The Chairs of Canonsburg

From the time I moved there in 1988, I could tell that Canonsburg was a small town with a big personality.  Kind of a microcosm of old ethnic Southwestern Pennsylvania, it is a town proud of its traditions, cultural origins, and residents. It is a little town that thinks it can, and so it does.

Perry Como, Bobby Vinton and the Four Coins were all Canonsburg natives, a fact that the town has never forgotten and continues to celebrate.  You can’t forget it either when you drive through the town on  Perry Como Avenue, Bobby Vinton Boulevard, or Four Coins Drive.  In 1999, they erected a statue of Como in the middle of town, and now they are working on opening the Pop Music Hall of Fame in town because, well, why shouldn’t they, with that kind of musical legacy?

While it doesn’t exactly ruin my day when I have to fill my car with gas, I often yearn for a simpler, more civilized time so I very much appreciated Russo’s Sunoco Station in Canonsburg.  This full service gas station has competitive prices and helpful, friendly employees, many of whom I knew by name.

I really do have some sort of inexplicable aversion to visiting a mega-size supermarket to just pick up a carton of milk, so I was a big fan and regular customer of The Tiny Store, so named because it is a really small grocery store.  Of course.  Can you think of a better name?  

No discussion of Canonsburg’s unique character would be complete without a shout out to Sarris Candies.  Not only does it produce some of the best chocolate candy you would ever have the privilege of having melt in your mouth, the Sarris family are just plain "good people" who are particularly generous in their support of local non-profits.

The Sarris family was the epitome of grace under fire (pun fully intended) when their old fashioned ice cream parlor actually caught on fire earlier several months ago.  With a “thank God no one was hurt” they set about repairing the parlor, cleaning up and replacing the store’s inventory and recreating their famed Chocolate Castle.  They continued to produce and sell their candy during the period when the store was closed, and at their Grand Reopening a few months later, the family presented the Canonsburg Volunteer Fire Department with a generous check as a thanks for all their help.

The Canonsburg townspeople are also practically giddy with self-satisfaction over their Fourth of July Parade, the second largest in the state.  It really is an absolute extravaganza and the definitive parade, if you like that sort of thing.

It is also the hottest ticket in town.  The first July I lived in Canonsburg, I observed a strange phenomenon. Lawn chairs started appearing along the main thoroughfare in town a day or two before the Fourth of July Parade.  It turns out that people were saving their seats along the parade route in advance.  I thought that this was a little extreme, but it was a tradition the Canonsburg people held dear.  Over the years I lived there the chairs were placed out earlier and earlier, sometimes up to week ahead of time.   I thought things had gotten out of hand, but clearly I was just an outsider who didn’t understand the native ways for the 15-year period that I lived in Canonsburg-Land.

This year, though, people started putting out their chairs as early as June 22^nd, and some folks were also using yellow police tape and chains and ropes to hold their groups of chairs together.  It had become a nuisance and an occasional danger, with chairs being blown  into the streets and such. The town officials had had enough (it was about time, people).  They proposed an ordinance prohibiting the placement of chairs before 6 a.m. on the day of the parade.

Well, the townspeople didn't take this infringement of their time-honored practice sitting down.  There was an outpouring of angst-ridden outrage at this idea, which even an ex-patriot outsider like I knew was not going to fly.  6 a.m. the day of the parade?  What kind of traffic jams and possible rioting in the streets would that cause?  Why, you might as well just bring your lawn chair with you to the parade and not be able to save a spot at all, like, oh I don't know, people in other towns.
 

In response to  public pressure, the town council (in a split decision) voted that residents would be able to place their chairs (and only their chairs) out no sooner than 48 hours before the parade. (http://www.observer-reporter.com/or/story11/10-09-canonsburg-chairs).

Now that was a nice compromise, I thought, and more than fair.  Canonsburg gets to be Canonsburg, within reason.