T. Buckingham Thomas

Earlier this week, the following situation happened to me for the third time in the last 20 years. (One remembers such scares.) That’s me in the red car, merging onto the expressway.

I match my speed with the 50mph blue car and see that there’s a space for me in front of him, so I switch on my left-turn signal and begin to merge.

But the green car is in a hurry. He’s closing in on the 55mph orange car in front of him, and he perceives the unoccupied space in the slow lane as an opportunity to zip around the orange car by illegally passing him on the right.

The green car and I head for the same empty spot. Not expecting an intruder from two lanes over, I don’t notice him until we almost sideswipe!

I swerve violently to the right to avoid a collision, then back to the left and back to the right to regain control, and finally drop in behind the green car just before running out of room on the entrance ramp.

In the future, how do I avoid these near misses? I don’t know. I'll just have to continue to be vigilant behind the wheel.

I've learned a new word from TV. I was watching a British police procedural in which two former lovers unexpectedly met again. Their awkward words were frequently interspersed with the nervous filler “um,” expressing hesitation or uncertainty. The syllable was unstressed, and normally the closed captioning might ignore it. However, in this case it revealed the characters' state of mind, and the BBC captioner faithfully included it. And the meaningless interjection was given its British spelling “erm.”

The Cambridge Dictionary's English Grammar Today claims that “erm” and “um” are discourse markers with separate functions.

We can use “erm” to pause before continuing, especially when we're unsure about what to say:
He's, erm, he's not very pleased with your work, I'm afraid.
Her last book was called, erm, what was it? I can't remember the name.

We can use “um” to change the subject, carefully introducing a new topic:
Um, could I ask you a personal question?
Um, there's something else we need to talk about.

JULY 13, 2015
HE'D BUILD A GREAT, GREAT WALL

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Donald Trump quickly shot to the top of the polls in the race for the Republican nomination for President. For one thing, name recognition is a major factor. Trump is a celebrity running against politicians (14 of them so far). At this early stage, low-information voters may not know much about the others, but they have heard of The Donald.

Nevertheless, in a letter to the editor published today, Oren Spiegler of Upper St. Clair does register surprise. “I find it stunning and sad that Donald Trump, the coarse, crude, arrogant, condescending loudmouth of the Republican Party, has soared to first or second place in polls.”

I’m not that stunned, because I think there’s a second reason. A significant portion of Republican voters are themselves coarse, crude, arrogant, condescending loudmouths. Let’s call them CCACLs. They’ve found in Trump a champion who speaks their language. He promises easy, simplistic answers.

Mr. Spiegler wonders “whether any candidate is willing to display sufficient courage and decency as to challenge and attempt to disassociate the party from Mr. Trump.”

Some have in fact registered disagreement with Trump’s rantings. But I suspect his typical opponent doesn’t want to denounce him too strongly, because after Trump drops out of the race, the opponent will need some Trump CCACLs to switch their votes to him. He doesn’t want those voters to have written him off as a coddler of immigrants, an unpatriotic Donald hater.

Can all three of these divinely approved equations be true simultaneously? Solve for T, or ask Zoey.

From time to time, I find interesting images that I can't resist adding to previously written articles on this website. Chances are that you haven't revisited those articles recently. For example, I've posted a few images of matchbooks from eating establishments in the mid-20th-century Ohio city where I was born, and that recently led me to post a view of Zanesville's Main Street. Here are links to ten additional updates.

A photo has turned up of Frank Zirbel tending the bratwurst grill.

On the day of last spring's solar eclipse, it was unfortunately cloudy in Amherst, New York.

MaryLou often walked home with me after class. We were in graduate school.

Our national debt continues growing by more than five million dollars per day.

Also in 1970, a favorite cute redhead appeared in a motion picture.

How could radar show an UFO climbing to within 100 feet of an airliner? I offered one possibility; here's a simpler one.

Here's a new angle of the WOBC radio control room in the early 1980s.

I've found a view from the scary-tall cameraman's tower overlooking the U.S. Open at nearby Oakmont.

Tom Huet and I weren't the only Pittsburgh TV techs at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Others were featured in a local news story.

