[PRCo] Re: West Penn territory

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Thanks Harold.

My best connection to those folks you mentioned happened when I was
auditing state employment offices (better known as unemployment offices)
in Uniontown, Connellsville, Greensburg, Latrobe, Charleroi, Waynesburg,
Somerset, Leechburg, Kittanning, New Kensington and Washington all
through the 1980s.  Great people.  I always was comfortable with them,
and often they with me, even as I was looking into their mistakes. 
Those managers took their work seriously because they had jobs.  No
where else in the state but the southwest would I expect a manager to go
out to dinner with me when I was the enemy.  They were happy to have
jobs.  Big places like Walworth Valves, the steel mills in Monessen,
Donora, Allenport and Leechburg and the ALCOA mill in New Ken were shut
tight.  The mines were flooded.  There were a lot of disillusioned old
men waiting for things to get better ... men who weren't comfortable
being reminded that the mill was torn down.  And those men and women
working for the state, for the most part, recognized how lucky they were
to have their jobs.  

The numbers show that Pittsburgh recovered briskly from the 1982
recession that that a few years later there were many occupations in
which jobs could not be filled.  But the job market had changed.  They
weren't the same jobs. Unlike previous recessions, this time we knew the
mills were not going to open again.  U S Steel was still in the top 10
employers, but no longer any where near Numero Uno.  Mesta Machine, LTV
Steel (Jones and Laughlin), Bethlehem Steel, Union Switch & Signal
disappeared ... gone ... just empty real estate.  There were, as I
recall, three or four hospitals that emerged on the top 10 list with
more people than U. S. Steel.  But they weren't offering $20 an hour for
laborers. 

The result?  Well look at the 2000 census.  In spite of the prosperity
in southeastern Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth has the second oldest
population of the 50 states.  The young and ambitious, whose talents lay
in working with their hands, moved out.   

And, as I said in the private note, I find it no longer easy to find the
great immigrant delicacies that once graced so many tables.  Those
wonderful cheese and potato filled perogies covered with sautéed onions
and dripping that glorious cholesterol laden butter.  And the
traditionally Polish mixture of sauerkraut and mashed peas (I do get
that once a year in Cheswick at my cousin's Thanksgiving table).  But
you can't go out to restaurants and find the plain foods of our
ancestors.  Denneys and McDonalds have taken over completely.   

Harold Geissenheimer wrote:
> 
> Greetings to all
> 
> I have enjoyed reading the comments about the economy in
> West Penn territory.  Fred is right on the target.  The entire
> area was much like some parts of West Virginia...Ma&Pa
> Kettle country.
> 
> I was fortunate to ride the West Penn and see first hand
> what was there.
-- Trailing quotes stripped by Listar --