A friendly library says good-bye to a kind soul

Mary Olivieri poses for a portrait between the shelves of Donora Public Library this week as she prepares to retire from her job there as a clerk. Photo: Christie Campbell/Observer-Reporter

By Scott Beveridge

Too often, I have been met at public libraries by bookish employees who don’t know how to be friendly to patrons because they have spent much of their lives deep in books and away from people.

Admittedly, that’s my rude assumption about them.

But Mary Olivieri broke this stereotype at Donora Public Library that has a long reputation for being one of the friendliest such resource centers in southwestern Pennsylvania. With an eager smile, she knew how to find even the most mundane bits of information in the collection in which she surrounded herself for some 30-odd years. And she did that with more kindness than you could find in the sweetest of candy stores before her retirement today.

Donora will be hard-pressed to replace her, especially in this downturn in the economy when libraries are struggling to keep their doors open.

(Click here to read a story written by Christie Campbell in today’s edition of the Observer-Reporter newspaper.)

A Cherokee-style wedding in the woods.

Terri Ann Yates and Vern Campbell pose for a photo after exchanging vows in a Cherokee-style wedding Saturday in Mingo Creek Park, Pa. Photography was prohibited during the ceremony.

By Scott Beveridge

EIGHTY FOUR, Pa. – A fire is set in a sacred pit at the center of a large roped-off circle as a Cherokee-style wedding party awaits the blessings of an Indian priestess.

The woman who has taken the name Spotted Feather uses smoke and a large feather to bless nearly 30 people Saturday before they proceed to the fire, where Mon Valley, Pa., residents Terri Ann Yates and Vern Campbell will join hands in marriage.

A boy about 4 years old sulks appearing unwilling to participate while wearing store-bought Indian costumes. Campbell, though, is dressed in expensive white buckskins. The location of the bride remains secret as the women lead the party to the fire.

Spotted Feather then escorts the groom to join them with a blue blanket draped over one arm and marching, Indian-style, to the sound of recorded drums blaring from a loudspeaker.

The couple will be married in Washington County's Mingo Creek Park in a blanket ceremony, one of the the oldest and most-beloved traditions of the Cherokee Nation. The ceremony offers them two blue blankets to represent the their past lives before they are wrapped together in one white blanket to represent newly-found happiness.

Vern Campbell apparently has some Cherokee blood in his ancestry while his new bride does not. Yet they selected this style of ceremony because they seek to embrace Indian traditions that include respecting the earth and its living creatures.

As the ceremony proceeds, a small group of males briefly leave the circle and walk to the woods where they will find the bride hiding behind a tree. They return to the circle with Yates dressed in an ornate white buckskin dress and hiding her face behind a bouquet of flowers.

At face value, the ceremony is quite unusual and nothing that waspish Americans are accustomed to witnessing. But at its core, the wedding is every bit as traditional as those in a Presbyterian Church where newlyweds promise a holy union before one creator and shed their past lives for a new beginning.

“All water is under the bridge as you say,” Spotted Feather announces.

But here Saturday, the couple will take seven steps clockwise around the fire and leave the circle under an arch created by the waving arms and hands of the wedding party.

We can't get enough of these gals

The 2008 Monongahela "calendar girls" made a command appearance this month as bridesmaids in a hippie-themed marriage renewal ceremony to mark the 240th birthday of their city in southwestern Pennsylvania. The event also marked the 40th anniversary of the opening of an unusual riverfront park in the town otherwise known as Mon City.

The following is a story about the event published in the Observer-Reporter newspaper in Washington, Pa.

By Scott Beveridge

MONONGAHELA – The bride wore an orange tie-dyed long dress Sunday to renew her marriage vows and her toenails were painted with flowers to match her hippie style.

Elissa Stein of Monongahela walked down the aisle as her daughter sprinkled white rose pedals to the white gazebo in Monongahela’s Chess Park where she meet her husband, Bill, for the ceremony.

“We loved it,” said Bill Stein, 62, after the event sponsored by the Monongahela Area Chamber of Commerce.

The organization wanted to have a hippie-themed, wedding-type event to mark the 40th birthday of the city’s landmark arena that rises from the banks of the Monongahela River in the nearby downtown.

Elissa Stein, 61, said she volunteered to participate after reading about the plan in the newspaper.

“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’” said Elissa Stein, a welfare supervisor.

Bill Stein, chief executive officer of CLI Corp., wore blue jeans and leather sandals to the affair.

