I Heart Dad

2010.05.21

For most of my childhood, my Dad was just a stubborn, cantankerous, honorable, indesctructible hulk. Built large by 30 years of handling massive, cast iron machinery, George F. Kovats was always larger than most men, the kind you don’t aggrivate in a bar (unless you were an officer, packing a gun, or both). In my early adulthood, he started showing his mortality. It was bound to happen – he was born 1934, I was born 44 years later.

Dad was born a serious man, and by 50 most of his youthful personality traits were shadowed by the tough exterior of career machinist. There wasn’t a lot of running around the park with our Dad; if he didn’t lack the energy, he lacked the disposition. Though he’s had plenty of moments of “kibitzing” around the house, he generally wasn’t playful. We’ve always known him better as the disciplinarian – or as I addressed him during my military life, “The First Sergeant.”

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I'm Leaving Pittsburgh…

2004.06.20

Pittsburgh from Mt. WashingtonSO, I’m moving. Again. Moving sucks, but thing time it’s in the hands of a moving company, so I won’t be calling on the help of friends who bail at the last minute.

Just as I was getting used to Pittsburgh, I’m moving to Atlanta. I’m a Yankee through-and-through, but I can’t pass this job offer up, and location is a compromise between myself and my girlfriend.

Funny enough, this website was just featured as an example of a Pittsburgh blog in Pittsburgh Magazine (July issue, page 52). As one of the other guys was apt to point out, it is ironic that my departure comes as I’m published in a regional magazine. But hey, I’m not claiming to post Black & Gold content here; I just appreciate the town that’s hosted me for over four years now, and continues to be home for my folks.

Psuedo-Instantaneous list

So, (I notice I like to start sentences off with “so” a lot) I figured I’d recap on the things I like most about Pittsburgh in no particular order.

Barsmart - Pittsburgh bars review1. The Bar Culture
Thanks to the era of blue-collar, industrial work (particularly in steel) that put the `Burgh on the map, a demand was created for alcohol long ago. To accommodate, a bar has opened every thirty feet within the city. These aren’t frilly Las Vegas bars (although some try), they’re “sit down and have a drink” bars. The way God intended when He gave mankind beer.

A look at the city from 837 2. The Cynicism
Pittsburghers are accustomed to criticizing their own town, be it traffic, the weather or it’s mayor. Especially its mayor. But somehow, Pittsburghers like it. They like to complain, and that’s what seems to keep people together here. It seems kinda’ funny, but another crappy sports year just keeps folks busy talking until the next season. Traffic may suck in some areas, but it’s predictable, and it makes good office banter. “Man, parkway west was murder today.” Feel like bitching? You got ninety other topics to run with. Try looking outside, and talk about the weather.

In this way, I can’t imagine living in a place like San Diego. Too pretty, too perfect. I like grit, and genetically, I like to complain too. I’m your typical Northeasterner.

`Ye old picure of Pittsburghe'3. The Road Maze
You take three rivers, and put the heart of a city in the wedge of the forking rivers (forking rivers sounds like a euphemism, I know). Now build a road system.

People complain about the roads in Pittsburgh, but in looking at the challenges it’s faced, you have to give it some credit. First, with the way the snow and salt tears roads up, it’s surprising there aren’t more potholes. If you go to anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, people don’t know what the hell road salt is, even if they need it.

Second, like I was building up to, you try building a road system here. To be honest, from the three addresses I’ve lived at here, I can usually find three different routes to take to get wherever I’m going. Really, I can’t complain about it too much.

4. The Setting
The one thing that really sold me on Pittsburgh to begin with (and I’m gonna sound like a tourism ad here) is the mix of city and country it has.

I came from New York City originally – a community in Brooklyn – where three trees on one street constitutes as a “rustic setting.” Granted, I’m a city boy by birth, but I’m a country boy by heart. Pittsburgh’s basically a spot of city, a glob of communities and a whole lot of surrounding country. Pennsylvania itself is one huge farm to begin with, so driving 30 minutes in any direction from Pgh. will get you right square with the Amish.

5. My Friends and Family
Last and not least, props to my friends and family.

Anytime you move, you leave behind someone. Here, I’m also leaving my parents. It gets less difficult with age, but it’s still not easy.

Ce la vie.

From here, the story is transition. You know, you’re in a new place so you have to find the nearest supermarket, Sam’s club, decent bar, reliable mechanic and so on. In time, I’m sure Hotlanta will grow on me. If not, at least I’ll always have something to bitch about around friends (or here).

