What on earth is so interesting about Uniontown?

Uniontown, Pa.

I have never been to Uniontown, Pa.

In fact, other than driving through the area on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I don't recall ever being in southwestern Pennsylvania other than changing planes in Pittsburgh one time in 1984.

It's a small city a little less than an hour south of Pittsburgh and definitely part of what they call the Rust Belt. Some famous people were born there, most notably General George Marshall and mystery writer John Dickson Carr.


Actually, though, the greatest "birth" to occur in Uniontown wasn't a person at all. In 1967, McDonald's unveiled the Big Mac there.

You know it ...

"Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, on a sesame seed bun."

Big Mac

Editor's note: No one under 50 knows that jingle.

That's not my demographic.

Editor's note: Demographic? You could fit your entire demographic onto the short bus. In more ways than one.

Of course, McDonald's cheated the city out of some of its fame when it built the Big Mac Museum -- yes, there is a Big Mac Museum -- in the next county over.

So what is it that makes a city of about 10,000 people so fascinating to me?

One of my two closest friends in the world lives and works there, and thanks to the Internet, I can watch and listen as he does the midday news for radio station WMBS four days a week. The news may not be all that relevant to me -- it's just local and state news -- but seeing his face and hearing his voice is one of the more pleasant parts of my day.

My friend Bill

Bill and I have been friends since we met back when the world was young in a drama class at Northern Virginia Community College and we have been friends ever since.

We wrote songs together -- at least one or two of the lyrics I contributed weren't that bad -- and back in the '80s we actually wrote a novel together.

Unpublished, of course, although there's a good chance that will change this year.

Before I remarried in 1992, we used to talk on the phone two or three times a month. Back when network television still mattered, we used to buy the season preview issues of TV Guide and go show by show predicting whether new shows would succeed or fail.

He was better at it than I was.

I don't even know if TV Guide exists anymore.

But Bill does, and that matters a lot more to me.