A paperweight maybe?

	Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illlustration for larger image.

You would think it would be difficult to misplace a manhole cover. But not in Braddock. Officials in the Mon Valley steel town recently got word that a piece of plywood was subbing for the missing disc by the CSX Railroad tracks. But solving the peculiar theft has taken a backseat to getting that hole properly covered because the thief, apparently a thorough person, made off with the frame that holds the 300-lb. cover in place, too. Installing a replacement should have taken Ray Catero, Braddock's Public Works Director, about an hour. And he was trying to do that when CSX Security showed up and told him to stop working because he needed to have a flag man for safety reasons.

Councilman Matthew Thomas volunteered for the job, figuring he could look one way while another councilman looked the other way, and they could tell Cotera when a train was coming. No, they couldn't: The flagman has to be a CSX employee. Braddock's Manager Ella Jones couldn't believe it. She has been trying to get the railroad to cut overgrown weeds for two years, but all Cotera had to do was cast a shadow on the tracks, and CSX security was there in minutes. As for that missing manhole cover, it seems destined to remain a mystery, although The Morning File feels confident the thief wouldn't make it through airport security.

More Mon Valley news

The kids playing basketball in Homestead no longer have to run uphill to score, thanks to Steelers backup quarterback Charlie Batch. Batch, who grew up in Homestead, pays for a basketball camp that runs from 6 to 9 on weeknight evenings in the summer at the park, until recently called the 16th Avenue Playground. This year Batch was able to convince Home Depot, which doesn't even have a store in Homestead, to contribute to the park, but he wound up stuck between the home improvement store and the borough over necessary repairs. The problem was, it was built on a hill and the basketball courts haven't been on the level for 50 years. In some areas, the differential was more than four feet. The borough and Home Depot each expected the other to pay. Batch paid instead -- an estimated $50,000. Home Depot provided a new fence, backboards and landscaping. The park's new name? The Charlie Batch 16th Avenue Playground.

You go, girls . . .

From the AP
• Man Buys Smoker, Finds Human Leg Inside • Coach Stops Runaway Horse by Biting Ear • Man Allegedly Tries to Use 'Blurry' $100 • Police Break Up Brawl at Chuck E. Cheese • Suggestive Card Ruffles Farmer's Feathers • Nerds to Auction Themselves to Women • Toilet to Tap? San Jose Probes Plan • Seattle to Allow Pygmy Goats As Pets • Yankees Rookies Dress Up in Oz Costumes

There's a full schedule of events for the Senior Olympics today, but the best spectator event isn't on the official calendar: watching gaggles of seniors negotiating what to do in their free time. The senior athletes who are staying in Oakland behave in much the same way new college students do every fall. Groups of women, be they 18 or 80, are the same as they try to figure out who is in the mood to eat what and how they are all going to get there and where they are going to meet later. Only the hair colors are different.

If she can just hang on . . .

Ronda Hausser of Palmer, Alaska, should be a contestant on "What's My Line" -- in her case it's the weight of her line. The Anchorage Daily News reported last week that Palmer was leading the Mat-Su King Salmon Derby, which started May 20, by catching a king salmon that weighed 47.3 pounds (about 10 pounds more than my four-year-old). The derby ends July 13, and if no one catches a bigger fish, Hausser, who has already been awarded a $100 barbecue grill, a $75 hardware store gift certificate and a $50 gift certificate for a brew-pub, will wind up with the $10,000 grand prize.

Breaking the habit?

Today is the day that Microsoft releases new patches for its Windows operating system. The company says there are seven "critical" security patches. Here at the PG, when we heard that Windows patches were being distributed, we thought they might be something a computer geek would wear on his arm to ease the withdrawal from habitual computering.

It's been a long ride

Today is also the 121st anniversary of the opening of the world's first roller coaster -- at Coney Island (in 1884 for those who don't want to do the math). That was just 18 years before Kennywood, which didn't open until 1898, built its first coaster, the Figure 8. Kennywood's oldest surviving coaster, The Jack Rabbit, turns 84 this year. As far as we know, no records are kept on the anniversaries of the first time someone lost their keys on a roller coaster.

Good deeds

A good deed can go a long way. Just ask Marilyn Kraitchman, director of center services at the Vintage Senior Center in East Liberty. She came to my rescue when my life was at its lowest. When the Lord reclaims half of a long-time partnership, it is very difficult for the one left behind. I was very grateful to Marilyn for various projects she gave me to get my mind off myself. I told her I owed her. And so, the good deed's journey began.

Eventually, Marilyn asked me to participate in a Thanksgiving program by reading a poem or telling some jokes. I started to decline, but she reminded me that I owed her one. She's a real visionary who has a talent for seeing beyond, possibly knowing that I had a talent for making people laugh, which propelled the good deed into unknown territory.

Along came Vintage's dance instructor Mike, the best line dancer ever, and his assistant Carol. They chose me to join their small dance group, which entertained widely. Adding comedy to their shows brought laughter to countless audiences, and Carol became my dear friend. All this because of Marilyn's good deed. What a trip!

-- Ruth Rupp, Lawrenceville

Flash the beam, Regina!

	V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette Moonrise over the Gulf buildings -- but what's the score?

Every time the Pirates hit a home run or win a ballgame, the big light atop the Gulf Tower flashes. This has been going on since 2001 when PNC Park opened, but the power behind the light had been unknown until recently.

Pirates announcer Lanny Frattare had been suggesting to fans that it would be a great job to be the guy who flashes the beam, but then a lawyer who toils in the Gulf Tower corrected him.

The person at the switch is the building's receptionist, Regina Taylor. She sits at the big marble desk in the lobby of the grand old building weekday afternoons and evenings, with the Pirates game playing on a portable radio on a shelf behind her.

So Frattare recently corrected himself on the air, and has mentioned Taylor several times since.

"Regina is now the most famous person on Seventh Avenue,'' said Tim Murray, the lawyer who dropped the dime on her with Frattare.

Taylor, of Oakland, is good-natured about the sudden attention. A representative of FoxSports came by to see her, and a lawyer who'd been in Baltimore on business last week said the announcer there also mentioned her during the Pirates-Orioles game.

All this for a woman who has not even been to the four-year-old ballpark for a game herself, as her weekday job keeps her across the Allegheny River, and her weekends are too busy for baseball.

Taylor says sometimes she's occupied with people coming into the building and gets to the home run signal a little late, but she can generally count on the roar from the radio to let her know what's up. Or out. (Announcer Greg Brown's home run calls can almost be heard without the radio.) Sometimes Taylor will flash the light, too, as a signal to friends during the seventh inning stretch.

Does the light ever go on for other reasons?

"Not unless the Pirates need a little extra boost,'' she said. "I'll let them know we're behind them over here. C'mon, guys!"

Murray didn't expect all this when he passed the word to Frattare but now thinks it would make a great home run call: "Flash the beam, Regina -- that one's out of here!"

-- Brian O'Neill, Post-Gazette

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Correction/Clarification: (Published June 15, 2005) The starting date for Kennywood's first roller coaster, the Figure 8, was 1902, not 1910. The date was error in The Morning File as first published June 13, 2005.