Barnestormin

At the salon

2008-07-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting in a hairstylist’s chair in a fruity salon in the swanky Pittsburgh neighborhood of Shadyside. Women are all around me, but I’m getting my hair cut by one of just two male stylists in the place.
“Quentin,” my stylist, is an avowedly gay man—wide open, yet respectful of others’ heterosexual hang-ups. But you can get him talking, and I always do. I notice the inch-thick rubber choker around his neck, which seems out of place with his dress shirt and skinny tie.
“You’re looking a little S&M, a little fetishist today,” I say. He smiles, seeming happy I noticed.
“I like to be totally free with the person I’m with,” Quentin says, tossing his head and smoothing a bang of his jet-black, chemically treated hair with the back of his hand.
He deftly places a comb over my right eyebrow and says in a low voice: “I’m just going to trim your eyebrows, O.K.?”
I nod my head, and with a few sweeps of his clipper, my eyebrows are shorter, less full, and neater. I check myself in the mirror and immediately notice the improved effect. Though I feel a bit funny, the trim didn’t hurt a bit, and it sure did make I difference, I think.
That bit of man-scaping brings up a question that has been nagging my insecure macho ego for a while. So I ask myself again: Could I be a metrosexual?
I consider my location, and then go down my mental checklist of possible metrosexual indicators. I’m in a quichey women-centered hair salon. I’m getting my hair styled by a gay man in S&M regalia. I just got my eyebrows trimmed.
Sitting in that chair, I once again began to worry that I am at least partly metrosexual. What had happened to me, I wondered. How did I get to be such a sissy, seemingly overly concerned with my grooming? Was this some sort of midlife crisis of self-confidence?
On any other day I might’ve been in denial like all the other times, sitting there at the capable hands of my gay-boy stylist, but today is different. A frightening specter of my past—an old mistake of a girlfriend who I’ll call Scary—is sitting just feet from me. With a plastic bag covering her hairdo, she is reading a magazine and pretending not to notice me. I start to feel just a bit shy and effete, thinking of how she knew me years ago, when I was less refined. Then I momentarily feel like I am invading her womanly space, and possibly shocking the hell out of her. Part of me takes a perverse pleasure in the thought, and I talk louder and more brashly to Quentin because of it.
“I’ve been studying women for thirty years. I can pick out the strange haircuts, and also the awkward-looking knees,” I say. “Some women should not wear certain haircuts, because they don’t fit their face—just like some people can’t wear pastels.”
Even as I am saying these things, I don’t hear how potentially sweet they sound. But with Scary just feet away, I do realize how far I’ve come from years ago, when I was dating her and shoveling concrete for work while not finishing college. My old self would not have been caught dead in a place like the salon, unless he was there to pick up a girl.
When it comes to metrosexuality, if you have to ask yourself if you are one, you’re probably in denial. I haven’t gotten to the point where I get “mannies and peddies” yet (and I’m not ruling them out), but I have found myself paying a lot more attention to skin care products. I’m hip to StriVectin-HS, which somehow makes fine lines on the face disappear, at least temporarily. I’ve used it and seen the results, but it’s too expensive for me to want to regularly use.
A couple of haircuts back I mentioned to Quentin that I’ve been feeling like something of a metrosexual.
“There’s a difference between metrosexual and heterosexual,” he says, looking at me in the mirror and continuing to trim my hair. “A metrosexual will pluck his eyebrows, and a heterosexual won’t.”
“Well, I use Hylexion, for the dark circles under my eyes…” I say.
“You’re metrosexual,” he says, nodding his head.

A Father and Son's Climbs and Falls

2008-07-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Growing up in Bellevue Borough, outside Pittsburgh, I would go with friends to climb the superstructure of Jack’s Run Bridge. The bridge traverses a ravine between Bellevue and Brighton Heights, and the deck of the structure is 150 ft tall and unsafe to climb. We’d climb to the top of the structure beneath the roadway and drink beer and race each other down the bridge, shimmying around the piers and sprinting the ramps between them. We acted as if we were fearless.

I grew up working in landscaping and construction. I’d climb a tree, or scale a ladder, and it was no big deal. When I was 17, though, I got into a brawl in the North Side of Pittsburgh and was pushed down some outside cellar stairs. Trying to catch myself, I stuck my left arm though the window in the cellar door, severing the artery and causing me to nearly bleed to death. Ever since, I’ve had a healthy fear of falling and it’s been reinforced by more recent tragedies.

Nineteen years ago, my neighbor Doug, a guy who was all shoulders and arms and a favorite of the girls, was working for a contractor when he fell through an opening in a roof deck for a skylight. The fall permanently disabled him, at 25, and he now lives in a wheelchair and has the mind of a child.

That summer I was working for a company at a suburban airport, replacing the roofs of airplane hangars. Before we scaled the first roof, our foreman said: “Walk where the nails are. That’s where the trusses are.” There was no plywood decking on the hangar roofs, and the only things keeping us from falling to the concrete floor below were the prefabricated trusses. The roof deck we were replacing was a thin layer of corrugated material, rigid tarpaper a few sheets thick.

The heat and the realization that I could become crippled, like Doug, got to me. I was hesitant up there--not cocky, like some of the guys. After a while, they relieved me by having me carry sheets of plywood and push them up ladders to the guys on the roof.

When I write about contractors fined for fall safety violations, I think of workers who made an avoidable mistake, like Doug. Why doesn’t the fear of falling and dying stop contractors and workers from getting too comfortable on dangerous jobs? The answer is simple: They aren't afraid because tragedy hasn't struck them or someone they’ve known, and if it has, it was so long ago they don’t remember. I've had some unforgettable trouble from falls, even after my brawling days.

Sixteen years ago, I was working as a laborer, building a home. The company’s owner was flipping out one day, screaming for a saw, and I scrambled over with the saw. I stepped onto the corner of a piece of plywood we’d placed over the floor joists and the plywood slipped from under me, sending me down through the joists. I caught myself between two joists, saving myself from hitting the garage floor. My left side got the brunt of the fall, landing hard on a joist. That was a painful close call.

But the toughest fall involved my family, before I began covering accidents for ENR.
My dad, Harvey Lea Barnes, had been a civil engineer for U.S. Steel and American Bridge. He’d worked in steel mills across America, and on projects in Europe, Asia and Africa. Once he sent me a postcard from Mt. Kilamanjaro saying: “Some day you’ll climb mountains higher than this.” But his accident happened at home.

Eleven years ago, he was on a ladder scraping paint from the woodwork on the porch and fell onto the driveway below, hitting his head. He made his way to the basement, where my brother Pete later found him lying on the floor. He was rushed to the hospital, his survival in doubt.

He had a miraculous recovery, and came home, but the old square-shouldered commanding presence and booming voice (needed to focus the attention of his dozen children) were gone. He still had a wonderful vocabulary, but he was somewhat retarded.

