This is the first in an occasional South series to mark this year's 250th anniversary of Pittsburgh. Today, employees and retirees of the Pennsylvania American Water company share stories of those familiar neighborhood meter readers in the South Hills. Remember the clarion call: "Meter man"?

In 1984, Joe Dick was reading meters in Pleasant Hills for Pennsylvania American Water when a customer yelled, "I'll be right there," followed by a loud bang from inside the home.

After forcing open the door, Mr. Dick discovered that the customer had fallen down the stairs. He sat her upright and ran next door for help.

When he returned with the neighbor, they found the woman was merely shaken, so Mr. Dick, 56, of Bethel Park, calmly continued on his route.

Others who read water meters for a living have encountered clingy pantyhose, yummy brownies, low-beamed ceilings and dogs. Such heroics -- and guffaws -- mark the daily life of the so-called ''meter reader,'' who charts a home's water consumption for billing.

Sometimes what these familiar visitors find isn't pleasant. When meter readers see cases of child, elderly or animal abuse, they report it to authorities.

These days, technology has entered the lives of the worker who is sometimes still associated with the familiar call: "water man." Back in the day, most readers were, indeed, men. Today, of Pennsylvania American's 16 readers serving the South Hills, eight are women.

Today's readers use a hand-held device that allows them to obtain a reading without going inside from a meter that is now almost always installed outside the home.

In some areas, mostly outside of Pittsburgh suburbs, a mobile drive-by that captures signals mounted on telephone polls eliminates the need for any leg work.

Until the 1970s, meter readers used closely guarded customer keys kept at the customer service center and meter shop in Mount Oliver, which is still in use today.

If a customer chose not to give the company a key, and no one was home when a reader came by, a postcard was left for the customer to jot down the numbers from the meter and mail it back.

Meter readers and others who made regular home visits, such as the milkman, ice cream man and Fuller Brush man, are recognized as part of daily life in a bygone era as Pittsburgh marks its 250th anniversary this year. The semiquincentennial will be observed with celebrations, exhibitions and reunions.

Neighborhood ambassadors

"As meter readers in the old days, we were ambassadors of Pennsylvania American Water," said Darrell Bichler, of Baldwin Township, who supervises the company's meter readers in the South Hills.

"Today, we are more regarded by our customers as data collectors," he said.

When visits inside were routine, however, meter readers often were treated like part of the family, with some customers giving them homemade brownies or Christmas gifts.

Meter reader Paul Ohnhaus recalled a day in 1971 when he had to make his way through a labyrinth of clotheslines strewn across a basement to reach the meter in a Mt. Lebanon home.

He didn't realize that he had accidentally taken a ''souvenir.''

"Do you know you have pantyhose on your shoulder?" asked the customer at the next stop.

"I had to go back and say, 'Here's your pantyhose' to the woman whose house I just left," said Mr. Ohnhaus, 65, of Overbrook, now retired.

At that time, meter readers were dropped off on their routes by the company and given 50 cents transit fare to get back to the Mount Oliver station.

Sometimes they hitched a ride back and kept the fare, Mr. Ohnhaus recalled.

Wayne Wuenschell, who worked as a meter reader in the 1960s, said that being chased by dogs is the profession's "No. 1 nemesis."

He said meter readers would yell "water man" to alert customers as well as dogs.

"Once the dogs began barking, we readers were able to pinpoint their location,'' he said.

Michael P. McGill, 50, of Bethel Park, who was a reader in the 1980s, was working on a windy day in Baldwin Borough when a German shepherd came racing toward him.

When Mr. McGill tried spraying mace, the wind blew it back in his eyes, temporarily burning them.

The mace still did the trick: His screams frightened the dog away.

Mr. Wuenschell, 61, of Carrick, said he sometimes fell down steps when blinded by the sun or when his boots were wet.

"That's why it was a young man's job," he said.

In the precomputerized age, the meter reader calculated the number of gallons of water used in a residence by subtracting the last reading from the current reading and writing the number in a notebook.

"Then the girls in the office would type up a bill," Mr. Wuenschell said.

