Pittsburgh at Night

My precocious 12-year old nephew (who is hyper-intelligent, and home-schooled, and being raised by well-intended-but-misguided fundamentalist parents) came to spend a night with us in Pittsburgh.  We were celebrating a late Thanksgiving for my side of the family…but gratitude is always in season.  I love it that I’m the favorite uncle on that side of the family.  God knows they’ve got enough uncles to choose from.  My nephew and his family live on a farm in Ohio, and they don’t much see the outside world.  When he entered the neighborhood church that I pastor, he said with complete awe, “This is the highest ceiling I have ever seen.”  He was clearly smitten by the sense of grandeur and otherness that the building is meant to inspire, but which it fails to inspire in many nowadays.  It made sense to show him the city at night and to drive down through its Christmas lights and crowds.  He was…flabbergasted by the urbanity.  There are so many ways to live a life….

 

The Joy of Burn Barrels

My rural grandparents used a burn barrel, and I recently took comfort in following their lead.  I don’t recall their ever putting a trash can at the curb.  There was no trash can and no curb—just a grassy embankment where the gravel road met their property.  Household trash had two destinations in that time and place: the rubbish heap and the burn barrel.  “Rubbish” consisted of anything that would rot: coffee grounds, food scraps, eggshells, plant waste, anything once-living and now-dead…you get the point.  Things that could go up in smoke were not put on the rubbish heap; they went into the burn barrel: paper, cardboard, wood, styrofoam, plastic…. The occasional soda can found its way to the burn barrel, too—even though it didn’t burn—for lack of recycling.  But there was precious little soda (or “pop”) in that house, and never any beer cans for such devout Methodists as they were.

Of course, this was a horrible way to dispose of household refuse.  While the composting was actually a good thing, the burning was a very bad thing—especially in the case of plastics and styrofoam.  Burn barrels are illegal in many municipalities nowadays, including all of Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located.  But my place up north has an old burn barrel that’s rusting out near the bottom and “leaning toward Fisher,” as my grandfather used to say of anything crooked.  (Fisher is a village in Clarion County.)  I don’t even know if burn barrels are still legal up there, but I had some cardboard items to get rid of, and the burn barrel was beckoning.  The fire made a pleasant glow against the 5:00pm gloaming—warm and bright, everything this season is not.  See how it lights up the snowfield and holds its flame bravely, briefly against the gathering dark?  I know the world is too old for such nonsense, but there was such comfort in standing down there by the edge of the woods, in the chilly gloaming, to warm my body and soul by the orange flames of the burn barrel.  

 

Two Mile Run County Park—Way Cooler than It Sounds!

I’m a native of Venango County and a homeowner there.  I’ve been exploring this place pretty regularly for much of my life, but especially since my return three years ago.  Even so, I’d never bothered to go to the popular Three Mile Run County Park.  But look at this place.  It’s well worth a visit, even in an early North Country winter.  

Like much of the state, and almost all of Venango County, Three Mile Run Park is scenic, if not quite beautiful.  The sepia tones of early winter seem to suit the place under moody gray skies...  

Do you remember these things?  We called them merry-go-rounds, even though they weren’t like the ones at the fair.  I thought they’d been deemed too dangerous, and that they got pulled out of all the playgrounds decades ago.  As a child, I took many a bruising from getting swept off these things by centrifugal force.  But you always get back on.  It’s fun to be dizzy when you’re a kid.  We grownups can’t take it.

The reason I’d never been tempted to visit Two Mile Run County Park was written right into its name: “County” park.  There’s a lot of public land around here, miles and miles of woodlands to discover.  We’ve got the Allegheny National Forest, and the beautiful, lesser-visited Oil Creek State Park, and Cornplanter State Forest, and many game lands owned and operated by the state.  I assumed that a “county park” would be nothing more than a few baseball diamonds, some swing sets, a tennis court and a dog run.  I was so wrong!  Two Mile Run is as cool as almost any state park I know, and it offers just as much.  It’s got trails for hiking, biking, horseback riding, and ATVs.  It’s got a lake for fishing, with a swimming beach, kayaks and paddle boats for rent, and a big concession stand—closed for the winter.  It’s got a large campground with restrooms, and showers, and primitive sites, and sites with full hookups, as well as rustic cabins, like the one pictured here.  The campground is closed for the season, but the park even has an office that’s open year round.  And of course, it’s got the ubiquitous playgrounds and sports fields…for those of you who are into that kind of thing….