Several months later, he fell again at home, breaking his hip. That hospital stay was his last; he died several weeks later.

If he’d not fallen, Harve would’ve congratulated me on writing for ENR. “You have a natural inclination for engineering,” he would’ve said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Jonathan Barnes is Engineering News Record’s Pittsburgh correspondent. This story was published in ENR.

Grande Pajaro Rules

2008-06-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

A while back I had a piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on my complicated feelings about my late headmaster from Kiski School, Jack Pidgeon. As was the case in some of my favorite essays, “On The Headmaster’s Passing” was created in a flood of emotion that surprised me. I realized a few things from writing the piece, not the least of which was that I regret not having visited the old man more since I’d left the school.
So I was a bit unsure about what sort of a response I’d get from my story on Mr. Pidgeon. Some former students had a keen dislike for the man, in many cases because he’d thrown them out of our all-boys boarding school. Others have said he was too hard on them, but I don’t know. I often think that part of the problem with America and the world is that more men don’t stand up and tell people when they are out of line. If that sounds sexist to you, then you don’t understand what I’m saying. Driving down the street in lower Wilkinsburg, some idiot throws his McDonald’s trash in the street, while waiting at an intersection, yet nobody says anything. Young boys run wild without fatherly supervision, trying to one-up each other with bullets and false bravado, yet the right people don’t reproach them, or show them a better way. A president seemingly justifies a costly war in a faraway land, and almost no politician makes a peep about it until long after the fact.
Whether or not you agree with my politics, you may agree that people need to know how to behave correctly, and with dignity. Not enough of this sort of “breeding” is being taught, and consequently, we’ve become a nation of whiners and crybabies: My dad hit me in anger. The headmaster was too hard on me. Nobody’s given me a job; I earned every one on my own.
Mr. Pidgeon didn’t settle for excuses or wallowing. He once told me: “Jonathan, get in a better mood.”
Now more than ever, we need a slew of Jack Pidgeon-type tough guys to instruct rambunctious young men on how to behave. And we also need such men to teach the young men how to be tough, but not self-pitying.
I’ve kind of gotten off-track. I began this post in part to reprint some of the wonderful comments I received in emails from P-G readers. To start with, I was relieved to get the first response around 9 a.m. on the morning the story ran, from Mr. Pidgeon’s youngest, his son Kelly, who’s a friend.
“All I can say is…WOW!” Kelly wrote.
I was both relieved and complimented by his note.
Then Dave “Hollywood” Conrad, another Kiski School grad of 1985 (as is Kelly), gave me a shout, heartily approving of the piece in a manner that is unprintable here. He also tried to give me a new nickname, “JD.”
Sorry, Hollywood, I do the naming around here.
Then Kiski boy David Harouse, who I remember from the football team and who graduated in 1983, I believe, sent a kind note:
“Great piece. I had the privilege of having lunch with Mr. Pidgeon last year, and speaking with him as late as March. You are on the money, center bullseye.”
It was good to know that others fondly recalled Mr. Pidgeon’s tough approach, and approved of how I’d described it.
My old music teacher and Glee Club director Mary Vlahos sent some sweet thoughts, and it was actually the second time she’s emailed me about an essay I’ve written for the Post-Gazette. She wrote:
“Well, you’ve done it again with your writing and how pleased Jack would be at how well you write. By the time I had finished reading your article I was in tears—again. We will miss him… Keep on writing, Jonathan.”
Hearing from Mrs. Vlahos was, in a way for me, the psychological equivalent of receiving an “A.”
Barrister Hal Ostrow also was kind enough to send a note:
“I’m a Kiski grad (1992), and I found your column over the weekend to be moving and comforting. I had a similar relationship with Mr. Pidgeon; I spent four years at Kiski, and didn’t get to truly know him until having him for senior English. In the seven years of college and law school that followed, I didn’t have a single professor who came close to intellectually challenging me and stimulating me as Mr. Pidgeon did. I have only seen him a handful of times since I graduated, though we did write to one another and speak from time to time. I am kicking myself for not going to visit him when I was in Pittsburgh last month…Thanks for writing and publishing your feelings on his passing. I’m sure it was helpful for you, and I know it was for others.”
Talk about Wow! That was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about anything I’ve written. We journalists simply hope that our writing will occasionally make an impact, and we seldom hear from readers regarding their feelings on any of our stories. Realizing that I was able to bring a bit of solace to some of the other grieving members of the “Kiski family” was comforting to me. But I was just one of many people in the media who were commenting on Mr. Pidgeon’s death. Steve Blass, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, published a nice letter to the editor in the P-G:
“I was out of town when Kiski School Headmaster Jack Pidgeon passed away, thus this late letter.
I had a baseball camp at Kiski because of Jack. I tried to run it in a fashion that Jack would feel good about. I also tried to soak up as much as I could the way that Jack Pidgeon dealt not only with his students but everyone he came in contact with.
I have never met a more consistent, principled man in my life. I also have never met a man who enjoyed a good laugh or a good story more than he did.
Jack Pidgeon touched my life and I am better because of it. I think I speak for a lot of people.”
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review had a nice story on Mr. Pidgeon, including this gem of a quote:
"I had known Jack since he was my swimming coach at boarding school in 1950. He was a lovely and very kind man, and will be sorely missed," said Tribune-Review owner Dick Scaife.
On Sunday, May 18, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette even included a nice editorial obit on Mr. Pidgeon on its editorial page:
“THE KISKI SCHOOL in Saltsburg was founded in 1888 and is one of the oldest all-boys college prep boarding schools in the United States. A good part of that history was dominated by one man, Jack Pidgeon, headmaster for 45 years, starting in 1957. From a humble background himself, Mr. Pidgeon by dint of character and intelligence became a prince of education and a revered figure to legions of boys. Mr. Pidgeon, 83, husband of former Pennsylvania auditor general and treasurer Barbara Hafer, died Monday of complications of Parkinson's disease. The school community is not alone in mourning its most influential leader. Rest in peace, Jack Pidgeon.”
The Indiana Gazette also had a lengthy and well-researched story on Mr. Pidgeon, and I’m sure I’ve missed numerous other stories that were written about him. One of the most interesting emails that I received on my P-G article on Pidgeon came from David Wolfson, a Kiski boy from way back:
“I just read your obituary for Jack Pidgeon, and I thought I would say thanks for your all too accurate remembrances of him. I was in the class of ’61 (his first graduating class) so I got to watch the whole thing happen. And, oh yes, he caught me spitting on the floor. Thanks for clarifying that; I had no clue why he went so ballistic.”
I was a bit taken aback upon learning that David Wolfson didn’t know Mr. Pidgeon’s mother had been a cleaning lady at Andover. It made me wonder if Jack once had been much more sensitive and class-conscious, nearly revealing his working-class roots. Back then, when he was a young teacher and headmaster in his early thirties, Mr. Pidgeon wasn’t telling students that his mother had been a cleaning lady at Andover.
One of the neatest emails I received regarding my essay on Jack came from someone who never met the man. Tim O’Brien, of Tim O’Brien PR wrote that he was reminded to write to me after reading Steve Blass’s letter to the editor. Tim wrote:
“This is to say that I never knew Mr. Pidgeon, but reading your article about him was a very nice piece and it helped those in my position to gain a quick appreciation for the man. Now, I wish I had met him, so I guess your piece achieved its goal.”
I have not mentioned all of the comments that I received by email, but I must admit that I was more than satisfied with the response from readers. Thanks to all of you writers, professional and not, for chiming in on the life of a great man.

