Perhaps you’ve heard Democrats are saving democracy.

If not, better check your hearing and/or pulse. The Dems scream this anytime they get in front of a microphone. It is they, and only they, who can keep our form of government alive. Just vote early and often for them. Don’t rely on the usual vote enhancement to get the Dems through.

And how are the Democrats attempting to save democracy? Let us count the ways.

They are saving democracy by trying to put the top Republican challenger to Clueless Joe Biden in jail. This pursuit of Donald Trump began while he was in office and included the justice department and various agencies such as the FBI, suspending the rule of law toward that end.

They are saving democracy by declaring incumbent nincompoop Biden unchallengeable in primaries or debates and, if word today is to be believed, by forcing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into a third-party run for president.

They are saving democracy by denying RFK Jr. secret service protection. Assassination anyone? Or maybe they’ll save democracy by fabricating charges that eliminate him from the election field.

They are saving democracy by having New Jersey senator Bob Menendez facing trial yet again on charges of influence peddling. It is reported that the senator’s wife was unemployed until meeting him, but since then business has been beating a path to the door of her international consulting business. Tales of alleged gold bars and allegations of money stuffed in clothes, a luxury car, make for the most salacious reading this side of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

They are saving democracy by making sure the “Big Guy” gets his cut from selling the brand.

They are saving democracy by making sure Zelenskyy gets his.

They are saving democracy by getting one final Senate vote out of Dianne Feinstein before she died, exiting life in a confused mental state similar to Biden’s.

They are saving democracy by insuring our southern border is no more than a free-spinning turnstile.

They are saving democracy by turning Democrat-controlled cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York City, Detroit, etc., etc., etc., into hell holes.

They are saving democracy by setting in motion plans to gin up another COVID-like “crisis,” locking down the nation, and guaranteeing those mail-in ballots fall like rain from the sky.

They are saving democracy by making sure criminals who are caught and/or convicted experience only minor inconvenience with bail or jail before being released back onto the streets to commit further misdeeds.

They are saving democracy by spending every waking moment trying to prop up, both figuratively and literally, the stumbling cadaver known as Joe Biden.

Please do us a favor, Democrats, stop trying to save your form of democracy.

News that the Steelers’ charter flight had an unscheduled stop in Kansas City early Monday morning, on the way home from Las Vegas, brought back memories of my days traveling with the team.

That was during my time covering the Steelers as a sports writer for the Tribune-Democrat, which was most of the 1980s. It was common back then for many media members, ranging from the big names of Pittsburgh television, to writers from podunk newspapers like Johnstown, to fly on the team charters.

Going on the charter flight with the players was convenient. You got on the plane at Pittsburgh’s airport, landed at the destination, and buses were waiting on the tarmac to whisk you to the team hotel.

After games, buses took you from the stadium to the airport, again often directly onto the tarmac. Remember, this was pre 9/11. Airport security was, shall we say, flexible.

I remember the players getting together small pots of money to tip the drivers, encouraging them to outrace the competition to the steps descending from the rear of the Boeing 727s the team often used. Think of skyjacker D.B. Cooper and his parachute jump from the rear stairway.

The reason for this haste was the team usually used four buses and there were no assigned seats on the planes, other than first class being for coaches and ownership. Getting to the steps quickly meant freedom to pick your favorite seat location. The media always sat at the rear.

Sometimes the flights didn’t go as smoothly as planned, with a notable example being the 1984 return trip from San Francisco. This one flight gave me new appreciation for what players can face.

The game itself was dramatic, with the Steelers coming from behind to hand the Joe Montana-led 49ers what would be their only loss in a Super Bowl championship season.

It was the final career game for veteran Steelers offensive tackle Larry Brown and rookie tight end Chris Kolodziejski, both of whom suffered catastrophic knee injuries.

Their injuries tempered the elation of the win. It got worse when weather conditions in the east forced the team’s flight to land in Cleveland. Buses had been lined up to make the drive to the Pittsburgh airport, where everyone’s cars were parked.

But the Buffalo Bills faced similar weather problems on their return flight, also landed in Cleveland, ahead of the Steelers, and commandeered the buses.