At 2,700 acres, it’s bigger than the ever-popular McConnell’s Mill State Park…and more than twice the size of Ryerson Station State Park.  The trail system is impressive, and the scenery is pleasant.

Oh, and picnic pavilions.  There are so many picnic pavilions.  This is the Big Rock Pavilion, presumably because it’s located next to a big rock.

Venango County was very wealthy at one time.  The decaying old mansions in Oil City and Franklin are evidence of that, not to mention the grand old farms and rural estates—some of which are still privately owned, but most of which have fallen into the hands of religious or social nonprofits.  Venango County had oil money, and lots of it.  But how do they continue to maintain such a magnificent park today, when all the money the polluters and frackers make goes down to Texas?

A part of me wants to learn how to do oil paintings.  I’d do scenes pretty much like this one.  I’d be the Corot of the inland Northeast.

In addition to all the many recreational opportunities at Two Mile Run, there are also two houses that you can rent.  This one they call “The Cottage.”  

And this one they call “The Farmhouse.”  I mean, what other county has a park this awesome?  

See the face in this tree?  That’s another thing I like about Two Mile Run; unlike the sometimes sterile, institutional feel of state-owned lands, someone really loves this place.  Think about it.  In order to maintain a park like this, the county has to pay office employees, lifeguards, rangers, groundskeepers, and maids to clean the rental properties.  They’ve got to pay for all the mowing, and snow removal, and maintenance of everything.  Does Venango County do all of this with taxpayer dollars?  If so, it’s a fantastic use of our taxes.  But how do they do it in such a deeply Republican county, where everything is about private ownership and Trumpism, and the tax base just keeps shrinking?  Anyhow, I definitely need to come back here.  There’s much more to discover.

Serious question: If you had to spend the rest of your life within the bounds of a single American county, which one would it be?  You’re wearing a bracelet on your ankle that will zap you painfully hard if ever you cross the county line.  Choose wisely.  There aren’t many counties that provide a full array of urban, suburban, and rural opportunities.  Los Angeles County, California, offers the best of both worlds: first rate urban opportunities as well as mountains, wilderness, and outdoor wonders.  But do you really want to live in Southern California?  Allegheny County, where my primary residence is located, is far too heavy on the urban dimension and too light on the rural.  I don’t think I’d pick Venango County.  The urban opportunities are just too few.  But between Oil Creek State Park, and Cornplanter State Forest, and the various state game lands, and Four Mile Run County Park, we’ve got enough wild places here to keep me happy.   

 

Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh

Calvary Episcopal Church in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh is a pretty impressive piece of architecture. I was there for a Chatham Baroque concert last Saturday evening. Rood screens, which separate a church’s altar from its nave, were jettisoned during the English Reformation, but they reappear in a lot of 20th century churches as a fanciful pretension. It’s a beautiful space, but don’t snoop around too much. There are pews roped off in places where the arches overhead are crumbling and dropping cement dust. It must cost hundreds of thousands each year to maintain these religious monuments. I wonder how much longer communities of faith will be able to remain in grand spaces like this. 

Abandoned Church for Sale

I wonder what the story is here?  This old church sits in the small town of Centerville, on the road from Titusville to Erie.  Looks like it’s been abandoned for 30 years or more…and it’s been for sale for quite a while, too.  The For Sale sign out front has a panel missing.  No one’s ever gonna buy this place.  What would you even do with a rundown old church in a small community like this?  There’s a very active-looking Baptist church across the street.

I like old churches, but not this one.  It’s got a bad energy about it.  I stopped to take a picture for a brochure that I’m working on…. From the looks of the place, I’d say it was Methodist.  They probably just had the wrong personalities in charge at some crucial juncture and couldn’t survive.