Photo of Jack Pidgeon courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

On the headmaster's passing

2008-05-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

Headmaster. Pidgeon. El Grande Pajaro.
Just knowing he's gone, I really miss him. I hadn't seen my former headmaster from Kiski School, John Anderson Pidgeon, in many years, though I had spoken with him on the phone over the years.
Each time he'd invited me to visit: "Get your ass up here sometime," he'd say. Now he is gone, at 83, and I missed my chance.
I had mixed feelings about Kiski and Jack, which isn't the worst thing because I also had mixed feelings about my late father, and Jack Pidgeon was one of the greatest father figures America has seen. This ambivalence about my old headmaster and prep school in Saltsburg explains why I've been back to the school only a few times since I left it 23 years ago.
I sometimes thought fondly of the place and of Mr. Pidgeon, grateful for what they taught me. When he'd drilled us on Emerson in his honors English class, we students learned why Kiski gave two grades for English: It was the most important subject in the tradition he had inherited. In English, we were graded on both grammar and content because Mr. Pidgeon made us write, and he made us read, and he expected us to accept his challenge to better ourselves.
After Mr. Pidgeon retired years ago, there seemed no real reason to go back to Kiski, since the man who was the heart of the school was no longer there. It would be a different place -- the whole tenor of the school would have changed, I reasoned, so I stayed away.
•
For a while after graduating, I wouldn't consider stepping back on the old campus. And being so much of Kiski, Mr. Pidgeon played a part in my alienation from the school.
My ambivalence toward him was largely due to the fact that he was so tough on us. My dad had 12 kids to keep in line, a great task to be sure, but Jack Pidgeon had to keep in line a few hundred boys at once.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with an aquiline nose and confident bearing that made him seem patrician, Mr. Pidgeon was far from it. His mother was a cleaning lady at Phillips Andover, he would remind us, with the admonition that we should treat everyone with respect.
"Those snotty kids would spit on the floor, and my mother had to clean it up," he said more than once. "If I hear about anyone spitting on the floor ... "
Jack Pidgeon was the commandant of Kiski. He would ride his golf cart to the dining hall for dinner, one foot hanging jauntily out to the side. Then he'd saunter into the building, and everyone would stand nearly at attention. In springtime, if the student body had been well behaved, Mr. Pidgeon would reward us. He'd gather the students and teachers in the basement of the dining hall, which was a serious place, as we had our SATs and dances there.
You could hear a pin drop before the headmaster would render his verdict. When he'd announce that we were getting spring schedule, the place would break into applause. Students and teachers alike were all smiles, because spring schedule meant the usual class schedule would be shortened, with classes from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Those of us who were part of his honors English class saw a different side of Mr. Pidgeon -- a man impassioned by the written word. He made us consider who we were. We learned that "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist," and that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
He so thoroughly drummed into our heads the last passage of "The Great Gatsby," that I still remember much of it:
Most of the big shore places were closed now, and there were hardly any lights except for the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the sound. And as the moon rose higher, the inessential houses began to melt away ...
He made us memorize the passage to teach us the need for beauty, imagery, rhythm and song in language. It is fitting that he would pick a fellow Irish-American writer to teach us. The Irish, as every scribe knows, are among the best writers.
I once told him that I am about one-quarter Irish. "Not enough," he responded.
"Gatsby believed in the green light ... " and Mr. Pidgeon believed in it, too. His job was to educate us and make sure that we could pursue the future he knew we could have if we worked hard. He taught us about the American dream.
•
When I was at Kiski planning on college, I applied to Carnegie Mellon University and was worried that I wouldn't get in. So I went to talk with Mr. Pidgeon about my grades and his recommendation, which I knew could put me over the top and ensure my admittance.
I went into his office and sat, hemming and hawing about my worries, but I really wanted to see the recommendation. He got tired of my pussyfooting.
"You want to see your recommendation?" he said, obviously irritated, pulling open a desk drawer, yanking a piece of paper from it and setting it on the desk in front of him. "There it is."
Then he proceeded to read it, and by the end, I was embarrassed. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever written about me, absolutely full of praise.
I thanked him, shamefaced, and walked out of his office, humbled and grateful.

Jonathan Barnes, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, is a freelance writer living in Wilkinsburg (jdavidbarnes@hotmail.com).

This story was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Photo of Jack Pidgeon by Bob Donaldson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Gift To America

2008-05-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Mary Petrich, Diane Novosel and St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, Millvale

(photos courtesy of Pittsburgh Quarterly)