Meanwhile, a group of older women who became local celebrities after posing semi-nude last year for a benefit calendar served as bridesmaids.

They arrived at the park to applause riding in either a 1972 pink Cadillac convertible, classic Volkswagen or 1932 white Model A Ford. One of the women who is in her 70s relied on a walker for the short stroll to the John Moreschi Gazebo.

Monongahela Mayor Bob Kepics carried out the service wearing a black wool tuxedo with tails under a humid sky and the temperature approaching 90 degrees.

A disc jockey then played Sonny & Cher’s signature song from 1965, “I Got You Babe,” as the couple left the gazebo.

“The city was just great,” said Lorys Crisafulli, who organized a number of events over the weekend in honor of the Noble J. Dick Aquatorium.

Built in 1969, it has wooden benches painted to appear like the U.S. Flag and seats more than 3,000 people. It’s about to close to undergo more than $1 million in rehabilitation work.

“This whole town came together for this,” said Crisafulli, one of the “calendar girls” who came to Sunday’s ceremony wearing a cowgirl skirt and colorful hippy beads around her neck.

Nearly 100 people witnessed the ceremony, she said.

Bill and Elissa cut a cake in the park before going to their Monongahela home with their four children and friends for a Champagne toast.

“These people put together a wonderful celebration,” he said.

This pizza parlor will draw you back for more

By Scott Beveridge

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. – It would seem pointless to stop at Burgh’s Pizza and Wing Pub for anything other than, well, the pizza and wings that have made this restaurant a success.

So the Bridgeville, Pa., eatery is the destination tonight, where we order 10 jumbo Buffalo wings and a Mit’s white way thin deck pizza.

The place at 533 Washington Ave. in the heart of this town about 20 minutes from Pittsburgh has two bars and a mid-sized dining room. The beer selection is broad with 28 brews on tap and more than 100 different bottle brands in the coolers.

The ceiling is industrial looking, while the walls are painted mauve and yellow. There is a hearty mid-week crowd inside, an indication that the grub here is worth its weight on a pizza pie pan.

The wings arrive first, and are not any bigger than your run-of-the-mill wing dings. The sauce tastes like the standard Buffalo variety served in this area. The saving grace: they are crisp and not greasy, my friend says.

But the pizza is the star of the meal. The crust is probably the best I’ve had in some time. It also has a perfect mix of toppings – artichokes, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and feta, we agree.

“Sometimes you can overdo feta,” my friend says.

I think the pizza, though, is a bit too garlicky

“Too much garlic is never enough garlic,” she argues.

A great thing about this family-owned bar and restaurant is the fact it has helped to raise $140,000 over the years to develop a nearby hiking and biking path known as Montour Trail. Even better – it makes it’s own dough and pizza sauce, said Frank Daily, who owns the business with his brothers, Dan and Tom.

However, when one of these pizzas is consumed it requires a full workout on the 40-mile recreational rail-trail park to digest it without adding more width to the spare tire.

A glance at the mound of pizza with pepperoni being devoured by a couple across the room makes me jealous of them. The envy worsens while I’m en route to the rest room and spot a deep-dish red pizza screaming my name from another table.

I’ll definitely come back for seconds, and then scout out that trail.

Charleroi transformed

Here is a great shot of North Charleroi, Pa., taken from the air before the dam, at right, along the Monongahela River was relocated in the 1930s.

Some 80 years later, the replacement locks and dam is undergoing renovations to keep navigation moving at a quicker pace on the Mon.


Click here to see the top photo in a larger format.
Ditto here to see the other one huge.

(The old photo is courtesy of the Charleroi Area Historical Society while the new one is property of the Observer-Reporter newspaper in Washington, Pa.)

Donora-Webster Bridge status

Here is the weekly update from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation about the closed Donora-Webster Bridge:

SAI Consulting Engineers, Inc. of Pittsburgh is continuing their investigation into the feasibility of repairing the bridge so that it could reopen with a three ton weight limit. Lehigh University has completed their testing of the structural steel samples from the bridge. The results of this testing program shows that the initial repair concepts for the structure that have been developed will not be sufficient. SAI is now conducting additional studies to determine the feasibility, extent, and potential cost of repairs.

Valerie Petersen Community Relations Coordinator
PA Department of Transportation
District 12 Office

PennDOT officials declined to comment on the initial repair concepts it developed for the historic 101-year-old bridge that closed July 14 because of badly-deteriorated steel supporting its deck.