Tag: Pittsburgh

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: bounding

This is it, W-day, the event planned for over a year, the wedding day for my nephew, David, and his GF, Andrea. Charming, intelligent, fun people. I wish them the best and I’m happy to be here to take part. He’s 35 and we were a little skeptical he’d ever marry. He had a steady GF for twelve years but she didn’t want children. So, the chasm was there and off they went, their separate ways.

Their wedding is so different from my own experience, just me and my wife, with two friends in a chapel on Wright-Pat with a self-described broken-down boxer officiating. That was over 48 years ago of ups and down, in and outs. We’ve come to a comfortable balance, forgiving one another for irritations, supporting one another, and making each other laugh.

I met her parents last night, learned how they met, and where they live, and what they do. They lean different politically than I do, as does most of her family who I spoke to. All are from the midwest, mostly from small cities. The bride and groom share my political philosophies and live here in PGH. Don’t know how much all that matters as far as relationships; we were all amiable last night.

One woman I met works for a gun manufacturer. She walks a tightrope, her words, to strike a balance between the two sides. She told me that when growing up, her father, a Vietnam War vet, didn’t allow guns in the house. He told her, he knows what they can do. He also seemed to worry that the sight or sound of a gun might trigger a reaction in him.

W-day weather is finely shining, coolly comfortable, with a cloudless embrace and teasing light winds. High: 72 F.

Still tracking what Lee is doing to the Northeast, following tales of Hunter Biden, Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Elon Musk, Aaron Rodgers, etc. Once begun, the cycle goes on until it’s spun dry.

“The Load Out/Stay” with Jackson Browne is in the morning mental music stream (Trademark underwater). The Neurons put it in there as I talked to people’s mode to arrive here. Many drove nine to eleven hours to get here, accomplishing it over two days. Don’t like the airlines and the pain inflicted by travel — anxieties and irritations over flight connections, security, personal space, and the expensive ticket prices. I can understand that. Why, exactly, “The Load Out/Stay”? Because hearing them talking, I visualized loading up the car, just as I did when younger to go cross country, and what I still do for in-state vacations.

Stay pos, be cool, be strong. Coffee has been consumed; time to walk about, visit a part of Pittsburgh no longer familiar to me. Here’s the song. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: brisk

It’s W-2: two days before the wedding. The women have been comparing dresses and shoes for the event and talking about their hair.

Men have been complaining about how their clothes fit.

Nervous excitement is burgeoning.

It’s September 14, 2023, in the burgh of Pitts, Pennsylvania. Lovely fallish weather with a low 70s F high. Sweeet. Family visits have been fun. Instructional. We catch up on matters of health and recent experiences, with a common refrain about how conversational matter has changed through the years; we used to talk about many other matters. We still do, but the proportions have shifted. Mom looks good, better than expected from the daily text message complaints and updates she provides. My sisters and their hubbies look well, healthy, happy, but that defies some of the topics and details they go into.

My wife and I are enjoying a swell time, although sharing a bathroom demonstrates privilege and how we’ve taken for granted having two bathrooms to spread out and do our morning things. With one BR, regimenting and rationing time and functions is required. We’re used to two places, where it can all be done in parallel, without interference from the other.

For a while, The Neurons entertain me with the song “Sisters” by Irving Berlin from 1954 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark laughable). Both parts were sung by Rosemary Clooney. I know the words well because both Mom and my wife would sing that song, although I’ve never heard the two of them sing it together. It’s a terrific ditty about love and relationships.

But those those Neuron scamps brought up D. Bowie with “Changes” from 1972, because, you know, I’m driving around the old life zones from my youth around Penn Hills and Monroeville, spotting changes and differences, right?

Stay pos, be strong and brave, and keep pressing forward. I’ll try doing the same. Coffee helps me on my journey. Hope you got something that helps you, too. Okay, pressing on. Here’s the beats. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Sunshine, glorious sunshine. It’s going in and out. That’s how I define it from my kitchen perch. Can’t see the actual sky but I suspect the sun is constant but the clouds are moving about.

Still in Pittsburgh, PA, due to Mom’s medical emergency. She’s doing better, thanks, but remains hospitalized with multiple issues. At least she’s talking and eating, and showing strong streaks of her usual personality. My sisters and Mom’s partner provide the most guidance and support. I’m just here to do what I can when I can. Oldest sister also came in but leaves tomorrow AM.

This visit refreshes how much I enjoy the PIT area. Trees put off blinding green. No smoke although there is pollution. Humidity feels mad high, toying my hair into lofty frizziness. Makes me laugh. Great fun visiting with sisters and their families yesterday, eating pizza, drinking beer, watching the crazy Steelers-Bengals game and eventual, surprising Steeler victory. You should have heard that house as each major event occurred. Even though traffic is traffic, it has a structure to its chaos that’s familiar.

Back home in southern Oregon, the news tells me more wildfires are burning. The air is bad, but the temperature has dropped. Here, it’s 73 F with a forecast high of 76 and scattered rain showers. The sun brought its show online at 6:58 AM and will go offline at 7:34 PM. The high here is still ten degrees less than what Ashland will see.

For some reason, The Neurons have fixed Joan Jett and the Blackhearts in my morning mental music stream and their cover, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”, circa ’81-82. A covert connection seems to exist with me visiting here before leaving for Okinawa. I’m just guessing. The Neurons will not say.

Still on my first cup of coffee and coming alive again. Stay positive, test negative, etc. Finish this coffee, go see Mom in the hospital. Stay chill, peeps. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Let It Snow

Mom was born and raised in a little town called Turin, Iowa. Dad was in the military, stationed not far away when they met. When he went overseas on assignment, Mom took the children and moved in with her in-laws in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Whenever she talks about those times, it’s with delighted and happy wistfulness. Dad and Mom divorced but Mom says she never fell out of love with his family. It must be true; after we’d moved around the country while Dad was in the military, she returned to Pittsburgh and grew her roots over sixty years ago.