Passing the little yellow Romanesque church next to Rt. 28 outside Pittsburgh, many drivers don’t give it a thought. Perched on a hill overlooking the highway, St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale is not grand—its pews seat 350 worshippers—but it has been the center of community life for generations of immigrants. Entering through a side door of the church, a visitor ascends a set of stairs and sees a painting of Christ on the cross being bayoneted by a World War I-era soldier. Christ wears a crown of barbwire. A picture next to the warlike Crucifixion depicts Mary grabbing the bayonets of two soldiers on a battlefield.
Croatian immigrant artist Maxo Vanka painted those and many other scenes on the walls and ceilings of the church in 1937 and 1941. The murals are a vivid mix of religious and cultural themes and commentary depicting the struggles of Croatian immigrant workers in America. The murals also represent Vanka’s hatred of war and his disgust at the human toll taken by industrialism. The artist considered the murals he created in the church dedicated to the gift-giving saint to be his “gift to America.”
Not so long ago, some parishioners didn’t recognize the wealth they had, until David Demarest learned of the murals. The Carnegie Mellon University English professor and booster of Pittsburgh’s industrial history helped to generate interest in the artwork by preaching of it to students, friends, and those in the art, education and labor communities around Pittsburgh. The Society for the Preservation of the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka was a by-product of a historical play, “Gift To America,” that was written by Demarest and originally staged at the church in 1981.
Demarest learned of St. Nicholas in the 1970s, when a friend invited him to check it out.
“We came into the church and it was really something else,” Demarest said. “It was just beautiful, striking, and surprisingly enough, quite unknown.”
On May 7-10 at 8:30 p.m., “Gift To America” will be staged at the church. Demarest, who is now retired from Carnegie Mellon, will again witness Carnegie Mellon drama students and faculty helping to produce the dramatic reading.
The one act, hour-long play is a fictional walk through the church and discussion between Maxo Vanka, the Croatian immigrant artist who created the murals, and Father Albert Zagar, the priest who commissioned the murals. The two characters discuss the meanings of the murals, as theatrical lights brighten the paintings. Two unnamed female supporting characters also are part of the play, which is accompanied by Tamburitzan music. The play will launch a campaign to restore, illuminate and preserve the murals.
Organizers of the event timed it to coincide with Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary celebrations. They hope the play enlightens the public to one of Pittsburgh’s greatest cultural treasures.
Vanka was commissioned to decorate the church by Zagar, who sent for the artist when he heard he was in New York. Vanka had married an American and had recently moved to this country, and he hoped to make his name here with the church paintings. Zagar allowed the artist to illustrate his political views, and Vanka understood the opportunity he had. “Father Zagar was one priest in one hundred thousand courageous enough to break with tradition, to have his church decorated with paintings of modern, social meaning,” Vanka said.
He was not a religious person, but as Vanka labored nearly round-the-clock on the murals, the vision he illustrated revealed a deep spirituality. Working from 7 a.m. to 2 or 3 a.m., he was accompanied at night by Zagar, who prayed as the artist painted.
“It was well toward the end of May before the final murals complementing these on the back walls took shape and made the women on their way out after mass stop and weep and burn candles,” wrote Louis Adamich, a Slovenian immigrant writer and friend of Vanka.
In addition to writing the play, Demarest also wrote the text for an illustrated guide to the murals that is free to people visiting the church. His literary contributions have changed perceptions of the artwork, said Diane Novosel, head of the Society for the Preservation of the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka. “Ever since Dave’s play, awareness of the murals has increased. Once we started to tell the stories, the parishioners who didn’t like the murals recognized it was something special,” she said.
The murals express a passion that is universal and uniquely Croatian. After seeing the paintings, Talking Heads rock musician David Byrne called Vanka “The Diego River of Pittsburgh.”
While the murals are somewhat known around Pittsburgh, on many Sunday mornings after Mass, visitors will stop into St. Nicholas to see them. Many will express amazement that more people don’t visit the dramatic cultural site, while others will be visibly moved. One of the people who sometimes lead the way is Charlie McCoelester, a professor of labor relations at IUP.
“The church is unique in that it provides a vision of heavenly beauty and a stark vision of earthly greed and violence,” McCoelester says. “I took a group of Polish filmmakers there and they were shocked and amazed at seeing that kind of vivid depiction of violence in a church.”
Chatting in St. Nicholas Church after a post-Mass tour, Novosel nodded in understanding at the bewildered look on a visitor’s face as he scanned the paintings of a Croatian mother grieving over the corpse of her miner son, the Holy Spirit depicted as an eye with the dove of peace as a pupil, and other images.
“It’s an overload,” Novosel said.
Novosel and Mary Petrich, both lifelong parishioners (Mary saw some of the scenes being painted), lead tours of the murals and spread the word about them through their contact with the public, the media and arts organizations.
Lacking the finances to preserve the murals, the society and church members must witness their slow destruction. Some of the murals have been damaged by water leaking into the building. Some were repaired in the past, only to be damaged again by water seeping through the walls of the church.
Petrich would like to see the church’s brick exterior re-pointed and waterproofed. “That must be done first before we do anything with the murals. I’d also like better lighting installed,” she said, adding that all of the work could cost $1 million or more.
Without help from many more supporters, Vanka’s gift could be destroyed as time wears on. Fans of the murals don’t want to see that happen.
“It’s one of the historical/artistic treasures of western Pennsylvania,” Demarest said. “It’s the repository of real history of people who lived in that valley, and the artwork they allowed to commemorate their lives.”
To learn more about the murals or to contribute, write to 151 Stonegate Drive, Leechburg, 15656; or call Diane Novosel at 724-845-2907. http://www.vankamurals.org/

A version of this story first appeared in Pittsburgh Quarterly.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer. pittsburghreporter@yahoo.com

