Last weekend’s snowfall clinched it for me once and for all: Southwestern Pennsylvania is slowly transforming itself into an enormous pigpen. As soon as the roadways are cleared, sedentary property owners across the region exert themselves for the first time since the last major accumulation by shoveling the snow from their driveways and sidewalks — and plopping it directly onto the newly plowed roads. The first time someone expresses the slightest disapproval regarding the frosty souvenirs dumped onto our thoroughfares, our porcine neighbors underscore their deep civic virtues by working themselves up into a morally indignant conniption. Take the gentleman I encountered last weekend. Picture a man with a disquieting resemblance to an irate Porky Pig, sweating profusely and waddling after me with his little fist clenched. Obscenities spewed from his snout as he slipped and slid on the pile of snow he had just deposited onto the street. The solution• A secure fence around their pens, of course. If that fails, they would serve nicely as slabs of bacon. Carol J. Murray Pleasant Hills

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