Eventually, more buses were procured. I was on the bus that held both Brown and Kolodziejski, each sitting up front to give them room to stretch their injured legs. As the bus went over a seemingly never-ending supply of train tracks leaving the airport, both moaned in pain, eliciting painkilling injections from the team doctor.

Imagine blowing out a knee and then having to endure a transcontinental flight back home, with a bonus layover in Cleveland and bus ride to the Pittsburgh airport.

There were many other notable flights, including the 1981 Seattle trip. The Steelers lost to the Seahawks, then emerged from the Kingdome to find a pea soup fog. The return trip was postponed and the team and media were checked back into the hotel we thought we’d exited for good hours earlier.

The next day dawned with more fog and a bit of news – backup quarterback Cliff Stoudt, who had become famous for qualifying for a pension without ever playing in a regular season game, had gone out on game night and broken his right arm attempting to smack a bar room punching bag arcade game.

Traditionally, media rode in the fourth team bus and head coach Chuck Noll sat in the front of the first bus. Stoudt, wanting to avoid Noll, attempted to slip onto the fourth bus where he found – glaring at him from the first row of seats, one Charles Henry Noll.

The plane eventually took off with the airport still closed. Word was the Steelers said they’d pay the fine Pan Am got for this breach of procedure.

And then there was a return trip from San Diego, when the plane was rushing down the runway to take off and suddenly slammed on the brakes, returning to the terminal area. A flight attendant told us there had a been a warning light possibly suggesting an engine problem.

Because the city of San Diego had expanded to encompass the airport, there was a curfew for takeoffs due to noise. That curfew was near as technicians on a cherry picker used flashlights to examine the engines.

Quipped broadcaster Myron Cope: “They’re out there running a two-minute drill with my life and I don’t like it.”

Eventually, the plane was cleared to take off, the Steelers supposedly agreed to pay the fine, and the team successfully winged back to Pittsburgh.

There are other memorable flights, like a return from Cincinnati and attempting to land in brutal wind, causing the plane to pitch and yaw wildly. Linebacker Jack Lambert, a notorious white knuckle airline passenger, was moved to scream to a closeby passenger to shut up during a hairy moment.

Once, coming back from Buffalo, the team plane circled aimlessly, somewhere around New Castle we estimated, so that the players would have time to eat their meals on this short flight.

And then there was a flight to Seattle that took about seven hours due to intense headwinds necessitating a refueling stop in Milwaukee.

But all these flights, like this week’s example, ended safely. To quote Shakespeare, all’s well that ends well.

Dahlia Street is trailer-free as of Thursday afternoon, but what are we to make of this turn of events?

Perhaps the trailer fairies mentioned in a previous post returned and completed their task, removing the last eyesore trailer and leaving this street pristine for the first time in more than a year, save for the one derelict car that remains.

The urge is to indulge in a George W. Bush “Mission Accomplished” post. But that would be as premature as that previous example proved to be.

It is safe to presume that the trailer people even now are busily hatching their next attempt to irritate any and all who refuse them their divine right, that being to claim public property as their own.

But, for now, the absence of the trailers begs one overriding question: Where did they go?

The trailer spokespeople long had maintained there was no option. It had been insisted that these trailers, which multiplied over time (blessedly, not as quickly as rabbits or feral cats do), were plunked on the street because there was no other place to put them. This being offending and irritating to neighbors, which they were in spades, was but happy coincidence.

We recall some physics classes noting that matter is neither created, nor destroyed. So these trailers must be somewhere.

Could they now be employed to irritate law-biding citizens elsewhere? Let us hope not; or at least let us hope those aggrieved citizens have more proactive police and local representation than we in Southmont do.

More logical inquiries to the current state of Dahlia Street include will the trailers return in the future, like swallows to San Juan Capistrano, or buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio?

And what of the trailers’ ownership? Who exactly held title to said trailers and were they, as long had been claimed, all legally registered despite being from farflung locales such as California?

Just thinking out loud here, but it could be the true owners, facing fines and the like, tired of backing the petty protest and bowed to cost pressure. Think of it as a reverse of the old bromide about following the money.

There also is an element of a multi-front war, the sort of thing that has gotten others in overreach jeopardy throughout history.

‘Tis hard to concentrate on minding the trailers when there are social media jousts to be conducted and harassment to be dispensed elsewhere.

