Railroaders, Miners, Shiners and Me
Entering our 14th state of the trip and after about 4000 miles we have arrived in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Our first stop will be Pittsburgh where I lived up until the 7th Grade. My mother grew up in East Carnegie, father grew up in Mt. Lebanon (both suburbs of Pittsburgh) and every, and I mean every, relative I had up until my marriage and in-laws were from Pittsburgh. All of them - Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins, all Pittsburghers and all fine people. Hard working, family was everything and fun loving people for sure.
My mother's side of the family, the Daugherty's and Burke's, worked the steel mills along Chartiers Creek in East Carnegie and the railroads hauling coal into Pittsburgh for the mills and finished steel products out. Some also worked the coal mines around western PA.
My fathers side of the family the Arnold's were mostly involved in the sales of construction and municipal maintenance related equipment.
Most of the family have either passed away or moved on but back when I was a kid growing up the family was all nearby, huge and close knit. Many family get togethers on Sundays, holidays and birthdays...basically any excuse to get together and have a laugh. So I'd have to say that when I think of a hometown I'd have to say Pittsburgh is the place.
The last time I was in Pittsburgh was mid 1970's so I wanted to take a grand tour of the prior haunts and show Debbie some of the high spots as I could remember.
We stayed for 2 nites at Trax Farms just outside of Bethel Park, PA where I grew up. Trax Farms was always our go to after church on Sunday to pick up some fresh produce for the Sunday dinner. I always remember how nice it was to be out of church (I hated going to church) and going to Trax to check out the farm machinery and the water trough outside in the shade with ice cold water in it running from a spout that was just the ticket on a hot day wearing your Sunday finest. The day usually included a car ride thru the countryside with all the windows down, a Pittsburgh Pirates ball game on the car radio and gawking at all the rich peoples houses and farmlands....do people still do this kind of thing? It was fun as hell and memorable. So it was a real treat and very nice of the Trax Farms people to allow us to stay in their lot for 2 nites, it brought back some great memories for me. And, bummer, the trough is long gone but the farm machines are still here, probably the same ones cause farmers never get rid of anything!
We drove by our old house, elementary school (which is now an old folks home), the Arnold g'parents home, the Burke's home and the cousins up in Rook above East Carnegie.
Went into downtown Pittsburgh for a sammich at Primanti Bros and watched the Penguins get eliminated from the playoffs, the locals were not a happy lot. The sammich was OK but talking with all the folks at the bar with their Pittsburghese was quite fun. Here's a brief sample:
yinze = you all (bar patron to Debbie and I 'yinze like the Penguins?'); y'uns = you all; crik = creek; jagoff = jerk; buggy = shopping cart; gum band = rubber band; pop = soda, coke, etc; redd up = clean up, as in your mom yelling 'redd up your room'...you get the drift.
Next we went up to Mount Washington to check out the Pittsburgh skyline at night which was quite beautiful. When I was a kid growing up here in the 1960's you couldn't see the skyline from across the river due to all of the smoke from the steel mills. The mills are pretty much gone and the clean air affords a breathtaking view of the City, hard to believe it's the same place.
We had planned to catch a Pirates baseball game the next afternoon but the forecast was for rain and we decided to head east an hour or so to Ebensburg where my grandparents on my Mom's side lived. Grandpap and Grammy would have us kids come up in the summer to spend a few days here and there once school let out for the year. E'burg is up in the mountains and us kids always found something to do, especially with Grandpap around, he was quite the man who always had fun things lined up for us to see and do. An old railroader he liked to take us to the Horseshoe Curve in Altoona to see the trains and loved taking us for rides in the country to all the small towns in the hills. Towns named Nanty Glo, Shaft 23, Colver and it's neighbor town Revloc (which is Colver spelled backwards!). Yes, simple places with simple names and simple times, I loved it and remember it fondly.