And we need another angle of this brick wall, otherwise known as the steepest streeet in America.

JULY 6, 2015
HOW WILL IT AFFECT ~~ME?~~ YOU?

On Twitter, for some reason I’ve been following Scott Renshaw, the longtime arts and entertainment editor and film critic for Salt Lake City Weekly.

So the holiday weekend is behind us. Is the bombardment over? Has your cat found its way back home after fleeing the noisy celebrations? Has the dog dared to crawl out from underneath the bed? Has the all-clear sounded?

Here’s part of what Scott has been griping about lately.

I wish I had the kind of relationship with my neighbors where I could tell them to knock it the hell off with the fireworks.

I wonder if my neighbors would be as patient with me setting off fireworks at 8 in the morning as I was with them at 11 last night.

Watch Independence Day today and celebrate the American tradition of making bad choices thinly rationalized by patriotism.

Sitting out in the heat waiting for the 4th of July parade and fireworks because I love my family more than I love my own comfort.

Parade float throwing peanuts instead of candy: You're like the Halloween house handing out raisins. If raisins were a fatal allergen.

O hai! Ominous clouds! Gusty winds on the 4th of July, because for a little while there I was worried some moron with homemade bottle rockets wouldn't cause a wildfire.

Marvel must be feeling pretty cocky that Captain America T-shirts have now become acceptable “patriotic” clothing.

“Boom Boom Pow” has replaced Neil Diamond's “America” in the fireworks show. I want my country back.

Yes, I know you want to be setting off fireworks at 11:30. But see, your “want to” exists in a world of laws and other people. Dickhead.

Here's the thing: I generally think, “How will my behavior affect other people?” And I foolishly expect it should be a universal principle. And so I fume impotently on Twitter when I'd love to be sleeping. Lucky you.

“When you think about it, the 4th of July would be the best time to shoot someone.” —my wife, insuring I will not sleep at all tonight.

[2-minute-long period of silence] Me: “Dare I even hope?” Laura: “You shouldn't. You'll just be even more pissed off.”

You know it's love when someone cares enough to remind you that hope is a futile endeavor.

Early enough on a Sunday morning after a holiday that I might as well rant into the emptiness.

I make what jokes I can about the “hey I'm launching fireworks at midnight” thing, but it's one of many symptoms of a societal sickness. It's hardly a brand-new one — I refuse to get all “kids these days” about it — but it feels like it's getting worse all the time. It's an overwhelming brand of narcissism: What I want and what I feel are the only thing that exists.

When I see some a-hole weaving through traffic, there's no other conclusion to be drawn but “Nothing else matters but my needs.”

So much public debate seems to revolve around conflicts where people refuse to acknowledge that their position affects others negatively.

I'm rambling. Sorry. It just feels sometimes like the idea of a society is waved off as utopian by radical individualists.

No “right” is limitless. We can disagree on which rights have which parameters, but at least consider that parameters should exist. You do not have a 1st Amendment right to a religious practice that involves human sacrifice. You do not have a 2nd Amendment right to a nuke. Once we acknowledge those things, we can start having reasonable discussions about the responsibilities of living in a society.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

When a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce [the people] under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

The History of the present King is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone.

He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

>>For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

Works of Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

The tree-lined area that I've highlighted could be considered to be the entrance to downtown Pittsburgh. It's a portion of Liberty Avenue, between Point State Park (bottom) and Stanwix Street (top).

Multiple streets intersect, resulting in dangerous congestion. Several dozen experts gathered in the city last week to study it.

“We saw all kinds of behaviors where people weren’t obeying the rules,” Florida traffic engineer Ian Lockwood told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It takes a long time for everyone to get a green light. The thing’s not working.”

So they came up with a radical idea. First, divert some of the traffic off Liberty Avenue to parallel streets on either side.

But then, remove all the lane markings and crosswalks from that block! Remove all the signs and traffic lights! Even level all the curbs and sidewalks! Just let all the cars and trucks and buses and bicycles and pedestrians go wherever they like, whenever they like, using their common sense to share the space with everyone else.