Fear Of Falling

2008-05-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

As an adolescent growing up in Bellevue Borough, just beyond Pittsburgh’s North Side, I would go with friends to climb the superstructure of Jack’s Run Bridge, known by locals as Bellevue Bridge. I shake my head at the thought, because the bridge traverses a ravine between Bellevue and Brighton Heights, and the deck of the structure is 150 feet tall, supposedly eight feet taller than the deck of the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s not a safe climb.
We’d climb to the very top of the superstructure (without any climbing equipment, of course), all the way up to right beneath the roadway. Sometimes we would drink beers up there, then we’d race each other down the bridge, shimmying around the sides of the huge pillars and sprinting down the ramps between them. We acted as if we had no fear.
From the age of 12, I grew up working in landscaping and construction. Occasionally I’d have to climb a tree to prune it, or work on a ladder or on a roof, and it was just part of daily life, like when my brothers and I helped my Dad re-shingle the house. When I was 17, though, I got into a brawl at a party in the lower North Side of Pittsburgh, and I was pushed down some outside cellar stairs. Trying to catch myself in the 8-foot-fall, I stuck my left arm out and it went though the window in the cellar door, disfiguring my upper arm, severing the artery and causing me to nearly bleed to death. Ever since, I’ve had a healthy fear of falling.
Growing up in heavily working class Bellevue, I was occasionally reminded to hold onto that fear. In 1983, a friend of one of my brothers was killed on the job. Dan was working on a roof and he accidentally touched his measuring tape to a “hot” electrical wire, and was electrocuted and fell off of the house. They said he was dead before he hit the ground. He was 21, and left behind a wife he’d married months before.
Nineteen years ago, while I was working my way through college, my neighbor Doug, a guy who was all shoulders and arms and a favorite of the girls, was working for a contractor when he stepped through a hole on a roof where a skylight had been removed. The fall permanently disabled him, putting him in a wheelchair. He was about 25 when he was crippled.
Doug’s accident hit close, because that summer I was working for Kenyon Roofing, whose family was from the neighborhood, and I had my own job hazards to navigate.
We were working on a smaller airport in one of the suburbs that summer, and we had to tear off the roofs of several airplane hangers, in the humid Pittsburgh sun. Before we got onto the first roof, the owner’s son Brian, our foreman, instructed us: “Walk where the nails are. That’s where the trusses are.”
There was no plywood decking on the hangars’ roofs, and the only things keeping us from falling to the concrete floor below were good footwork and the prefabricated trusses. The roof we were replacing was a thin layer of corrugated material that was just rigid tarpaper a few sheets thick; step through it with one foot and you could fall.
The combination of the intense summer heat, the scary conditions and the realization that I could fall and become crippled, like Doug, got to me. I acted unsure while working up on the roof—not cocky, as some of the other guys did. After watching me working nervously up there for a while, Brian switched me to the job of carrying sheets of plywood and pushing them up ladders for the guys atop the hangar to nail down before shingling the roof. I was relieved.
I think about these and other unnerving work experiences when I write for Engineering News-Record. Injuries and deaths resulting from falls are among the most common accidents in the construction industry, and I often cover safety issues for this magazine. When I see contractors fined for fall safety violations, I think of the workers who made a mistake that could have been avoided, like Doug, who has the mentality of a child and is still in a wheelchair. Easter Seals pays for his apartment.
Doug came to mind when I noticed recently that several companies across the country had been cited for fall safety violations. In a one-month period, five contractors were slapped with a total of $777,300 in proposed fines for alleged violations. And on Apr. 2, OSHA issued $224,000 in proposed fines to a Carbon Cliff, Ill. company for safety violations after an Oct. 10, 2007 accident in which an employee was killed when he fell through a skylight.
My old neighbor Doug apparently absentmindedly stepped through a hole where a skylight had been. I imagined the Illinois worker doing the same thing. The similarity of some of these accidents, and the seeming inrease in such accidents, is troubling.
Ironworker Harold Billingsley, who died on the job on Oct. 5, 2007, is one of the statistics. Laboring on the construction of the Las Vegas City Center, Billingsley was about 60 feet up, walking in his steel-toed boots on uneven decking and going for some extra bolts, when he stumbled and fell through a 3-by-11-foot hole in the decking. Billingsley’s harness wasn’t connected to a safety cable he should’ve been tied to, and he fell to his death. The hole in the decking shouldn’t have been there, OSHA officials said.
These accidents made me wonder why the fear of falling and dying doesn’t stop contractors and workers from getting too comfortable on dangerous jobs? The answer is simple: Workers and owners aren’t afraid because tragedy hasn’t happened to them or someone they’ve known. Or if it happened, it was so long ago that nobody remembers.
But you don’t even have to fall very far for it to lead to your death. Eleven years ago my Dad, who had been a civil engineer for U.S. Steel and American Bridge, was standing on a ladder scraping paint from the woodwork on the porch, when he fell into the sloped concrete driveway below, hitting his head. He went into the house and laid on the sofa. My brother Pete came home and Dad asked him for a wet towel for his head, and said: “I hit my head. I feel sick.”
He seemed a bit out of it and went to the basement bathroom and after a moment Pete thought something was wrong, and went down to check on him. He found Dad lying on the floor of the bathroom. Dad, who had heart problems and hypertension for years, had brain damage. He was rushed to the hospital where they did emergency brain surgery, removing a piece of his skull to relieve some of the pressure on his brain. On life support, doctors weren’t sure he’d make it.
He did make it back—sort of. He made a fairly miraculous recovery, and eventually came back home. But my Dad, Harvey Lea Barnes, with his square-shouldered commanding presence, his booming voice and intensity that could focus a roomful of people (a good skill when you’re the father of 12 children), wasn’t really there.
Dad still had the wonderful vocabulary of his formerly inveterate reader self, but it was like he was somewhat retarded, or stoned beyond recognition. About 10 months after his fall, Dad fell again while at home, breaking his hip. The subsequent hospital stay was his last, as his condition slowly worsened and he died several weeks later.
If he’d not fallen, old Harve would’ve lived to tell me I was writing for the best engineering and construction magazine around. “You have a natural inclination for engineering,” he would’ve said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Harve had worked as an engineer on projects in Africa, Europe and Asia, and had regularly inspected steel mills in Birmingham, Gary and elsewhere, but he wasn’t working on a hazardous site when he fell. He was working at home. But many workers also labor as casually as if they were doing home repairs.
Why do we climb to dangerous heights so carelessly? Climbing the bridge as kids, we scaled the height to prove our manliness. I wonder if the blasé attitudes that some of us show when working up high might be machismo in the face of potential calamity? Or is our boldness just feigned bravery masking denial of our own mortality? Even when our subconscious tries to broach these questions, we sometimes ignore the warnings.
In the weeks leading up to ironworker Paul Corsi, Jr.'s death, he had dreams of falling and premonitions that something bad would happen. On Feb. 11, 2002, the day before his death, Corsi called his girlfriend from work to tell her he didn't feel right about being there. She told him to come home, which he did, but she couldn't convince him not to return to work the next day. He was killed the next day when the truss on which he was working, the 13th of 15 trusses being erected at the David. L Lawrence Convention Center, fell and crushed him.
I was contacted by ENR to cover the coroner’s inquest into the accident, which killed Corsi, who was 38. It was my first story for this magazine, and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala said Corsi and other ironworkers caused the accident by using the wrong nuts to secure connections on the structure. But the D.A. found no one criminally responsible for the accident, which also injured two other ironworkers.
"If you're going to climb the steel, then you've got to see that the connections are made properly," Zappala said.
Connecting the recognition of our own mortality with the best methods of work might seem simple, but it’s not always easily done. The ironworkers at the Pittsburgh convention center thought they were using the correct nuts, and no one told them otherwise. Matthew Abate, a fourth generation ironworker who was injured in the truss collapse, was saved from falling with the truss because his lanyard snapped and he was able to scramble to safety as the truss fell. His lanyard was meant to save him in a fall, but it would’ve helped to kill him if it hadn’t broken.
One could argue that the ironworkers were careless, but all of the men had been climbing the steel for years. It would perhaps be more appropriate to blame the inspectors who were paid to ensure that the job progressed according to the specifications for the project. Maybe there’s plenty of blame to spread around in this sad case.
To remind contractors and workers of the danger of fall hazards, OSHA steps in. Large fines remind business owners that they can’t ignore the rules. For some, such fines also replace the lack of fear of tragedy with an apprehension about losing money for not having adequate safety protections. Even so, people make mistakes. But in construction, a mistake can be fatal.
Sixteen years ago, I was working as a carpenter’s helper for a contractor, building a large home in a Pittsburgh suburb. The head carpenter/owner of the company was a drinker and a hothead, and he would fly into rages over the simplest things, throwing the other workers off-kilter. Bill was flipping out one day, screaming at me and another laborer about needing a power saw, and I scrambled over to him with the saw in my hand.
In my haste I stepped onto the corner of a piece of plywood that we had placed, un-nailed, over the floor joists of that area of the second floor. The plywood slipped from under my feet, falling through the joists, and I fell too, still holding the saw. Luckily, I caught myself between two joists, saving myself from falling about 20 feet to the concrete garage floor below. My left side got the brunt of the fall, landing hard on a joist. My back hurt for weeks.

Jonathan Barnes is Engineering News-Record’s correspondent in Pittsburgh. jdavidbarnes@hotmail.com

A shorter version of this essay first appeared in Engineering News-Record.