 

North Country Cryptids

This is the Allegheny River with Babylon Hill to the right…

A few weeks ago, just as dark was setting in, I saw a red fox in these trees behind the house, staring back at me. Such a sleek, beautiful creature. I’ve been hoping to see it again, so I go out every evening and stare into the woods, but it hasn’t returned.

Red foxes are cool…but can we talk about cryptids?  I know it sounds ridiculous, and I truly am a rational person. But there’s something in the woods behind my house up north—something other than a fox.  And while I mostly don’t mind it, I do sometimes find it a little eerie at night.  The forest is why I bought this place.  Living on the edge of the woods is my joy and my drug.  But when night falls, I sense a presence that troubles me.  Don’t get me wrong; I’d rather deal with cryptids than Pittsburgh traffic. (Not that the drivers in the North Country are any better; they’re equally bad in different ways. Up here, people go the speed limit minus 15. You have to give yourself an extra 15 minutes to get anywhere because there WILL be someone in front of you driving 15 miles below the speed limit.)  But when I shone my flashlight into the trees behind the house last night—taking that damned, accursed dog out to pee—a large, single orange eye reflected back at me, then disappeared. It makes me think back on the night a few months ago when I heard loud, eerie noises coming from these same trees—trees that I adore by day.

Of course I don’t believe in cryptids.  Wendigos, dogmen, bigfeet.  The archeological record simply doesn’t account for their existence.  However, I picked up a horror novella at Barnes & Noble that was set in Northern Pennsylvania: Cold Snap, by Lindy Ryan.  It’s definitely an amateur piece of fiction—too much description and too little story.  It deals with questions of grief, and loss, and guilt.  It’s about a newly widowed woman who goes with her sulky teenage son to a cabin in Northern PA to deal with her grief over Christmas.  But a creature that seems to be a moose turns out to be a wendigo.  (There hasn’t been a regular moose population in PA since the early 1800s, though a few do occasionally wander in from more northerly climes.)  Wendigos are Native American spirits who haunt the living.  They look like deer or moose…until they don’t.  They’re specifically Native American.  I often wonder about the Erie Indians who got genocided by the Iroquois in the 1600s.  (White people perfected the heinous art of genocide, but it has been practiced by other races, too—contrary to popular belief.)  You never hear much about the Erie, but they were the original inhabitants of Northwest Pennsylvania. It would make sense for their unhappy ghosts to roam these darkling forests… I don’t believe in such things, but it’s fun to think about when night is falling in the trees…

Huntin’ Season

 

I sometimes walk this road from end to end, especially in the early evenings.  I do it for exercise...and also to see the trees in the changing light of different times and seasons.  It's uncanny how many different places a single place can be.  The woods on either side are marked with No Trespassing signs, so I stick to the gravel.  On a recent evening, I was walking this road at dusk.  Things were beginning to take on an eerie glint--the darkening sky, the gloomy trees, the utter isolation.  In all the many times I've walked this road, I've never encountered a vehicle of any kind.  But that evening, I saw a pair of headlights coming at me.  No big deal.  A 20-year old American-made sedan headed toward me slowly, suspiciously.  Then, when the car got close, the driver hit the gas.  I assume they were creeped out to see a solitary pedestrian in a hoodie walking this lonesome road at dusk.  Dirt road, fading light, solitary walker with an unseen face...that's the stuff of horror movies or true crime documentaries.  By the time I made it back to my car--about a mile away--there was an expensive pickup parked in front of me.  I didn't like the way the driver was sitting with his windows open, staring at me in from the dark interior.  He seemed to be waiting for me.  As I passed by his truck, he called out "Hi there.  You out here huntin'?"  I said, "No, just gettin' in some cardio."  This answer gave him pause, as if the word "cardio" was known to him, but not commonplace.  Then he looked relieved.  I wasn't carrying a rifle, so he thought I just might be telling the truth.  He told me he'd come out to change the batteries in his hunting cameras in the woods.  The hell he did...  Who waits till dark to go into the forest to change camera batteries?  I'll tell you what actually happened.  The driver of that first car saw me and thought I was hunting illegally on private land.  They called the guy who owns the land--or leases it--and he came out here as fast as he could to catch me.  Walking a lonely public road just for the sake of walking?  Who would do a thing like that?