For now, it will need to be enough that the law and authority won yet again. But do not presume this will be the end of the quest to continue with the general offending of the populace.

For anyone checking to see if I am aware of recent neighborhood developments – and there seem to have been a few stopping by the blog already for that purpose – I know what’s happening.

I just choose not to write about it at this time; starving an attention whore and all that.

However, while you wait, some suggested listening: “I Fought The Law” (Bobby Fuller Four version) and “Authority Song” (John Mellencamp version).

As you were.

I tried to watch the Ohio State-Notre Dame college football game Saturday night on NBC – emphasis on tried.

This was because the guy doing play-by-play, who looked like he might not yet have a driver’s license, kept getting the details wrong.

A player gains 3-4 yards and this announcer says he hits a stone wall. Since this was a goal-line offense situation, the gain was noteworthy, not hitting a stonewall. And so it went, with the announcer being loose with his calls and my wife telling me to stop yelling at the television.

She was right and I audibled (clever football pun intended) to watching back-to-back John Wick movies on another outlet. I never did get back to the game.

But, in a case of making lemonade out of lemons, the struggling guy on the broadcast got me thinking about the late, great Carroll “Beano” Cook, and one of the quotes from him that you don’t necessarily find in online compilations.

The story goes that Cook, as Pitt’s sports information director, was at Army for a game vs. the Black Knights of the Hudson. The press box announcer kept botching his calls, awarding too many, or too few yards on any given play.

Eventually, Cook felt the need to critique the man, to which the announcer replied with the equivalent of, What difference does it make?

Shot back Cook: You must have been in charge of the body count in Vietnam.

For the younger audience, one of our failings during the Vietnam experience was exaggeration of the number of enemy killed. This sort of dagger quip was vintage Beano. No one really called him Carroll during his adult life.

It was Beano who famously quipped, after our hostages had been freed from Iran and then-MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn had gifted them with lifetime baseball passes, “Haven’t they suffered enough?”

Beano was something less than a fan of baseball.

I had the great fortune to spend many hours with Beano when I worked as a sports columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Beano often showed up before Steelers or Penguins games to mix with the media members in the press lounges.

Beano would hold court and I made it a point to get to his table early and leave late. Beano would depart eventually, often before the games had begun.

I can still hear his gruff voice explaining to me, “Sam, this is what it’s all about. I can stay home and watch the games on TV, but you can’t get this at home.”

Cook had gone from that Pitt SID job to a variety of posts with Pittsburgh sports operations, national networks and, eventually ESPN, which gave him his widest audience. Beano changed jobs often, but never changed his style.

By the time I met him, Beano mostly was a free-agent raconteur.

There never will be another one like him in sports media, partly because he was politically incorrect. Beano saw nothing wrong with admiring a woman’s beauty. Beano was blunt, a trait common to a man of his generation. But, he was not crass.

Beano also would not toe the corporate party line. He would be very saddened by what has happened to college football, with traditional conferences splitting in geographically illogical ways, the transfer portal becoming a full-blown free agency system for players, and various other ongoing bastardizations of the traditions that Beano revered.

We are coming up on the 11^th anniversary of Beano’s passing at age 81, on Oct. 11, 2012. That would be 10-11-12.

Somewhere, I suspect Beano still gets a chuckle over his parting numerical flourish.

Let us talk about control. Individuals, elites, businesses, governmental agencies and governments themselves all like to feel that they are in control.

Sometimes they are. Often, eventually, they are not.

It was both fitting at the time – the mid-1960s – and prescient anticipating our present day circumstances, that the spy spoof TV series “Get Smart” had the hero agent working for CONTROL. It was a fictional counterintelligence agency that seldom, either with agent Maxwell Smart, or in total, was in control of the situations. It was ironically funny.

Loss of control these days shows in various ways, from the individual shuffling after his truck being taken away on a flatbed, pleading for a halt in a true Shane! Come back! moment, to headlines that greet us daily.

The elites of our Federal Reserve Board of Governors believe they are in control of the bond market with their machinations. The runaway rise in interest yields Wednesday and Thursday, despite the Fed types holding their fed funds rate constant in a Wednesday afternoon announcement, says otherwise.