I’ve asked her, “Why Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?” Now, her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are all there, and so she’ll remain. But back then, why?

…she loves the people of Pittsburgh, its hills, bridges, and history, the change of seasons, and summer thunderstorms. More than anything, she loves it when it snows there. When big snowstorms strike, she turns on the heat, opens the curtains and watches the snow.

Back when I was a child in her household, I’d charge outside to play in the snow. Hours later, I’d return. Everything would be stripped off in the basement to be hung up to dry or tossed in the dryer. Hot soup with cheese sandwiches or hot chocolate with marshmallows would inevitably follow, depending on the hour.

I’m thinking of this today because she sent me a video via FB. It’s Frank Sinatra singing, “Let It Snow”. I laughed immediately; I’d seen the weather forecast for Pittsburgh and saw the forecasts for snow, and thought, that’ll make Mom happy.

She always claims we have a psychic connection. Here’s the video. I know all the words. Mom played it back when I was growing up in Pittsburgh whenever the snow began to fall. Listening to it and thinking of her, I just need to smile.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

As I landed in Pittsburgh last night, a Smith cover of a Beatles/Shirelles song began streaming. I haven’t lived in Pittsburgh, PA, since the early seventies. I usually visit the city for about five days at a time every two or three years. But it offers that energy that says, home. My soul feels more settled among the neighborhoods nestled among the western PA. rivers, mountains, and bridges.

Here’s “Baby It’s You” (1969), written by Burt Bacharach, Luther Dixon, and Mack David, and performed by Smith.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuWsRkF5SIo

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The Men At The March

I was at the March for Our Lives event in Medford, Oregon, with about a thousand others yesterday, when I spied a Pittsburgh Steelers hat on a tall individual. It was a crowded space, but eventually, finding him beside me, I said, “Hey, a Steelers fan,” because so am I. Laughing, he pointed at my USAF Retired hat. “And you’re retired from the Air Force,” he said. “Like my Dad.”

His father had retired from the Air Force and moved back to Pittsburgh, PA. We chatted and uncovered that we’d lived in the same Pittsburgh neighborhoods decades ago. He was fifteen years younger than me, but we’d attended the same schools, including Turner Elementary School on Laketon Road in Wilkinsburg. Like me, he’d followed a convoluted path to reach Oregon. My last stop before Oregon was Half Moon Bay, California, and his last stop was Madison, Wisconsin. He’d only been in Oregon three years. As a military brat, he was familiar with the places where I’d been assigned, and I knew his locations.

Besides politics, we talked about the changes back in the Pittsburgh area, and the Google location there, which we’d both visited. Six degrees of separation, small world, et cetera.  He was like a familiar face in the crowd, to finish the cliche trifecta.

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Today’s Theme Music

I’m still streaming from my childhood years in the Pittsburgh area today. This one came out while I live in Penn Hills. Those days were filled with school and snow activities in the winter, and sports and friends just about every day. When the sun heated the days into the eighties and nineties in the summer, Penn Hills was a gorgeous backdrop to growing up. Baseball was our big thing. With Maz, Steve Blass, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Hebner, Al Oliver, Manny Alou, and big Dave Parker, the Pirates under Danny Murtaugh had become a force. The Steelers’ emergence remained a few years away.

The era’s music seemed customized for our lives. This song, ‘Psychedelic Shack’, by the Temptations, is from nineteen seventy. The lyrics are easy to learn and the beat carries me like a wave.

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What I’m Watching

I’m not watching much.

Twenty seventeen has not started out great. I’ve seen ads for a television game show, ‘The Wall’, and think, surely this is going to be satirical science fiction. But no; it’s real.

Yes, it’s a lean time in television land, with reruns, award shows and sports dominating. That’s true even though I stream television through Acorn, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, Sling and others. Although I’ve cut the cable, as they now like to claim with marketing zeal, television is mostly an entertainment desert.

I’ve gone through ‘Sneaky Pete.’ I’m waiting for more of ‘The Americans’, ‘Orphan Black’, ‘Stranger than Fiction’, ‘The Expanse’, ‘Dark Matters’, ‘Goliath’ and ‘Travelers’. We worked through my wife’s mild infatuation with ‘Being Human’ and ‘The Librarians’. I’ve gone through all of the ‘WestWorld’, Ballers’ and ‘Cake Wars’. Nothing new and offbeat like ‘Miranda’, Gavin and Stacey’, ‘Pram Face’, or ‘Misfits’ is out there. No new ‘Foyle’s War’ ‘Happy Valley’ or ‘The Killing’. No Frankie and Grace. No Harry Bosch or ‘Justified’.  No Wire.

We’re left, basically, with ‘This Is Us’. It’s a good show, with interesting characters, storylines, and structures, well acted and produced. My one gripe is related to its location in Pittsburgh, PA. I lived in Pittsburgh until I was fifteen and visited there often after that. Mom and my sisters still live their with their families. The people on TIU just don’t have the brashness of voice and the unusual talking style I find in Pittsburgh. Pittsburghers don’t tend to talk in soft voices, awaiting their turns. They talk fast, and start talking all at once, which causes conversations to become louder and louder, and more chaotic. They also tend to end sentences with a rise, as though they’re asking a question instead of making a statement.

Well, maybe that was just at my house, with my friends and family.

On the movie side, I’ve seen just about anything that I want to see.

What about you? Anything out there you’re watching that you recommend to others?

Meanwhile, I’ll probably don my brown shirt and take up with Mal for a few days.

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