Talking about the `Burgh

2003.08.24

The Burgh from Mt. Washington

Pittsburgh’s a city unlike many others.

Part of this can be explained in its geography alone; it’s situated right at the fork of three converging rivers – the three rivers. The roadwork to make travel possible in and out of the city is enough to confuse Lewis and Clark, yet somehow our city manages not to sustain an Atlanta level of weekly car accidents. The dialect of the people is a unique blend of Eastern, Southern and Midwestern – I’ve never heard anything like it until I came to this town. We share possibly the highest density of drinking establishments and the worst opportunities for singles in the nation; can you imagine in a town of bars and nightclubs how we can be rated among the worst cities in America to be a bachelor or bachelorette? Only in Pittsburgh.

It’s another funny aspect of Pittsburgh that you can travel two blocks, find yourself in the lap of social luxury, and then travel two more blocks to find yourself in a relatively broken down slum. Some of the prettiest homes I’ve seen here are in ghetto-like neighborhoods where the Steel barons of yesterday once resided. And still, racial and socioeconomic tensions don’t flare up any more here than they do in other densely populated towns.
We share hot summers with frigid winters; you can both have you A/C and heater running in your car within the same day. Gas bills are balanced by electric bills every six months. If your furnace isn’t getting a workout, central air is. As someone once said, “if you don’t like the weather here, just wait 15 minutes.” I’ve never been in a place where the weatherman actually had such a significant purpose to serve.

Being so close to other towns of significance, Pittsburghers are defined by the degree to which they’re location is associated with the city – as far as an hour North or South. There are mailing addresses that use there own locality names, and still find themselves a part of the Pittsburgh family. Swissvale, Monroeville, McKeesport, Upper St. Clair… all are for the most part members of the Pittsburgh greater area.

The ways that Pittsburgh truly stands out are in its prominent traits:

  • It is a fanatical sports city. During Christmas, you’ll find more Steelers signs and flags then you will Holiday ornaments.
  • It is a big food and beer city. The legendary staples of our food and restaurant industry have been founded on sobering up the patrons of our long-standing beer and liquor establishment industry.
  • It is a blue-collar city. While the industrial giants of Pittsburgh are less significant in our modern global economy, there’s still a ton of current and retired union workers who keep this city alive.

Overall, Pittsburgh is a town people live to love or hate. Its natives habitually leave it only to return later in life. While it’s today a shadow of its former self, people continue to return for some unexplained reason. That’s what Pittsburgh is all about.

Snow… again, in Pittsburgh

2003.03.31

Today it snows in Pittsburgh. It snows as a last reminder of what a winter can do to one city.

To back up, this past winter in South-Western Pennsylvania, while not particularly long in contrast to other winters, was consistently snowy and miserable throughout its allotted three-month span. The season hit us hard, and wouldn’t let up for 90 days. It was a mockery almost; places like Alaska who nature intended to receive snow were finding unseasonably warm weather. They even had to re-route 100 miles of the annual Iditarod dog sled race because there wasn’t enough snow to give way for the travel. It was all tied up in North Eastern U.S.

Pittsburghers particularly had a miserable time with the weather. It was as if the winter was almost playing psychological warfare with us. For weekends, the snow would somewhat let up, just enough to look like a promising week ahead, and then BAM, Monday would be like a page out of a Nordic Biblical tale. Weather forecasters became the most hated profession, and rightfully so. They would always bounce in on the evening news as if they had something relevant to say, and pre-empt their forecasts with, “and we’ll see if there’s any chance of this snow letting up in the next week.” We knew there wasn’t, and we hated them for teasing us about it.

The weather came at a bad time for Pittsburghers, who were coping with the end of Steeler season and beginning to really feel the effects of a bad economy sink into the workforce. It seems one of the saving graces a city can have is it’s weather. If you have a wonderful arts scene, a lovely city layout, beautiful roads or an efficient mass transit, it all seems to mean jack when your citizens are staring at white stuff 90 days a year. Add to that the Pittsburgh driving dynamic that entirely collapses at the first sight of adverse weather, and you have an area that people have almost no reason to live in.

But the winter depression has lifted somewhat, and we’ve seen it go from winter to spring in 2 days flat. Pitt students went from parkas to thigh-highs over a single weekend, and the snow seemed to clear like, again, another Nordic Biblical passage.

I’m starting to wonder what a Nordic Biblical passage would be like. Hmm.

And then today, almost like Freddy Krueger getting his last cackle, his last laugh before returning in next year’s movie, the snow says goodbye today. In response, I know at least one city where 300,000 people are flipping the bird in farewell.