People who earn their living specializing in following bonds are amazed at the volatility in what used to be a sedate, measured investment arena.

This inability to control the rise of interest rates is coming from the same people who thought just over a year back that they could control inflation. “Transitory” they called it then. The huge rise last year in prices and the continuation in 2023, albeit at a milder level, speaks to anything but control.

Our war hawks think they can control the situation in Ukraine, as they feed hush money to Zelenskyy. But NATO allies are growing tired and our coffers are growing low on reserves, leaving the Napoleonic Zelenskyy (a height and ambition reference) shaking a begging bowl short on fresh alms.

Someday, in the not-too-distant future, these hawks might awaken to a reality that control of our proxy has been lost and the Russians have been dealt provocation sufficient to unleash nuclear weapons.

Those in positions of power in left-wing cities think they are in control of their fates. They believe they can pander to illegal immigrants with promises of being sanctuary cities, but recoil in horror when those illegals take them up on their offer and they find their city resources unable, or unwilling, to meet the challenge.

Our government and many families think they can spend well beyond their means indefinitely, without consequence, either by running ever-increasing budget deficits, or by maxing out credit cards.

The government declares “crises” in order to divert attention and maintain control. Pandemics are created or imagined. Social media, with its typically leftist ownership and staffing, is utilized to censor dissent.

Lapdog news media outlets are co-opted to maintain the official narrative, no matter how it might conflict with the facts.

But what happens when the desired control is lost, both economically and politically?

Those fluent in Johnstown history can appreciate the metaphor of strained dams finally succumbing to the inevitable, with devastation to follow.

When control is lost, when the dams burst, damage is immediate and indiscriminate.

Likely those who would seek to control already are aware of that eventuality. You would do well to consider it, too.

The trailer fairies seem to have visited Dahlia Street very early Wednesday, before most were up and about.

It would seem these imps absconded with a trailer, one of many formerly moored on the street as an in-your-face protest of those who would depend on the rule of law being enforced, not to mention believing generally in good citizenship.

As a grandfather to three young girls, and being married to a woman who has “fairy gardens” of various figurines displayed during the good weather months for the girls’ amusement, not to mention entertaining them on sleepover nights with fairy stories, I am well-acquainted with the fairy world.

True, there are bad fairies. But mostly, there are good fairies, who seek to do helpful things for others. This is why I suspect fairies in the removal of the eyesore trailer. They helped a lot of people with their pixieish act.

It almost made me eager for another nightfall, that the fairies might do more good.

Imagine my surprise when, during the course of returning from a combination prescription pickup and pleasure drive, I saw strange activity on Dahlia Street Wednesday evening.

It was maybe 7:10 p.m. I’d been downtown and had heard firsthand the City Hall clock striking 7, then had come almost directly home.

It was a period of dusk, which the dictionary defines as the darker stage of twilight. Speaking of twilight, this was stuff fit for the classic Twilight Zone television series.

There was a figure evident in the gloaming, looking more like the bridge troll from the fable of Three Billy Goats Gruff. Said personage was fiddling with . . . a trailer . . . appearing to lash it to the back end of a tow vehicle.

I’d happened onto the equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting and, in the excitement of the moment, didn’t think to pull out my smart phone to snap a quick photo as evidence. I guess you will just have to take my word for it.

As I slowly continued along the street, the figure got into the tow vehicle and drove off. I followed cautiously to the end of the block and made a right turn to head to my garage.

Imagine this! The tow vehicle and trailer turned into the alley ahead of me.

Now the Mustang I was driving seemed to hesitate for a moment. Perhaps the machine was recalling the trauma of recently almost having been backed into on the very same alley, by a similar looking vehicle.

But the troll/fairy/elf/imp/sprite at the wheel of the tow vehicle continued driving with his freshly claimed trailer.

Me? I stabled the Mustang and went inside to share – with appropriate excitement — what I had seen.

And I can’t wait to see what visions Thursday will provide.

Last week, Answer Man tried to talk Steelers fans down off the bridges in the wake of the one-sided thumping by the San Francisco 49ers.

A week later, things look a little brighter and Answer Man is feeling the flush of accurate prognostication.