Politely Speaking

2008-05-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

I am shamefaced at the thought of what a knucklehead I’ve been. I’ve been discourteous. Even worse, I know better, and still, I’ve acted poorly. I’d blame it on the Internet, but technology could only be partly at fault.
For weeks I have had the phrase “Mind you Ps and Qs” in the back of my mind, reminding me to behave. As a freelance writer, I count on people calling me back so I can interview them for stories. Sometimes, particularly with cold contacts, I won’t get a return phone call saying they’re not interested. But very often, they’ll return my call, even though they don’t know me. The help of these people, though, contrasts greatly with the behavior of others.
Maybe I’m cranky, but I’m sick of the lack of professional courtesy that I encounter. I regularly try to contact people who don’t respond to emails, or don’t return phone calls, or fail to return calls in a timely fashion. But what got me thinking about the lack of courtesy that the Internet has helped to engender were my recent attempts to network with a group of young people who have a marketing firm. These folks are friends of a friend of mine. I had expected a good response, and after speaking with one of them and emailing three of them (one of whom I’d met in the past), I’d received no reply.
You could blame their unresponsiveness on being green, but these folks have had major successes. Which gets me back to “mind your Ps and Qs.” The phrase is an instruction to mind your manners, or to behave properly. But it also can mean be on your toes, be alert.
It dawned on me recently that I needed to remember to mind my manners and to be on my toes. A while back I ran into a local merchant with whom I’m acquainted, who recently tried to connect me with a small business owner who employs freelance writers. I was shocked to see Gail at a local grocery store—I said "Hi" and then turned to walk away. I was embarrassed, because I’d been too rushed to follow up with the friend of hers, who I’d contacted for work. As I turned to flee, Gail said, “Wait, hold on.”
I went over to explain that I hadn’t followed up with a resume after talking with her friend, Harriet, because I’d been busy with work. I felt like an idiot. I knew this woman, and she’d tried to help me, and I‘d blown it. I finally did follow up with Harriet recently, and she was kind and easygoing and I may work with her yet. But the recognition of being confronted by Gail on my bad behavior stung for a while after our grocery store meeting. I realized I’m as inconsiderate as the unmannerly people who annoy me.
These days of email have created a netherworld of dissociated feelings, where people often don’t recognize their rudeness. With email, the lack of a response is a de facto negative response, and many people don’t think there’s anything wrong with such indifference. But responding to an email is as simple as pushing a few keys, though that often is too much trouble for many of us. The lowest common denominator seems to be decreasing, and we’re all being pulled down. It’s tough to fight. You have to concentrate on behaving properly, because there’s no one around to remind you every minute.
Back in prep school, our school had a director of etiquette. This faculty member ensured that everything in the dining hall went according to the rules. Food was to be served to the tables in a certain order, and the rulebook governed behavior at those tables. “When I’m finished with you, you’ll be able to dine with the Queen,” the pursed-lipped Director of Etiquette would tell us.
Dine with her, yes, but would we return Her Majesty’s call? These social niceties are the lubricant of 21st century society, just as they were in previous centuries, yet we often forget them. Maybe we could learn something from cultures that have different ideas regarding polite behavior.
I recently contacted some Japanese guys for a story. Unlike many of my countrymen, the Japanese responded to my emails very quickly. One of the guys responded with an email in which he referred to his friends and me with the suffix –san, as in “Jonathan-san.”I looked up the meaning of –san and I was pleased to see it is a title of respect. Honorifics in Japanese are referred to as keigo, or “polite language.” But I could tell from the context that the “san” was meant to be polite, so the meaning was immediately clear.
Our society could use more polite language and more polite behavior. Most of us know how to behave properly, yet we often behave boorishly. We work to earn a good professional reputation, yet we forget the social graces that are only elective rules because the people who created them were polite. Many of us need to work on keeping our commitments—even the small ones, like replying to emails, returning calls, and following up. So I ask your forgiveness, Gail-san. And I appreciate your understanding, Harriet-san. I have been busy, and disrespectful. I’m working on it.