That’s nuts. Or so it seems, one participant admitted. But it might just work. Shared space has been successful in several European cities. We’ve even seen it in the U.S.; this video is a few years old, but it shows San Francisco’s bustling Market Street without signs and signals.

“The key to a shared space,” the newspaper explained, “is creating a design that causes drivers to slow down, which improves safety.” Paradoxically, the resulting slow but steady traffic can actually move through the congested area in less time, because no one is standing still, idling, waiting two minutes for a light to change.

“Doing away with the rules forces drivers and pedestrians to interact and cooperate. Ownership of the entire street vests with everyone. Drivers pay attention to pedestrians and other drivers rather than signals and signs. Foot traffic increases, stimulating retail development.”

It occurs to me that it won’t be possible to eliminate all signs. It will be necessary to explain to drivers and pedestrians before they reach the shared space that they’re about to enter the Wild West, a lawless open free-for-all. They should not expect any government-painted lines on the pavement nor any stop signs granting them the right of way over other people. They should be prepared to respect their fellow citizens and defer to them.

I imagined what such a notification might look like. It's in the traditional Pittsburgh colors. It’s in the traditional shape of a Yield sign. And it alludes to the traditional nickname of Pittsburgh’s downtown, the Golden Triangle.

Will city planners approve the shared space concept? Personally, I doubt it.

However, “if this got done,” says Robert Ping from the state of Washington, “it would be on the national radar screen. People would come here to see it!”

JUNE 29, 2025

AND THE TUR...
—————————BO PROP FLEW

Folks like to complain about National Anthem singers at big televised events. Let me add a complaint about Jessie Woo, who performed before last night's NASCAR race in Atlanta. She's obviously a talented singer, but for some reason she took big breaths — major pauses — in the middle of words!

Also, the military flyover was unimpressive: merely a single C-130, the propeller-driven cargo plane that first flew in 1954. It did not appear particularly lethal.

The people from my old hometown in Ohio turned out yesterday morning for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Click here for a closer look, or click here for the source video.

These folks are looking at a monumental piece of artwork called “Richwood: Our Community, Our Story,” painted by Brad White and friends on an exterior wall of the Richwood Bank.

I had seen periodic Facebook updates on the progress of the mural. I don't get back to Ohio often, and I imagined the painting on the big blank brick wall on the south side of the main bank building. There it would immediately impress any strangers traveling north on Ohio Routes 37 and 47. However, when I did return to Richwood two weeks ago for the high school's Alumni Banquet, I looked for the mural. Not on that wall.

Heather Wirtz from the bank explained that the location at the rear of the new corporate office building was chosen to “spruce up the new parking lot area” for community gathering events. Kids can use the mural for a look-and-find activity, as in “Who can find the basket of apples?”

Throughout the project, Charles Barry worked with the bank on photos, stories, and history. His research has also appeared in several articles on this website of mine, which Heather complimented as “the most comprehensive documentation and archive on the internet of Richwood history.”

Here's a link to the bank's web page about the project.

Jargon on TV police procedurals: A few years ago, investigators were always hoping to find “CCTV,” or Closed Circuit TeleVision recordings from security cameras. That's still the case, but now I'm also noticing that coroners inspect stabbing victims for “defensive wounds,” to ascertain whether they had a chance to fight back. If so, the criminals might also have wounds.

Romantic comedies: In the movie title Crazy, Stupid, Love, the words “crazy” and “stupid” mean foolish and impulsive. However, in a different movie title Crazy Rich Asians, the word “crazy” does not imply that these Asians should be confined to a mental hospital. They're not crazy and rich. No, they're “crazy rich,” which is to say “insanely wealthy.” Crazy, right?

Sports: When folks post on social media, they forget that their comments can be seen by millions of strangers. Instead, it seems to them that they're only speaking directly to their friends, and those friends obviously are watching the same sports TV channel and obviously are rooting for the same team. Therefore when misfortune befalls their favorites, the posters type “Oh no! No!!!” without further explanation. The majority of us not watching the game are left to imagine that some other horrible event has just happened.

