Tuesday 27th October 2009 - So How Did "Glasgow" Get into It?

          As I was having breakfast, a middle-aged man (just to be clear, that's a lot younger than me) put a pen on my table, with a card attached to it, and walked on.  The card declared him to be deaf, and asked me to buy the pen.  Then he came back and took it away again, and left.

          I looked round anxiously for the cameras.  Had I passed or failed?  If the transaction was the obvious one, why did he not attempt to complete it?  Are aliens at this very moment pouring over the tapes to try to learn something about me?  Have they learned something about me?

          I refused to let it spoil my breakfast.

 

          Beaver has a Memorial Library.  It doesn't say who or what it commemorates.  But it has a local history section, and a suitably grown-up lady attaches herself to me to explain it.

          The first bit is now getting quite straightforward.  Warner's 1888 "History of Beaver County" tells me Glasgow was laid-out on October 22nd 1836.  The surveyor was Sanford C Hill (I think I've come across him before), and he did it for George Dawson, on George's land.  The first people to build there were Job Harvey, John Bunton (who built a store), and the rather more promising-sounding John McFall (who was still there in 1888).  The village petitioned for incorporation in June of 1853, and was granted its charter on 12th October 1854.  What is not yet apparent is any connection whatsoever with the word "Glasgow", either as a city, or as someone's name.

          I haven't yet figured if it still has a corporate existence, but it did have a one--room school up till 1956.  The school board then amalgamated with the boroughs next door, and the school became the municipal building, whatever that means.

          I do, however, seem, as usual, to have fallen on my feet.  My grown-up lady librarian tells me that the local genealogical/historical centre is at the Carnegie Library in, would you believe, Beaver Falls.

 

          Octoberfast later-that-nights have revealed to me a TV series where the heroine is a grown-up lady.  The producers have not quite had the courage to cast a fully grown-up actress, but it is still good enough to wean me off NCIS.

          As the nights draw in, baseball is vanishing from the screen.  There is only the world series to go.  Philadelphia (the Phillies) is playing New York (the Yankees).  I discovered to my surprise that the Yankees proper name, originally, was the Highlanders  I think they got called "Yankees" because they're from New York.

          To my surprise, the big sport on TV now is College football.  It's as though Sky Sports had decided that the big thing Brits wanted to see was University rugby.  What is even more surprising is the stadiums they play in.  Without exception, they seem to be better and bigger than any you see in the English Premiership, if you take away the top four or so.