars must align. My handwritten notes must be neatly extracted from the legal pad from which it came, stapled at the left-hand corner and placed in a manila file folder before I can even begin. 

To continue, I also need a bandanna or other hair band to keep my unruly short hair from hanging precariously in my eyes while I type.

Finally, I need coffee. And if I don’t consume that first cup during a few quiet moments of reflection while perched on the swing on my front porch, the ledes just don’t seem to materialize with any ease.

So, despite the stink bug infestation Pittsburghers like me have been bemoaning (and openly cursing with profanity in some cases – mine included) I refused to let the enemy win and stay indoors with my morning cup of Joe.

But bravery comes at a cost, and for me I paid it about two weeks ago when one of those bastardly bugs dove into my cleavage, briefly becoming trapped between my bosom and its harness.

Not wanting to squish the thing (I’d never get that stain out of a white bra – do you have any idea how much a Body by Victoria demi will cost you?), I reacted calmly and rationally.

After emitting a hearty “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I stood up and brushed at the ugly little bug, causing it to fall further down into the depths of my 38-Cs. After that, it was pure panic.

For a moment of true terror, I almost ripped the blouse off – but just then the stink bug in question took his cue and flew away.

And I immediately felt like an ass, looking around to see if any of my long-suffering neighbors had witnessed my lapse into momentary stink bug insanity. They didn’t.

I’m usually a jolly enough Irish girl, but I was not pleased. It wasn’t funny. It was an assault to both my boobs and to my ability to do my job.

On the defensive, I started wearing a hoodie at all times while on the porch to prevent any wayward insects from making their way near any of my under things. It was by no means a decisive victory against the enemy as much as it was an attempt to live in peace until they all die with the change of the season.

Hey, I’m a humanitarian like that.

But then, as I was enjoying my coffee and trying to invoke the Muse earlier today, I felt a creeping up my leg – a movement that stopped midway up my right thigh. Under the yoga pants.

But I had learned my lesson. I didn’t mess around with any brushing, although I will admit I let out a hell of a yelp as I promptly dropped trou on my porch.

Problem = solved.

Just this time, I laughed and laughed. 

At myself. 

I was thankful for the whole exchange.

Sometimes just when you are taking yourself too seriously, a stink bug comes along and makes you jump around like a fool.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was thankful for cute panties, too.

Amanda Gillooly is a freelance writer in Pittsburgh, whose stories appear in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and publications of the Innocence Institute of Point Park University. She has an over-sized cat named Lincoln that some people have mistaken for a raccoon.

A vigil hymn

Members of the California University of Pennsylvania Choir perform "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" before a candlelight vigil Thursday for Jeron X. Grayson, 18, a Pittsburgh man who was shot and killed Sunday at an off-campus homecoming party.

The are singing in front of a sculpture of Vulcan, a god of fire and also the school's mascot.