Obama in Western PA cont.

Obama continued east to Latrobe, where he visited a sports bar. I didn't recognize the name--may be a new one, or one that's changed its name. The bars I knew in that area were ones that Steelers frequented when they were in training camp at St. Vincent's College in late summer. I hoisted a few with Jack Lambert once. One of my sisters lives just outside Latrobe now, and my brother-in-law has been known to drop into a bar there. He coulda been there! One of my nieces teaches grade school in Latrobe. She coulda been there! Although probably they were both working.


These photos remind me of something somebody observed recently--
maybe Marc Armbinder at the Atlantic--that on the campaign trail,
Obama is having fun, and Hillary really is not. And even though Obama
looks serious in that photo, he is holding a Slinky. It's a tour of a Johnstown specialty steel plant that makes various wire products, including the Slinky. Apparently when they gave one to Obama he carried it with him and played with it for the rest of the tour.

Then another town hall meeting in Johnstown. It was one of the first place names I learned, because one of our two and then three television channels was WJAC Johnstown, "serving millions from atop the Alleghenies."

I've only been there a couple of times, though I've driven through a few more. Way back in the 30s, when the Bonus Army of World War I vets was driven out of Washington where they were encamped to try to get some of the money the government had promised them, some of them reorganized in the only town that would host them, and that was Johnstown, PA.