OT: Growing up in Pittsburgh

[Carl Zager]

Fred suggested sharing this exchange with the list ... If it's off topic,
blame him <grin>. No, I accept responsibility. Also, I noticed "we drank
...." in my message. "We" did. I was allocated a small amount on Friday
evenings through most of my life. I think it's the reason I never drank in
public as a teenager.

 Carl Zager						KB9RVB
 czager at bloomington.in.us         http://www.mccsc.edu/~czager

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 22:12:04 -0400
From: Fred W. Schneider III <fschnei at supernet.com>
To: Carl Zager <czager at bloomington.in.us>
Subject: Re: Roofs  or  Rooves  or  Woofs  --  oh  heck  --  the  Opposite Side
      ofthe  Ceiling !!!!!!

I really think the rest of the gang should have a chance to read your note!

You mean your parents paid the coal man to put black dirt in the basement.  My dad would
never spend that kind of money.  Once I year he had the supplier dump the truck load on
the lawn next to the street, then he would personally spend a Saturday with the wheel
barrow moving 7 to 8 tons to the coal bin ... cost less if he wheeled it.  He also
installed a draft blower on the furnace so that he didn't have to buy more expensive
lumps ... he specified "run of the mine" just like railroads did for their engines (a
mixture of lumps of a variety of sizes and dirt, slate, whatever) because it only cost
$3.00 a ton.   This from a man who had an engineering degree from Carnegie Tech.

I guess I shouldn't complain.  Because of his parsimonious tendencies, the inheritance
allowed me to retire at 60 and have a lot more than I had during my working life.  But my
mother, who always wanted to visit her homeland in Ireland, never got the chance because
he didn't want to spend.

But what most of the people today don't know is what Pittsburgh smelled like ... a unique
blend of coal gas, some exhaust from vehicles, and a rich aroma of sulphur dioxide.  When
I would drive back from Lancaster to visit, I felt like I was back home just because of
the air.  Of course, that SO2 did wonders to automobile paint.  Dad's 1939 Chevy looked
like it had been sand blasted with 0000 grit when he traded it in late in 1948,
principally because it had been three years since he last got out the spray gun and
repainted it.  (Yes, painting his own car also saved money.)



Carl Zager wrote:

> On Sat, 10 Jun 2000, Fred W. Schneider III wrote:
> > We lived out in Penn Township (Penn Hills today).  Dad painted the white house trim
> > every summer.  Three or four times a year, mom took down the Venetian blinds and
> > scrubbed them in the bath tub ... made a lot of black water.
> >
> > These young people in Pittsburgh today just don't understand, do they?
>
> Fred,
>
> By the time we moved out to Penn Hills (I'm going to say 48-49 -- my
> sister was born in 50, after we were there for awhile), it was to escape
> the coal-fired furnace in our place on Bennett Street (though, from things
> I shouldn't've heard as a youngster, I do think the changing demographics
> of Homewood-Brushton had more to do with it).
>
> Our Parkway Avenue 2 story, 3 BR, 1 bath over a basement, brick, had a gas
> system, so we left behind the need for the weekly rituals of bathtub blind
> soaking. Mom was so glad to have curtains that stayed white that they were
> everywhere! Vacuming somewhere in the house was an everyday chore, though.
> We had one of those new-fangled Electroluxes. Mom was a demonstrater for
> the distributor at the County Fair.
>
> Many of the products I remember from childhood were tied to either Mom or
> Dad's work. Dad drove for Coca-Cola; Mom worked Christmases for
> Rosenbaum's, Boggs and Buhl, Kaufman's; she also did the fair routine a
> number of years for 7-Up. We only used/ate Hershey, Heinz, Braun's,
> Isaly's, and drank Fort Pitt, Duquesne, or Iron City (until Mom discovered
> Carling Black Label one summer); my baseball equipment always came from
> Honus Wagner; we gassed up at Atlantic.
>
> But I just drifted off the subject.
>
> When we were at Bennett, I have memories of horse-drawn coal wagons and
> ice wagons (this was during the war). Coal delivery day was an adventure
> for a toddler. I wanted to see the stuff come down the chute. Mom wanted
> me upstairs away from the dust. We'd compromise and I would be taken out
> to pet the horses. After Dad came home from the Pacific, the first thing
> to be replaced was the ice box. The second thing was the house.
>
>  Carl Zager                                             KB9RVB
>  czager at bloomington.in.us         http://www.mccsc.edu/~czager