A typical Saturday morning with Grandpap would start with us kids busting into his bedroom around 7 AM and getting him going. He'd laugh, roll out of bed and put some coffee on. He'd give each of us kids a hot cup of coffee and we'd pour about 4 tablespoons of sugar and lots of milk into our cups, it was heaven! Then it was off to downtown E'burg to buy the paper and head to the Moose Club so Grandpap can 'sign the book'. Sign the book was code for 'Grandpap needs a belt of bourbon with the boys'.
So we'd head up to the second floor of this tall, narrow, storefront looking building in downtown E'burg and the din of cigar smoke was overwhelming. Now I'm not talking smoke from fine cigars, oh no dear readers, I'm talking Roi Tans, White Owls and some Swisher Sweets. Grandpap would plop me up on the bar and I'd guzzle a couple of Nehi Orange pops and he'd slowly nurse his shot of whiskey and hold court with his fellow Moose. It was such a fun time as he was so well loved by everyone and the respect all had for him reflected on their kindness to me. I'll never forget those special times with our Grandpap.
Debbie and I went on a tour of E'burg and the local environs, showed her their house, the nearby Lake Rowena where we spent many a day, the Moose lodge, (yes it's still there going strong) in fact the town had not changed a bit.
Since we got to KY we have been looking for some moonshine to sample. Well we found it right in the aforementioned hamlet of Nanty Glo, PA! Place was called Cucho's owned by Mike and Mary Ellen Cucho and a right lovely place it was. Mike's a 4th generation shiner and produced some very smooth bourbon's, scotch whiskeys and a near 198 proof shine...wow, not smooth and very smart on the lips. He had some mellower shine but not my cup of tea, Deb liked it though. He is the only licensed distillery in the County and man what a bureaucratic maze he and his son traveled to get permitted. Wish you guys well, you have a fine set up and you distill some fine spirits.
We then took a cruise over to the Horseshoe Curve in Altoona which was quite the engineering feat completed in the 1850's to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburgh thereby facilitating one of the strongest periods of industrial growth this Nation has ever seen. Built and owned by the powerful Pennsylvania RR it allowed people like Carnegie, Mellon, Frick and others to amass more wealth than any of our modern day Bill Gates', Jeff Bezo's or Warren Buffet's. And, oh by the way, the Pennsylvania RR did OK too.
Our next stop was at the Johnstown Flood memorial a place I've never been as it was opened after we had moved from PA. I read David McCullough's book on the flood and it was excellent, a good read if you're looking for some interesting history written by a native Pittsburgher.
The flood pretty much wiped out the town of Johnstown PA some 20 miles or so from E'burg. Upstream from Johnstown was a private club and lake called the South Fork Lake Fishing and Hunting Club and some of it's members included Carnegie, Mellon and Frick as well as other well heeled dandies of the day. Seems these folks were derelict in their maintenance of the South Fork Dam and on Memorial Day, 1889 after a week of heavy rain, the compromised dam failed sending a wall of water 70' high hurtling downstream at incredible speed and destroyed several towns in its path with the town of Johnstown suffering over 2200 deaths and much devastation in about 4 minutes time. First on the scene was nurse Clara Barton marking the inception of the American Red Cross. Incidentally, my mother started her nursing career with the Red Cross.
As you can expect no civil or criminal penalties/charges were ever successfully abjudicated with any of the owners/members of the club but as a result of this preventable catastrophe every State in the Nation from that moment on has a Department of Dam Safety which requires regular inspection of all dams, privately owned or public. Inspection reports are reviewed at the State level and approved or the reservoir gets emptied and the dam satisfactorily repaired.
We next headed north from E'burg to Lantz Corners, PA to check out the Allegheny National Forest about 80 miles south of the NY stateline. This area was where oil was discovered for the first time in America and old John D Rockefellar wasted no time in stepping in to basically monopolize the US oil market for decades to come. The oil still found here is especially useful for lubricants such as Pennzoil for automobiles and other oils used for industrial applications. Very interesting place, we had a relaxing time here.
Well folks, we're shuffling off to Buffalo and the falls so stay tuned.
Thanks for taking the time,
Peace out, Deb and Howard
Another great entry, Howard. I feel as though I am sitting there in the Moose Lodge right next to Grampap.
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