An average route meant about 180 stops a day.

"Everyone was home at that time, so if I missed 20, I heard it from the boss," said Mr. Wuenschell, who today repairs water main breaks.

Change of plans

In the 1970s, routes began to be rotated so all the meter readers became familiar with all the routes and to eliminate any misrepresentations of readings based on relationships with customers.

About the same time, the company stopped keeping keys for meter readers to use after an incident with a new homeowner. Fearing an intruder, the customer greeted the reader with a rifle.

The first attempt to address water quality in the United States was enacted by Congress in 1893, the same year the South Pittsburgh Water Co. -- known at various times as St. Clair Water, West Penn Water and, most recently, Pennsylvania American Water -- built a pumping station on Carson Street on the South Side.

The station used coal-fired boilers to generate steam that operated the pumps, which pumped water from the Monongahela River directly into homes.

In 1906, a water filtration plant and pumping station was built on Becks Run Road in what is today Baldwin Borough.

Then, as now, the facility takes the untreated water from the river and pumps it about two miles to the Hays Mine Station Water Treatment Plant on Agnew Street, part of which is in the city and part of which is in Baldwin Borough, which is capable of producing 60 million gallons of water per day for the South Hills.

"That's more than enough but, if need be, the Aldridge plant in Elrama would provide additional water," Mr. Bichler said.

His career began in the mailroom, followed by the computer room and 15 years as a meter reader.

"What I liked was knocking on the doors and meeting all the different people, and especially being able to help out the elderly," said Mr. Bichler, 53, who is also a Baldwin Township commissioner.

A favorite of senior women was operator/analyst Robert Horvath, a former meter reader who, at 6-foot-2, was called on to change many a light bulb, reach into high kitchen cupboards, even carry heavy objects upstairs.

"I always felt good assisting others," said Mr. Horvath, 58, of California, who said he has scars from hitting his head on low beams in basements.

Mr. Bichler and another meter reader once cleared a foot of snow -- with the help of cat litter to melt the ice -- from the driveway of a South Park woman who had to pick up her husband at the airport.

In the dead of winter, he was offered coffee and hot chocolate; in summer, it was iced tea, Kool-Aid and soft drinks. His thirst intensified, he said, when the route criss-crossed the hills of Beechview or Brookline.

Battling the elements gave rise to ingenuity, such as that of retiree Tom Hayes, 75, of Pleasant Hills.

Confronted with freezing ink in the fountain pens that preceded ballpoint pens for recording figures, he effectively experimented by mixing antifreeze with ink to keep it from freezing.

One of the newest meter readers is T.J. Revers, 24, of McKeesport, whose hand-held device captures a broadcast sent every four seconds from the meter, effectively eliminating the need to enter dwellings, thereby increasing the number of readings in a day.

In his first year, he was attacked by dogs and yelled at by customers for the amount of their bills and for walking on their lawns.

Still, being outside in nice weather and getting exercise is the best part of the job, Mr. Revers said.

A member of Utility Workers of America Local Union 537, he said he lost 50 pounds last summer.

High-tech future

The future of meter reading, said Mr. Bichler, is automated meter reading in which a radio transmitter built into the meter register broadcasts to units on towers.

The readings are then relayed to the main office via cell phones or the ethernet.

The ultimate goal, he said, "is to enhance customer service and increase productivity."

Implementation of such a system locally is being delayed because 136,000 meters in homes must be manually modified to fit the new system.

That requires water company personnel to knock on the door, enter a house and head down to the basement -- well-honed routes spanning decades.

The region's hills are another obstacle. Even aluminum siding on houses can cause a problem because radio signals bounce off of it.

Nevertheless, the goal in the five-year plan is 100 percent compliance.

"We're going through and changing meters over as we speak," he said.

Founded in 1886, American Water is the largest investor-owned U.S. water and wastewater utility company. With headquarters in Voorhees, N.J., the company employs nearly 7,000 who provide drinking water, wastewater treatment and other related services to about 15.6 million people in 32 states and Ontario, Canada.

For more information, visit www.amwater.com.