Wednesday October 7, 2009 at 10:44 am
Five hundred miles
For the past couple years, since wrapping up college at my third and final university, I’ve lived in a little neighborhood called Squirrel Hill. It quickly became one of my favorite places in Pittsburgh. It doesn’t hold quite the same feelings of gritty nostalgia as the more southern points — Carrick and Brookline and the South Side — but, as a whole, it’s really a good representation of the city.
Sorry to the non-Pittsburghers who have no idea what I’m talking about, but among the things I love about this place are the distinctive layouts of the different communities, and how when you’re walking in one little neighborhood and step over to the next, you are well aware.
When I was little and living off of Carson with my mom and she would do something to agitate me, like making me dance to Bruce Springsteen or mispronouncing Snuffleupagus or one of the millions of other things that will piss off a 2-year-old, I would roll out of the apartment wearing nothing but a diaper and a bright red wig from The Little Mermaid and scream for my grandfather, who lived over the hill in Mt. Oliver. And by hill I mean Pittsburgh hill, and by Pittsburgh hill I mean take your entire town, stick a pole under it, and push upwards. Your houses will probably lean to compensate and your mile-long main road will become five miles because you have to wrap it around itself a few times. This is expected. Leave it be.
Of course he couldn’t hear me because there was a mountain in the way, but all those times he hiked down the crumbling cement stairs with the light blue railings that jutted from the hillside, it really was like he was making his way from another country.
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For the past couple years, since wrapping up college at my third and final university, I’ve lived in a little neighborhood called Squirrel Hill. It quickly became one of my favorite places in Pittsburgh. It doesn’t hold quite the same feelings of gritty nostalgia as the more southern points — Carrick and Brookline and the South Side — but, as a whole, it’s really a good representation of the city.
Sorry to the non-Pittsburghers who have no idea what I’m talking about, but among the things I love about this place are the distinctive layouts of the different communities, and how when you’re walking in one little neighborhood and step over to the next, you are well aware.
When I was little and living off of Carson with my mom and she would do something to agitate me, like making me dance to Bruce Springsteen or mispronouncing Snuffleupagus or one of the millions of other things that will piss off a 2-year-old, I would roll out of the apartment wearing nothing but a diaper and a bright red wig from The Little Mermaid and scream for my grandfather, who lived over the hill in Mt. Oliver. And by hill I mean Pittsburgh hill, and by Pittsburgh hill I mean take your entire town, stick a pole under it, and push upwards. Your houses will probably lean to compensate and your mile-long main road will become five miles because you have to wrap it around itself a few times. This is expected. Leave it be.
Of course he couldn’t hear me because there was a mountain in the way, but all those times he hiked down the crumbling cement stairs with the light blue railings that jutted from the hillside, it really was like he was making his way from another country.
Comments Off
