Fall 2004 ************* CDR R. A. Stoehr, Editor ******** E-mail:  rastoehr@pitt.edu ****** ROA SEASVR 50:04-3

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Our regular meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month from September through May, except for December when we meet on the Tuesday closest to the 7^th. These are "after work" meetings. We begin to gather for sea stories at 1700 (5:00 p.m.). The business meeting starts at 1730 and we try to conclude by 1900. We have beer, soft drinks and snacks during the meeting. There is no dinner, but sandwich service is available for those who want it. The whole thing is quite informal, but we always get our business done. All members are urged to attend and to join in planning our activities, including our interaction with other organizations such as the Navy League and the NROTC.

After trying the 911^th Club at the Air Force Reserve Station at Pittsburgh Airport, we have decided to return to the Teutonia Maennerchor on Pittsburgh’s North Side for our regular meetings. The key issue in this decision was location. The Air Force Club was just too far for our members that live and work in Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs. Teutonia is nearly equidistant for all of our members and yet it is not in the midst of downtown’s traffic and parking problems. Parking is free, right beside the club. They have great beer, good prices, and we have no trouble finding a quiet group of tables for our meeting.

Teutonia Maennerchor is located at the intersection of E. Ohio and Chestnut Streets, just across the 16^th Street Bridge from the Strip. It is a large building with Bavarian style crossbucking and the letters "TM" on the side. A sign at the corner says "Welcome to Deutschtown". The entrance to the club and parking lot are on Phineas Street, a block-long one-way street that parallels E. Ohio and that must be entered from Madison Ave. This is a private club, so when you enter use the bell at the inner door and tell them you are with the Navy group. If you have any questions or would like a map call our secretary Dave Erdodi.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Meeting

Each year our chapter sets aside the December meeting to Remember Pearl Harbor and to honor all who have lost their lives in the Naval Services throughout our history. We will hold this meeting on December 7^th which falls on a Tuesday this year. We especially want to have veterans of World War II attend this meeting. Bring along any of your friends or relatives who served in that conflict, whether they are members of ROA or not. Check out our web site for updates on our plans for this meeting.

Chapter 50 held its annual tailgate party prior to attending the Pirate ball game at PNC Park on June 15. The site under the bridge in gold lot 4 was proudly identified by the ROA red banner and Dave Erdodi’s red convertible. Unfortunately the Pirates were in the midst of a terrible slump. They lost 2-4 to the Anaheim Angels for their ninth consecutive loss and their 14^th loss in 15 games.

Chapter 50 members at the Pirate Game Tailgate Party

On July 20, we decided to try the other end of the pro baseball spectrum. We went to see the Washington (PA) Wild Things of the independent Frontier League. Prices were much lower at 3000-seat Falconi Field and the atmosphere was shear fun. The Wild Things beat the Kalamazoo Kings 9-0.

Conversation overheard after the Wild Things game:
    "Those guys played great."
    "They really hustle."
    "It’s a lot like baseball used to be."
    "Isn’t it amazing how hard a guy can play when he isn’t getting $2.5M for hitting 0.183?"

We have a tradition in our chapter that we call "The Sword Fund". Each year, our chapter has been sending two Midshipmen to ROA’s Mid-Winter Meeting at Washington, DC and awarding an officer’s sword to the outstanding graduate of the NROTC program at our local universities. Last year we shared the expenses for Mid-Winter with the Department of Pennsylvania and went together with the Pittsburgh Council of the Navy League to provide the sword. Nevertheless, our share of these expenses totaled more than $500. Our dues rebate from National can not cover this, and we rely on the generous support of our members. We need your support again this year. If you have not participated in The Sword Fund in the past, your contribution in any amount will be greatly appreciated. Please send your tax deductible financial contribution to:
    Capt. Richard Croll USNR (Ret)
    1036 Betty Rae Drive
    Pittsburgh, PA 15236-3739

Chapter 50, in cooperation with the Pittsburgh Council of the Navy League, provided an outing and picnic lunch for patients at the VA long term care facility at Aspinwall on Saturday, 11 September. LCDR Dave Erdodi reports that there were 15 volunteers who helped with escorting the patients to the picnic area and serving the food. They served about 170 hot dogs to 135 patients. The patients were extremely pleased with the food, prizes, and companionship. This is an annual event. It is our opportunity to bring some pleasure into the lives of our fellow veterans whose health has failed. We hope to have even more of our members participate next year.

