The weekly inspiration

From the Webster United Methodist Church in southwestern Pennsylvania today: "If you're old, give advice; If you are young, take it."

The Rev. Bruce Northey, pastor

A small town readies for a soldier's burial

 

Ted Dutton, left, and Bob Armstrong, both officers of Claysville American Legion Post 639, ready an antique caisson for the upcoming funeral for a Pennsylvania soldier killed this week in Afghanistan (Observer-Reporter photo)

From today's O-R:

CLAYSVILLE, Pa. – Ted Dutton spent the better part of today repairing an antique black caisson before it will be used for the first time to carry a soldier’s coffin to a grave.

It's about to be pulled to Claysville Cemetery by two Belgian horses and followed by one without a rider, representative of Nathan Kennedy, a local man who was killed this week in Afghanistan.

“We are going to do it top flight,” said Dutton, commander of the James R. Hunt American Legion Post 639 in Claysville.

The Legion post has never been called before in modern history to host a funeral for a fallen soldier, Dutton said. He’s preparing for a crowd of 5,000 to attend the upcoming one for the popular 24-year-old Kennedy, who was shot and killed Tuesday while serving as a sniper in the U.S. Army.

Let's hope it's the last time this vehicle will be put to use for such an event.

Camus' strange translations

By Scott Beveridge

If ever there was a book that changed my perspective on life it was Albert Camus' "The Stranger."

It caught my eye on a roommate's bookshelf while I was down with the flu at college in 1979 for no other reasons than it having been thin and had the appearance of being really easy to read.

The novel first published in 1942 ended up being so fascinating that I finished it within the course of a day. At first, I was mortified that the title character, Meursault, was tried and executed in France in a murder for reasons that had more to do with his seemingly emotionless existence than the circumstances surrounding the revenge killing.

The author also had me romanticizing about wanting live out my life as an existentialist without having to conform and react to drama in the normal patterns accepted by society.

Little did I know then that this book was considered a classic by academia. That revelation would soon follow after I heard student after student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania complain about how much they hated the book.

Suddenly I felt as if I belonged to a secret society whose members understood that great literature was being ignored for no other reason than it having been required reading for a college class.

Years later, I decided to read the book again, only to find a much different modern translation, which was supposed to be closer to the words Camus originally penned in the book also known as "L’Étranger"

Meursault had suddenly been transformed from a likable character into a cold-blooded killer who, at the end, exhibited emotions that would have made a Roman Catholic priest cringe with pain.

Yet, I was able to forgive the earlier translator who had given America a sanitized version of the book. It still had enough of Camus in it then to reawaken in me a passion for reading that might have otherwise died with those damned, dull books I had to read that summer in a civics class.

A highschooler's Obama art captured my imagination

By Scott Beveridge

NEW EAGLE, Pa. – Let's be frank. I 'm bored with all of the silly anti-President Barack Obama rhetoric comparing him to a socialist bound to ruin the United States with his policies.

But, this colored pencil drawing of Obama caught my eye today while touring a rather cool high school fine arts exhibit in southwestern Pennsylvania.

I'm not sure if the senior at Ringgold High School who drew it was attempting to suggest that our first black president should be surrounded by armed goons to protect him from angry racists or if Obama would support sending such an Army into society to enforce his agenda.

It doesn't really matter, though, what message the artist, David Petrosky, was trying to send in the piece, "Change?" He made me think. I liked his art. His work was done.

The biggest picture involved his teacher, Jocelyn M. Robison, who has been inspiring her students at the Carroll Township, Pa., school to pull off some incredible works of art.

What's more surprising was that her students have been selling their stuff at prices many professional artists would envy, especially in the Mon Valley, whose economy collapsed long before Obama took office.

The exhibit, which ranged from batiks to clay sculptures, was  scheduled to be on display this week, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the district's administration building off Route 88 in New Eagle, Pa.

Teacher flunks spelling

It appears little Nicholas does so well in school that his kindergarten teacher has made up a whole new word to congratulate him for his achievements.

"Is it a combination of terrific and perfect?" asks writer Amanda Gillooly, who submits this photo of her nephew's report card.

The kid from a Pittsburgh suburb is awesome enough to rate his own language. Better yet, he needs to find a teacher who can spell.