The original thought was based in part on the reality that the Steelers are the NFL’s Rasputin. You need to shoot them, poison them, drown them and hang them before they are vanquished. Also, the Steelers still could and should win 9 or 10 games due to the pathetically easy schedule, coupled with the fact that the division rivals can’t seem to sweep the Steelers.

If you watched Cleveland choke Monday night, and lose star running back Nick Chubb for the season in the process, you got a little preview of how AFC North opposition seems to tremble at the mere sight of the three hypocycloids (stylized red, blue and gold stars) in the Steelers’ logo.

Already Cincinnati is 0-2, with star quarterback Joe Burrow limping due to a lingering calf injury.

Baltimore is 2-0, but the Ravens still have the wildly inconsistent Lamar Jackson at quarterback. Even as the announcers were praising Jackson during a Sunday telecast, he made one of his characteristic poor reads on a passing play, narrowly avoiding an interception.

Then, an apparent strip sack of Jackson and subsequent Cincinnati recovery was wiped out by a questionable penalty against the Bengals

Shifting narratives on a dime, the telecast then showed a montage of Jackson fumbles from the previous week.

Jackson will make mistakes at critical junctures. Count on it.

Yes, the Steelers can’t expect to score two defensive touchdowns a game, as they did vs. Cleveland. And there will come a time when Kenny Pickett won’t be able to count on the opposing quarterback out-stinking him.

But the Steelers also have what should be easy wins vs. the Las Vegas Raiders and Houston Texans coming up, so they should be 3-1 heading into an Oct. 8 home game vs. Baltimore.

Now Answer Man reaches into his metaphorical mailbag, the one he stuffs with questions of his own making.

Q: What did you think of former Yankees star pitcher David Wells showing up for an oldtimers day event, taping over the Nike logo on the jersey and generally blasting the Woke movement that has invaded sports? Sign me, Auntie Antifa from Bitter End, Tennessee.

A: Auntie (Anti?), it did my heart proud to read what Wells did, then to see him double down on it all during a Tuesday morning appearance on a cable television business show. I just wish he had more current athletes standing up to the politicization of sports.

Q: Are you buying more optimistic talk from the Pirates’ front office about the future? Sign me, I.M. Doubtful from Nothing, Arizona.

A: Hey, Doubtful, it’s been wait until next year almost annually since I was a young man. This year the slogan seems to be at least we’re not as bad as Oakland and Kansas City. The Pirates could be better next year, but you seldom go wrong betting on the organization to find a way to screw up things.

Q: When are big-time college sports going to cut the student-athlete crap and admit to being the semi-pro operations that they are? Sign me, Nomar Hypocrisy from Embarrass, Wisconsin.

A: Nomar, if someone can keep a straight face regarding the Colorado football program, with 86 new players on its roster this year, then there is no hope for truthful discussion. This sort of thing, and the free-agency of the transfer portal, has turned college football into an outright NFL minor league. College men’s basketball is no better, being largely an NBA farm system. Don’t forget these “amateur” student-athletes making money from merchandising their names, images and likenesses. Sure, those performing in most women’s sports, as well as men’s minor sports such as fencing and wrestling, tend to be traditional student-athletes. But as far as the high-profile college sports, to quote from the Great Biden, “Come on, man!”

The debate raged during my youth whether you starved a cold and fed a fever, or the other way around.

In reality, it is best to supply ample nutrition and hydration for both ailments.

When it comes to curing an attention whore, there is no debate. Just starve him or her. That is, deny them the attention they so desperately crave to make palatable their otherwise shallow existence.

Along that line, I went to the Monday meeting of Southmont Borough Council looking to blend into the background. No sense giving any added attention to those craving same. I would not avail myself of the five-minute window council provides to interested spectators to make a statement on items under consideration.

But, after watching the customary blend of profane bullying alternating with playing the victim card, I felt compelled to join into the discourse. Borrowing a page from the usual antagonists, and with the customary pre-meeting signup sheet seemingly having been dispensed with, I maneuvered myself into the final speaking slot.

I highlighted outright conflicts in what I had heard by some earlier speakers, dispensed a personal experience or two, and sat down.

Back home, in the calm of night with others asleep, it’s time to embark on dishing out the starvation diet. The blog entry will attempt to avoid totally providing specific attention to the addicts.

