BLAIRSVILLE--Anybody wanna buy an airport• Your big chance comes in three weeks, when the estate of Jim Shearer, a Blairsville developer, goes on the auction block, including a 2,000-foot runway, fully licensed and operational, complete with runway lights. Shearer was known as a sharp businessman who always had a project in the works. He developed his Shearwood Terrace, which sits off of Rt. 217 just north of Blairsville, into a complex of apartments, single family homes and industrial-use buildings. But infrastructure--which has hampered Indiana County's economy for generations, limited the extent of the construction. Water has been the big problem at Shearwood Terrace. The area includes a number of wells that came up empty, which prevented the expected development of more home sites--an irony, since Shearer made most of his money in gas-well drilling. The problem may have been that the since-closed Helen Mine undermined the area. (Shearer was also in poor health later in life, including losing a leg to diabetes, and that may have also hampered development of the area.) However, municipal water and sewage have come to the area, so it will be interesting to see how the auction draws. Included in the sale are three manufacturing/warehouse/office buildings, including one with 72,000 square feet; five apartment buildings with 32 units; 12 single family homes with three and four bedrooms, and six ranch homes; a 100-year-old farmhouse and barn; homesites overlooking the Conemaugh River; A total of 430 acres of land on level terrain-- and there isn't much level ground for development in all of western Pennsylvania--will be included in the sale. Shearer's own five-bedroom, 3,600 square foot house will also go on the auction block. (Only six of the homes are actually located in Shearwood Terrace.) Anyone who wants to view the properties or register as a pre-bidder must contact Harry Davis Real Estate at 412-521-1170. A color brochure of the properties is also available, or visit the real tor's web site at www.harrydavis.com . Money Down The Rat Hole? Now here's a bad idea waiting to happen--at the same time the state is wrestling with huge deficits and the probability of a big tax increase, Gov. Rendell is giving Johnstown $2 million to fix decrepit Point Stadium. The stadium, which has been your basic hole for the nearly 30 years since I first visited, is in such bad shape that Johnstown almost lost the annual AAABA amateur baseball tournament. Money for a new stadium, such as Altoona's beautiful field, I could understand, but the pitiful Point, with its rusting stands, sewage-leaking restrooms and total lack of parking• Proponents say it's historically important--Babe Ruth once played there. I say it looks like they haven't spent a dime on the place since. Just How Valuable Are They? Now let me get this straight--the parent company of American Airlines lost $5.3 billion over the last two years. American has been arm-twisting its employees for billions in wage and benefit concessions to avoid bankrupty. Then last week came word that the company adopted a plan to pay its top executives a bonanza, including a bonus of twice their salaries if they stay with the company through 2004. A company flack said the bonuses were "necessary to retain some very talented and important people." Go back and read the first sentence. Animal Lover Remembered Four Footed Friends received a nice donation from Jan Clawson in honor of Dr. Ray Bullard, "who, in his lifetime, gave many homeless animals a good home and much love." I remember Bullard, the Torrance State Hospital superintendent for about 20 years, keeping peacocks at his home on the hospital grounds...State Sen. Allen Kukovich visited the Grandview School after-school learning center Thursday with his seven year old daughter Alli; it was Take Your Child to Work Day. Working Her Way Up Beverly Rohrabaugh is in the spotlight of the Indiana County Head Start newsletter. And why not• She worked her way up from a preschool child when Head Start was founded as part of the Great Society programs of the mid-1960s to a 14 year employee of the program. She started as a janitor, became cook at the Homer City center, took health and computer classes and now, for the past four years, has been the center's health assistant. Centennial Lady In Derry Birthday best to Eliza Mae Shank of W. Third Ave., Derry, who celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday. A party is planned tomorrow at Trinity Lutheran Church, Derry. Mrs. Shank married Levi Shank in 1925; he died in 1976. They had nine children: Sherman, Kate Foltz, Gene, Medus and Betty White, all deceased; Mildred Shields, Shirley Bottenhorn and Dawn Bottenhorn, all of the Punxsutawney area, and Marilyn Wikert, with whom Mrs. Shank makes her home. Fat, And Getting Fatter The Supersizing of America--how we got to be the fattest people on earth--is detailed in a new book, Fat Land, with a big slice of criticism for everybody from the public school system to American farm policy. It is written by Greg Critser, a journalist who, like so many of us who spend our days at a computer, call himself overweight at 5-6, 175. Much of the problem, he says, is the burgeoning size of portions in restaurants. Take french fries--oops, I mean freedom fries. In 1960, a serving of McDonald's fries weighed in at a tolerable 320 calories. Today, a serving has ballooned to 610 calories. The reason• Marketing. McDonald's, says Critser, discovered that customers didn't want to look like gluttons and order two bags of fries. But make it one big bag, and hey, no problem. Mickey Dee's also is blamed for leading America like a Pied Piper away from the home dinner table to eating out every meal. Also cited under a long laundry list of problems: TV dinners (lousy food made palatable by the distraction of "Bonanza" on the tube; public schools that hired outside companies which made cafeteria lunches another fast food haven; the trend in clothes from dressing up to dressing down (when you're fat, stretchy clothes are a must); even the decline in personal responsibility self-criticism (it's not my eating that's the problem, I just have a gland problem.) So what's Critser's solution to this spreading problem, where 25 percent of all Americans under 19 are overweight• Ban sugary drinks from school, for one. (Fat chance.) Create safer neighborhoods where kids can play in parks and playgrounds without fear. And above all, go back to eating at the dinner table. "It's where a family works out its own code of morality and where they pick up values about food. If children don't get that at the table, they will try to get that elsewhere." Quote Of The Week The quote of the week comes from TV comedian Leno, commenting on the sack of Baghdad: "Nobody's seen this much looting since the Clintons left the White House."

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