Jonathan Barnes is a freelance writer. jdavidbarnes@hotmail.com

Saving St. Nicholas

2008-03-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

Susan Petrick prayed she’d somehow know when workers would be removing items from her church, the closed St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in the north side of Pittsburgh. Then one afternoon last March, her son was driving by the 106-year-old church, saw workers there, and told her when he got back to her house. They went over to the church to see what was happening.
Petrick, a lifelong parishioner, saw workers tearing out antique marble altars from the oldest Croatian church in America. As she was catching her breath, a man came up to her.
“You can’t be here. You don’t belong here,” the man said. Petrick recognized him as a member of the closed church’s sister congregation, St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, which the north side congregation had been merged with as one parish in1994, its centennial year. Ten years later, on St. Nicholas Day in 2004, the north side church was closed, and now it was being de-sanctified.
“I’m a parishioner of this church,” Petrick said to the man, trying to control her anger.
“You’re not supposed to be here. You have to leave,” the man said. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the cops.”
“Call them,” she said stubbornly, walking around her church and surveying the damage the crew had done. The framed Stations of the Cross that hung on the walls had disappeared. All of the statues were gone and workers had removed the Last Supper relief from the front central altar and were disassembling and removing the other altars. Petrick was devastated.
She had been trying for years to save the church, and now much of what made it special
had been carted away. Some of it was even being broken and taken away in front of her. It’s the type of thing that could make some people lose hope.
But nearly a year after the destruction, which was done to prepare the church for sale to Italian developer Follieri Group, Petrick says she’s still hopeful that her church can be saved as a shrine to St. Nicholas and a heritage site for the Croatian people. Her band of former parishioners and preservationists, the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, are meeting at least monthly, and the sale of the church to developer the Follieri Group is far from done. “We’re not giving up,” she said.
Petrick and others who want to save the church have won many victories in their quest to save the structure, built with the nickels and dimes of immigrants. In 1922, the north side church was moved up the hillside to accommodate the revamping of Rt. 28. In 2001, the church was given historic designation by the city of Pittsburgh. Five years ago, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials had slated St. Nicholas for the wrecking ball. PennDOT engineers were planning to widen Rt. 28 and the church was in the way of the proposed reconfigured road.
But George R. White, a retired electronics engineer and board member of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, recognized that getting the right of way to a set of unused railroad tracks along the river would enable PennDOT to build part of the reconfigured roadway over the railroad tracks, removing the need to tear down the church and excavate part of the hillside to rebuild the road. A road reconfiguration plan submitted in 2003 to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation by White on behalf of the PHLF was the basis for the PennDOT’s revised road plan. It ended up saving $60 million dollars on the project, which had been expected to cost $200 million. Part of the savings was the millions that PennDOT would have paid the Diocese of Pittsburgh to buy St. Nicholas Church in order to raze it.
* * *
The stubbornness of Croatians is legendary, from their defense of Christendom from the Muslims to the modern-day fight of the Pittsburgh Croatians to save their church. Maybe the Diocese picked too stubborn an opponent in these children and grandchildren of immigrants, since it seems the only way they can be beaten is to sell the church to a Vatican-backed Italian company in a sweetheart deal. The Diocese’s plans to sell the church to Follieri Group, an Italian company with a Manhattan office, seems stubborn. The fact that Follieri chief Rafaelo Follieri romances both actress Anne Hathaway and tabloid journalists from Manhattan (they’ve named the couple Hathielo), doesn’t seem to be a concern of the Pittsburgh Diocese. Nor, apparently, is the Diocese swayed by the fact that Rafaelo Follieri is being sued for millions by billionaire businessman Ron Burkle, who says Follieri misused funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle. Still, Pittsburgh Diocese spokesman Father Ron Lengwin said recently that the sale of St. Nicholas Church to Follieri Group is pending.
“There’s no question Follieri as a company is going through some difficult times,” Lengwin said. “They’ve regrouped, and want to buy the church.”
The Follieri Group is supposedly in the business of buying and re-using church properties, but did not return numerous calls for comment for this story. Still, the question of why the Diocese wants to sell the church to outsiders—people with no cultural affinity to the church and no goal of preserving the identity of the building—lingers suspiciously. Some say it comes down to the bottom line, and supposedly Follieri Group offered more money for the church. But where is the money? Ron Burkle wants to know.
Meanwhile, people with the means and the desire to save the church building are being ignored by the Diocese. A group of prominent Pittsburgh business people, most of whom have some Croatian blood, are part of the Pittsburgh-based Croatian American Cultural and Economic Alliance’s effort to buy the church and turn it into a shrine to St. Nicholas and a cultural site dedicated to the Croatian people. The group also would like to create a park on the strip of land alongside Rt. 28 from the church down to the north side proper, as a green gateway to the city.
Preliminary plans for the renovation of the church and creation of the park had been designed, when the Diocese gave CACEA and PCHF unacceptable terms of sale for the church, and the preservationists rejected the terms. That was in October of 2006, and the church still is empty, unused and slowly deteriorating. But the decision to sell the building to non-Croatians goes against public opinion and the views of those in the Pittsburgh preservationist community.
Dan Holland, chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh-based Young Preservationists Association, said he believes religious properties across the nation are at risk “Our general attitude about historic properties is that if a suitable re-use of a property can be found, then it should be used that way,” Holland said. “However, if it can be used as it was intended, that’s wonderful.”
Preservation Pittsburgh executive director Steven Paul said his group believes the church is a local and national treasure. “We think it should be a national shrine, and was uniquely suited to that purpose,” Paul said. “The Diocese has not acted in good faith to those who want to protect the church, which is profoundly disappointing to us… I’m very hopeful that the Diocese will begin to see the value of preserving that structure inside and out.”
Some preservationists wondered about the particular obstacles inherent in a negotiated sale between the Croatians and the Diocese. “We would all like to see the church saved, but the complexities are still there,” said Arthur P. Zeigler, Jr., president of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
The Croatian preservationists rejected the sales agreement of the Diocese in part because the agreement stipulated that the Diocese could buy the church back for $100,000 at any time if it did not agree with the way the building was being used. At issue is the use of the church building for a specific religious purpose—as a shrine—over which the Diocese says it should have jurisdiction. The sales agreement also would have denied the new owners of the church the right to have alcoholic beverages in the church, which has a basement social hall with a bar. The Croatian preservationists found these conditions unacceptable because wine is used in church services, and also because they envisioned having fundraisers to pay for the $2 million church renovation and endowment that would support the shrine.
* * *
Eight years ago, St. Nicholas Church parishioners first heard of a plan to destroy their church for a road, and they formed PCHF in response. Now, nearly a year after many parts of the interior of their church were pulled out and hauled away, former parishioners of St. Nicholas keep their convictions. “It’s not about faith,” one parishioner said of the struggle to save the church. “These decisions were made by men.”
Susan Petrick, who is secretary of the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, said she would not give up the fight. There are still promising signs.
“I believe my immigrant grandparents and all our immigrant forefathers would say, ‘Save and rebuild St. Nicholas Church,’” Petrick said. “To me, the fact that our church has not been sold is a sign that God wants us to rebuild his church.”
Parishioner Peter Karlovich said he has not given up because the fight is not over.
“The status of St. Nicholas is as much in the air today as it was eight years ago,” Karlovich said. “I believe that the church is a valuable asset to the city. It is a historic building that is also a work of art. It should be preserved to mark the presence of past generations and to inspire future generations.”
Other former parishioners involved in the effort to save the church have said they won’t quit. They won’t allow one of the most beloved landmarks in Pittsburgh to be wasted, or used for some commonplace purpose.
“We have to continue because this is part of us, part of our own history—what the Croatian community has accomplished. We shouldn’t disband because we don’t have a church,” said parishioner Rich Sestric. “We are still alive and want to carry on the culture. The church building is the symbol of us. I’m going to stay until I die.”
To learn more about the effort to save St. Nicholas Church, email Susan Petrick at sypetrick@hotmail.com, or email Peter Karlovich at pjkarlovich@verizon.net.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer who is part Croatian.

This story previously was published in Croatian Chronicle. http://www.croatianchronicle.com/