Happy Earth Day

Trash builds up around an illegal burn pile a few years ago in Denbo, Pa. It seems we have met with little or no success in preventing slobs from tossing about their litter alongside roadways. In honor of the 40th Earth Day, here is something I wrote for the Observer-Reporter newspaper in Washington, Pa., when the event turned 30.

Nearly four decades into the environmental movement, guardians of the planet can thank themselves for cleaner air and water.

But activists looking forward to Earth Day Thursday say more needs to be done to protect the environment. For example, residents of Washington and Greene counties could be doing more when it comes to reducing the amount of trash sent to landfills, state officials say. 

"I see some problems," said Lisa Cessna, Washington County's assistant planning director who oversees local recycling efforts. 

Across the state, many counties have far exceeded the state recycling goal to reduce the amount of trash dumped at landfills by 25 percent, said Rick Morrison, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Because most efforts have been so successful, the DEP has raised that goal to 35 percent by 2002. 

But in Washington County, recycling efforts had only reduced the trash taken to landfills by 14.7 percent in 1996, the most current recycling statistics available. In Greene, the efforts had reduced trash by 4.4 percent. 

For the most part, the lagging efforts are blamed on lack of centralized collection sites for people to take plastics, cans and glass. Fayette County has a centralized drop-off center, and it reduced trash through recycling by 44.4 percent in 1996. 

And many communities in Washington County don't meet the 5,000 or more population requirement to mandate recycling programs. None of the municipalities in Greene falls under the mandate. 

Aside from recycling, many environmental projects locally as well as across the state are exploding with interest and accomplishments.

More and more people each year volunteer to pick up trash along state roads and waterways.

Last year, 1,540 volunteers took part in the annual River Sweep in June across Southwestern Pennsylvania. They removed more than 50 tons of trash and nearly 900 tires from streams and river banks last year, said Betsy Mallison, DEP spokeswoman in Pittsburgh. The amount of trash removed and the number of volunteers have significantly improved since the sweep began in the region in 1990, she said. 

And nearly 500 new groups are added each year to the list of participants in the annual litter pickup, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, which will be held Saturday. 

But they seldom win the war of ridding the state of roadside garbage. 

"I see those highways as clean as clean can be ... and the next day somebody throws garbage on the road," said Madeleine John, who coordinates the effort in the region for the state Department of Transportation. 

"What do you do about the people who don't care if you throw out garbage?" she said.

"There's still a lot of trash we have to get to," added DEP spokeswoman Rita Zettelmayer. 

She said the number of groups that monitor water quality in small streams also is increasing. They call themselves watershed alliances, and several are at work in Washington and Greene counties. 

For the past two years, Dr. Robert A. Vargo, a professor at California University of Pennsylvania, and his students have been monitoring a section of West Pike Run and its tributaries in Eastern Washington County. They are keeping watch of the water because it is polluted with iron and aluminum that seeps from a reclaimed strip mine in West Pike Run Township. 

The DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation receives free field workers, and Vargo, who is chairman of the Pike Run Watershed Association, has the opportunity to give his students hands-on experience. 

The students in his field and hydrology class routinely take samples of the orange- and white-stained water and send them to Harrisburg for testing. The test results will determine what kind of treatment facility will be needed to filter out the pollution. 

"You need industry, but yet you need somebody to clean it up after, and that's what we try to do," said Bill Knizner of Marianna, a Cal U. senior participating in the project. 

He is surprised to find wildflowers growing in the middle of the polluted stream. The class also is finding that there is enough water flow to dilute the acid. 

"I wouldn't drink this water," said Vargo, who recalls the beginnings of the environmental movement.

He was a schoolteacher in the 1960s in Springdale, Allegheny County, the hometown of Rachel Carson, who is credited with starting the movement. 

Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," predicted the dangers of misusing pesticides. The scientist and ecologist also testified before Congress the following year on the need for policies to protect health and the environment.

Also in 1963, then-U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisconsin, pressed President Kennedy to embrace an environmental platform.

But the movement did not pick up speed until 1970, when Nelson called for an environmental sit-in in Washington, D.C., to shake up the political establishment, according to Nelson's Web site. Twenty million people attended the protest in the spring of that year. That protest is now considered the first Earth Day. 

"One positive thing of the environmental movement is it caused people to take notice," Vargo said. "We can't shut down society. We can't shut down industry, but somebody has to act as a safeguard."

---