VA Hospital Partients Enjoy Picnic Served by ROA and NL

CAPT Karen Trueblood, USNR, was honored by her hometown of Whitehall, PA, as Citizen of the Year. She was commissioned as an Ensign in the Navy Nurse Corps in 1977 and has filled a series of important billets ever since. In the fall of 2001, she assumed command of the U. S. Marines 4^th Medical Battalion and its 734 medical personnel, the first female and first nurse to command such a unit. In April 2003 she was deployed with her unit to Camp Coyote, Kuwait. She remained there until September 2003. In August 2004, when Whitehall honored her during its Community Day, Karen was in Alaska with a Marine Reserve Unit building a road on a remote island. In civilian life she works full-time in constituent services in the district office of state Representative John Maher and part-time in the Mercy Hospital neo-natal care unit. She is married to Michael Trueblood, also a reservist with the PA Air National Guard. They have four children.

As reported in the fall issue of Minuteman, our department Pesident, LTC Vincetta Tsouris, USAFR, has been mobilized and deployed overseas in the war on terror. LTC Denise Gross, USAR, our senior vice president/president elect has taken over as acting president for the interim.

It will be the Naval Services turn to provide the senior vice president/president elect for the ROA Department of Pennsylvania at the state convention next April. Let us be sure that we have identified the person we want to nominate well in advance of this event and they are willing to serve.

The Department of Pennsylvania Annual Convention will be held on Saturday, 23 April 2005, at Boiling Spring, PA, hosted by PA Chapter 11.

At a chapter meeting last spring we passed a resolution to publish Straight Gouge three times per year instead of four. The issues will be called Winter (due out in January), Spring-Summer (due out in May) and Fall (due out in September). Our activities for the year usually fall into this pattern, sort of like an academic calendar. We also found that even four issues a year did not provide a vehicle for prompt notification of group activities such as baseball games, picnics, and holiday gatherings. Our secretary, Dave Erdodi, has made a practice of notifying members who might be interested in such events by e-mail, phone, or notes in the mail. We want to formalize this into a Chapter 50 Priority Notification List so that we do not miss anyone who might be interested. Just send your name and e-mail address to Dave at derdodi@yahoo.com. If you do not do e-mail, send Dave a note with your address and phone number. His address can be found at the bottom of page 1. That way you can be sure to receive information on all Chapter 50 activities in a timely way.

Check out our Chapter 50 Web Site

Do you know that Chapter 50 has its own web site? The easiest way to find it is to go the Dept. of Pennsylvania site at www.roa.org/pa/. And then follow to links to "Dept. of PA Chapter Web Sites" and then to the "Chapter 50 Web Site". By the way, our Department of PA web site received the prestigious BGEN David Sarnoff Award for web site excellence at last summer’s national convention.

You can blame me for the fact that this issue of Straight Gouge is coming out so late. I am trying to get my commitments organized so that I will have the time available for the newly agreed to publication dates of January, May, and September. I promise that the January issue will come out on time. So, send me any news you have, especially about activities of our members, before the New Year. We need your contributions to make this newsletter more interesting.

STRAIGHT GOUGE AVAILABLE ON-LINE on the Chapter 50 Web Page at www.pitt.edu/~rastoehr/roa-pa/ch50home.htm

Chapter 50 members:  You can receive STRAIGHT GOUGE quicker and with added features such as color photos here on our web page. You will also find updates of Chapter activities between SG publication dates. The newsletter is posted there as a web document for viewing on your favorite browser, or you can print it from the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file. If you would be satisfied to receive future issues of SG electronically, e-mail Bob Stoehr at rastoehr@pitt.edu, and he will remove you from the "snail-mail" list. He will notify you by e-mail when each issue of STRAIGHT GOUGE is posted on the web page. This will save the Chapter considerable printing and mailing expense.

E-MAIL Addresses requested Our secretary, LCDR Dave Erdodi, has requested that members send him their up-to-date E-mail address. Please send them to him at derdodi@yahoo.com

Reports of Changes of Address, Rank, or Status should be made to ROA National Headquarters, Membership Dept., One Constitution Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5655. The mailing labels for Straight Gouge are prepared from a listing received electronically from ROA HQ just before each issue goes out. Although we try to make changes that are reported directly to us, if these changes are not reported to ROA HQ, they revert back to the old information each time we download the listing. Please help us keep everything synchronized by reporting all changes to ROA HQ.

Check out the Chapter 50 Web page at www.pitt.edu/~rastoehr/roa-pa/ch50home.htm .

The Webmaster for Chapter 50 is CDR R. A. Stoehr, USNR (Ret.) E-mail: rastoehr@pitt.edu