More sports: Apparently a “boundary” in cricket is a hit that carries out of the field of play, similar to a home run in baseball. But that's not the only confusing thing about this bit of sports writing about the 2019 World Cup final: England won for the first time since they had scored more boundaries. That leads us to wonder just how long ago it was that England scored more boundaries. Oh no, no, the reporter should have used “because” instead of “since.” It turns out that although both teams scored 15 runs during the super over, England won for the first time — meaning their first-ever tournament championship — because they had scored more boundaries, which apparently is a tie-breaker rule.

Food: I'm told that nachos are named for a Mexican maître d'hotel, Ignacio Anaya, nicknamed Nacho. He invented the Tex-Mex snacks in 1943, whereupon the owner of the Victory Club restaurant in Piedras Negras put them on the menu as “Nacho's Especiales.” (Pardon me, ma'am, but that is-a not yo’ chip!)

Last weekend I returned to Ohio for my 60-year high school reunion. The Richwood High School Class of 1965 was one of eleven “honored classes” (at five-year intervals) who were welcomed to the 106th annual Alumni Banquet.

These pictures were posted on Facebook. In the closer view, provided by Corresponding Secretary Lynne Glass Ledley, I'm the balding guy on the lower left. I'm sitting next to our class president Ed Olson and across from our class salutatorian Doris Schrote Ebbert (in the lilac sweater).

As noted earlier, I've attended these shindigs before. Of 76 graduates from the Class of 1965, 48 of us are still living, and 18 were there on Saturday night to pose for a picture by Bobbi Craft. I'm on the upper right this time. Needless to say, it was great to talk again with old friends!

Front Row: Sandy Ridge, Pat Ransome Kyle, Lynne Glass Ledley, Dee Ann DeBolt Payne, Doris Schrote Ebbert and Roxye Carter Cieply. Middle Row: Frank Carter, Dan Rush, John Caudill, Keith Forrider, Dan Converse, Bonnie Bell and JoAnn Prichard Bright. Back Row: Richard Ridge, Ed Olson, Denny Roberts, Bob Marvin and Tom Thomas.

At the age of nine, comic-book fan Mark Evanier wrote an article about the Hanna-Barbera Studio. “I can't think of any publisher who would have printed it. When something's on my mind, I often like to write about it even when there's no money. This is now known as ‘blogging.’”

I too like to write for fun. However, minor improvements are often necessary. I need to go back over it again and again when I write something.

Perhaps I notice that a phrase like “when I write something” would work better at the beginning of its sentence. Then my repetition of “write” in its paragraph could be avoided by changing one of its occurrences to “create.”

Another example: The Washington Post recently reported on disagreements at an alt-weekly, the Reader.

When I first read the sentence, it seemed that Goodman supported transitioning the alt-weekly into something called “a nonprofit contingent.” Then the rest of the sentence became nonsensical. Who are the “some” and why will they say over? It ought to be reworded to make it clear that he supports

“Editing,” says Andrew Katzenstein, “is largely a rehearsal of all the ways a piece of writing might be misunderstood. Writing allows me to speak in extreme slow motion (at least compared to conversation).”

“Writing,” says Robert Elisberg, “is looking at a blank piece of paper, putting down your first thoughts, going over it to rephrase things, then going over it again and again, cutting out full passages, changing lines, editing single words, editing for pacing.”

But those blank pieces of paper have largely been replaced by computer screens. Harlan Ellison's reaction: “This is not a good idea. Using PCs for doing term papers, or scientific treatises, for lists — for stuff like that, it's fine, but not for creative work. Many writers say it has made them write in a more slovenly fashion. They are not nearly as alert to the fact that they're going to actually have to do the physical labor of changing something. If they do it wrong, all they have to do is press a button.”

That's true. When I had to use pen and ink, like this example from 1965, it was necessary to compose each sentence carefully in my mind before irrevocably committing it to paper.

Now I can use a computer to simply slap the words down as they occur to me, then go back and press a button to impose composure on them. Does “word processing” make me a lazy writer?