Blog metrics reveal quite a few checks of the home page already in recent hours, without actually viewing a post. Perhaps anticipating this offering as an attention snack?

Sorry. No soup for you.

The meeting began with a rare moment of agreement as all seemed to participate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

This was a curious meeting, with some members phoning in, and being delayed in voting because of the communications lag, or commenting late, thereby providing some light diversion.

There was a lot of back and forth on semantics regarding an ordinance, such as what exactly is a large truck.

In a bit of unintentional amusement, there was an attempt by antagonists to portray themselves as people of peace and love.

Mostly, the big news was the passing of an ordinance designed to quell parking abuse as a sort of vendetta for some lost court cases regarding claims to ownership of a paper alley.

Whether or not this will resolve the issue and return the neighborhood to a more tranquil existence remains to be seen.

What is clear is that residents aggrieved by outrageous actions went through the system to address their concerns and perhaps received some redress.

The borough solicitor, after the official meeting had ended, advised those in attendance to do something similar in urging our district attorney to take an interest in addressing ongoing disruptions of the meetings in a bastardization of free speech.

I wrote my email to the DA before compiling this post. Hopefully, he will follow the path of Southmont Council and get on the right page, eventually.

To have lived decades in Greater Johnstown is to have experienced the steady drip of losses year after year after year.

In no particular order, during my lifetime I’ve seen us lose our steelmaking industry, a host of supporting companies, most of our underground coal mining, our low crime rate, a large amount of our population, many of our formerly desirable residential areas, downtown department stores, hilltop malls, local ownership of media outlets, functioning infrastructure and even success at the once-proud Johnstown High School football program.

Of late, we’ve gotten word of another impending loss, that being the Thunder in the Valley motorcycle event that likely won’t be back next summer. I’ve written of this before, but felt compelled to write again because the local newspaper was out with yet another tale regarding Thunder in its most recent weekend edition.

Curiously, the story led with the assertion that putting a “precise” economic value on what losing the event would cost “is not possible.” I’ve been saying that for years, but from the standpoint that the impact is overestimated in keeping with promoting the all-tourism-all-the-time mantra we hear constantly being pitched as our economic salvation.

The thing that stuck out in my mind is that I seem to recall vividly the $20 million number being offered a lot in regard to Thunder.

As an aside, I pride myself on my memory, although a flood of TV advertising suggests someone my age (68) needs chemical aid to recall what they had for yesterday’s dinner.

In a self-performed memory test, just last week I called a former Tribune-Democrat colleague, Mike Mastovich, who is the hockey history guru of Johnstown.

I was recalling the days when we had a very good minor league team, the Jets, and they played a Czech national team. I wanted Mike to confirm my recollection that it was in the late 1960s, possibly 1968, and the Czechs had won, 8-4. He checked this in one of his books. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo.

Further research by me revealed that earlier in 1968 the Czechs had won silver medals at the Winter Olympics, behind the Soviet Union team and ahead of the Canadian team.

The Jets eventually became another another Johnstown loss decades back, to be replaced by the Chiefs and now the current Tomahawks, who will end up leaving some day, too.

Back to Thunder: A quick internet search confirmed my $20 million recollections to be accurate.

I found entries on the WJAC-TV web site for 6/27/17 ($20 million) and for 6/28/21 ($20 million).

There also was a 5/23/20 posting on the Tribune-Democrat’s web site, under the byline of the very same guy who wrote the Saturday 9/16/23 piece. That 2020 story, lamenting the COVID forced cancellation of Thunder, cited an “estimated $15 million to $20 million annually” pumped into the region by the event.

There was no citation for the source of this estimate. But I’m wondering how just a few years later the best the story could do was an estimate of “millions of dollars” with the disclaimer that exact numbers are impossible to determine?

Why not recycle the oft-used $20 million estimate?

Allow me to leave you with a story, perhaps apocryphal, that I’ve seen attributed to the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

As the story goes, Churchill inquired of a woman at a dinner whether she would sleep with him for a million pounds (back when British pounds were worth much more than U.S. dollars). She would.

Churchill was then said to have asked, “What about five pounds?” to which the indignant woman replied words to the effect of, What sort of woman do you think I am?

Replied Churchill: We’ve already established that. We’re just haggling about price.