“I know it makes it easier,” Evanier says, “but I think it makes it better. It used to be that when I had what could have been a finished script, I mailed it off. Now, I fiddle with it longer. I replace some words with better words, punch up jokes, trim out redundant passages, smooth out speeches, try moving around sections, trim out redundant passages ... and then I hit Send and it's off. It can be waiting in the inbox of the editor/producer tomorrow morning. He or she can give me notes that day and I can upload revisions — while the writer who writes at a typewriter is still looking for a manila envelope and some stamps.”

For Father's Day, I quote portions of psychologist Joshua Coleman's April 30 article for The Atlantic, “What Parents of Boys Should Know.” Coleman writes:

JUNE 13, 2025 IT'S HIM!

More than 20 years ago, I rewrote a two-millennia-old story in the first person. Recently, I've illustrated it by adding four-century-old images. It's this month's 100 Moons article.

When I was a kid, I learned the rhythms of television series: one episode a week for 39 weeks, then 13 weeks of reruns. (For a live show that couldn't be repeated, we got 13 weeks of a summer replacement show.) Nowadays I watch not only broadcast TV but also cable. A recent development seems wrong.

Often a series will air two episodes back-to-back, then two more the following week, and so on. This spring, TBS reran the first season of Hacks two at a time over five consecutive nights. An HBO channel filled entire evenings with Six Feet Under reruns, back to back to back.

Are they trying to burn off the episodes as quickly as possible? Or do they simply have nothing else to show?

Preferring to space out the episodes as in the good old days, I record a few. Now I can watch them separately at my leisure, like streaming, the way the Good Producer intended.

When I was in school, I observed classmates with their textbooks highlighting passages that they considered important to remember. In extreme cases, it seemed that entire pages were now tinted yellow. My reaction: if everything is key, nothing is.

Nowadays when I encounter an Internet sentence or paragraph that I find particularly amusing or insightful, I don't highlight it; I copy and paste it into a Word document. Over the past seven years I've saved five megabytes of text — a million wise words that I want to keep, but to which I never again refer.

Most folks speak in the manner shown on the left below, but some speak as on the right.

Pittsburgh-area natives tend to drop the “to be” from the first example. I don't know why, and either way works, but the second way sounds odd to me.

Other folks tend to add the “do” in the second example, as the British do. I don't know why, and either way works, but the second way sounds odd to me.

JUNE 4, 2025 OUR BELTWAYS

In the Pittsburgh suburbs, a section of a key road has been closed for a culvert-replacement project. It won't reopen until August. The recommended detour includes “Sewickley-Oakmont Road.”

Say what? There's a road between Sewickley and Oakmont? Those are two widely-separated towns! They're both in Allegheny County, but one is 13 miles northwest of Pittsburgh and the other is 13 miles northeast.

So I looked up “Sewickley-Oakmont Road” and discovered it's only one mile long. It shows up as a little green squiggle above. It can't possibly connect Sewickley to Oakmont.

Except once it did. Over time, sections of the route have been upgraded or renamed, and now all that remains of “S-OR” is this mile with fewer than 50 houses. It's part of the Green Belt.

As far as major highways around here are concerned, it seems to be that all roads lead to Pittsburgh. At rush hour, these “parkways” often are congested parking lots. Out in the plains of the Midwest, cities like Columbus and Indianapolis are circled by ring roads like Interstate 270 and Interstate 465, but Pittsburgh's hills don't lend themselves to many limited-access expressways. Making a trip from the northwest suburbs to the northeast, say, requires navigating a confusing sequence of mile-long local roads with lots of turns and intersections.

Therefore Joseph White, an engineer with the Allegheny County Department of Public Works, cobbled together a low-cost way to lead motorists around the city. He drafted some of those existing local roads to be elements of a system of belt routes, identified not by name or number but by color. The signs went up in 1951-52, and now you could drive from Sewickley to Oakmont on a portion of the Green Belt (flashing).

Most local motorists nowadays use GPS or know exactly where they're going, and I'm not sure how many follow the belts. However, I have done so on occasion, and the Department of Public Works still maintains the signs.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you,
and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Rejoice and celebrate, because great is your reward in heaven!