Love One Another

2008-01-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

A while back I did some coverage on the effort of some Pittsburgh Episcopalians to break away from the US Episcopal Church. In a way, covering the press conference was a weird thing to me, because I had covered a similar story for Reuters a few years back.
I got to the Episcopal press conference on time, and of course it didn’t start on time. The press conference was at Trinity Cathedral, in downtown Pittsburgh. But when I, a reporter from the Toronto Starr and other reporters and camera news people showed up on time for the press conference, an ongoing worship service wasn’t over yet. So we hung around the hallway outside the sanctuary, waiting for the service to end. Finally, the group of bishops solemnly filed out in their vestments, heading to an upper room, where they would make their announcement. Here’s the first part of the story:
Conservative bishops upset with U.S. Episcopal Church stands on gay issues said on Friday they will call a constitutional convention to form a new "Anglican union" in North America.
"This is a time of reformation," said Robert Duncan, Episcopal Church bishop of Pittsburgh who convened the group. "We hope to go through this in a way that brings honor and glory to God."
Bishop Duncan seemed like a fine fellow, but when he said that his group hoped to break away from its national church and bring glory to God while doing it, I was a bit incredulous. Not because I didn’t think Bishop Duncan was serious in his intent, but rather, because it seemed to me at the time that bringing glory to God was not the crux of the dispute. Reuters titled the story, “Conservative Episcopalians Plot Separate Church.”
The Episcopalian story reminded me of a story I did a few years back during the Methodist convention here in Pittsburgh. The story, of course, was about gay issues and the Methodists. Since I couldn’t find the piece online anymore, here’s part of it:
Methodists Fail to Heal Rift Over Clergy
Wed May 5, 2004 07:33 PM ET
By Jonathan Barnes
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Supporters of gay clergy in the United Methodist Church complained bitterly on Wednesday over a refusal by the third-largest U.S. Christian denomination to soften its stance on homosexuality.
Delegates at the Methodist general conference this week rejected repeated attempts to change the church stance and reaffirmed a view of homosexuality as incompatible with Christian teaching. This came despite a church decision, upheld on Tuesday, to allow a lesbian minister to stay in her post.
The conference's position has left some liberal advocates contemplating their future within the church.
"As a gay man, I certainly don't feel very loved (in the church). As a part of this community, I have an obligation to push for greater acceptance," John Fletcher of Minneapolis told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
Here's what happened with that.
All of this stuff reminds me of a piece I wrote sometime back for this blog. I didn’t understand this gay Christian debate entirely then, and I still don’t now. But I don’t think it’s right to exclude gay people from communities, though I can understand how some people believe that being gay is incompatible with Christian theology. Still, why would anyone, gay or straight, want to join a church that wouldn’t have him as a member because of who he loves?
I don’t understand why the Episcopalians and the Methodists can’t simply form their own pro-gay or neigh-gay denominations. You could have the Free Gay Methodists, and the Gay-Free Episcopalians, kind of like the Free Will Baptists . I’m kidding, but I wish it were that simple.
Clearly, what these denominations’ brothers and sisters are fighting about is not only differing interpretations of the Bible, but also power and property. Trinity Cathedral, where I attended the Episcopal press conference, is a beautiful old stone structure with a historic cemetery next to it, where an Indian chief and Revolutionary War heroes are buried. On the other side of the small cemetery is First Presbyterian Church, home of many Tiffany stained glass windows and the former pulpit of evangelist Katherine Kuhlman. It also is the church I grew up attending. I hope I don’t end up there for a press conference in the future.

Resolutions for the Steelers Nation

2008-01-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

I’m not happy about the Steelers loss to the Jaguars, but I am relieved. If they’d won we probably would have had to see them lose further into the playoffs, when it would’ve hurt even worse. Now that the season is behind us, I’ve been thinking of how to rebuild morale among fans of the team and among the Steelers themselves. The answer is, of course, outsourcing. We should outsource some of our Pittsburgh-ness to like-minded folks across the country.
There’s a lot of talk during football season about the Pittsburgh Steelers Nation—the widespread group of expatriate (and non-native) fans that don their Steelers-themed clothes and root for the hometown win. But once the football season ends for our team, we Pittsburghers tend to forget about our wide network of Steelers kinsmen. Similarly, those fans in San Diego, Seattle, Baltimore, and beyond tend to forget about the Steel City when the Steelers aren’t playing. Maybe it’s that aching that we feel when the Steelers don’t win the Super Bowl that keeps us from staying in closer touch. Or maybe it’s the painful nostalgia that expatriates feel when they think of being away from their homeland.
Whatever the reason for our distance from each other, we Steelers fans need to stick even closer together in the off-season than we do during the season. Those of us in the Promised Land of Pittsburgh take our hills, foods, sayings and ways for granted. But people who left, even if they left decades ago, still get a wistful look when they talk about our City of Champions. We know that oftentimes their love for the Steelers is wrapped up with their love for Pittsburgh, a place where they sometimes wish they were, but cannot be. To fight the ennui that falls like a winter freeze in the off-season, folks in the Greater Steelers Nation can do more than a few things to keep their Pittsburgh Spirit alive throughout the year:
1. When stopped at an intersection where you have the right-of-way, wave the opposing car ahead of you.
If you do this, I guarantee you’ll feel like you’re in the City of Bridges for just a moment—or at least until an irate driver behind you honks his car’s horn. We still do neighborly stuff for each other here, maybe because we all grew up near Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
2. At least once a month, say something nice about Pittsburgh to someone who knows little about our town.
Resist the urge to say that you had to leave the city to get the job you wanted, and please do not mention our city’s politics, which are an easy target that can quickly lead to low blows. Think of something nice to say about our city, and work it into a conversation with a person who knows nothing about Pittsburgh or even better, one who hates the Steelers.
3. Give us a call.
We miss you, which is why we tend to turn our backs on you when you leave town. By giving us a call and wishing us well, you’ll provide a psychological boost to Pittsburghers, which could translate into more productivity, greater creativity and a better season next year for the Steelers.
4. Plan a trip to Pittsburgh, then come see us.
You talk a lot to your kids or spouse about the way things were in Pittsburgh, yet you never take them here. Engender a true love of the Steel City in their hearts by taking them to see the homeland. Whether historic architecture, cultural attractions or outdoor recreation is your bag, it’s here. If enough of you visit, the injection of money will have a real impact on the region’s economy.
5. Invest in a Pittsburgh-based business.
There are so many large and small companies here that you have a lot of choices for potential investments. You don’t even have to leave your home to do it.
6. If you have a child considering colleges or technical school, suggest that he consider a Pittsburgh school.
We have dozens of colleges, universities and technical and training schools in the Pittsburgh area. Many of these schools are among the best in the world in their fields. For expatriates, a secondary benefit of sending their children to school here is the chance for the kids to learn the mother tongue. With some practice, your child could be fluently asking “How yins doin?” by the time he graduates.
7. Buy a book or two produced by a Pittsburgh-based author or publisher.
Buying into our city’s literary scene will not only edify you, it will help to enhance Pittsburgh’s reputation as one of America’s most literary cities. And it will inch us closer to being named “One of America’s Most Writerly Cities.”
8. Read Pittsburgh publications, such as the local newspapers and magazines. Publications such as the local newspapers, magazines and journals are definitive sources of Pittsburgh culture. You might not like all of that culture, but it’s still easy to access, and reading it is a way to get a deeper look at the place that your favorite football players call home.

A Christmas Production, by Danny O’Leary

2007-12-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

When I was an adolescent we used to go Christmas caroling. If it was snowing, with large snowflakes blowing wildly, it was an even better time to do so. Back when we were about 13, a group of 10 or 12 of us would walk around Bellevue, sometimes from door to door, singing carols to raise money for charity. Some of the times the money would go to benefit Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital, where my younger brother Pete had recuperated after being hit by a car and nearly killed six years before. That fact alone might have been part of the reason why I was so easily suckered into going caroling, when I would’ve rather have been raising Cain somewhere. The other reason I was so easily convinced was that the girls were involved.
Danny O’Leary, who lived a few blocks away from me and whose mom was our Cub Scouts den mother, seemed to always be the ringleader of our caroling expeditions. Like some salesman of the art of performing, Danny would talk a bunch of us childhood friends into doing something selfless and fun for Christmas. For a time, he always succeeded in getting us to go caroling, and now I look back at the memory as sort of a quaint reminder of a bygone era—back when milk was delivered to our doorsteps in the morning, and when kids delivered the daily newspaper. Even back then, at least some of us thought that caroling was corny, but Danny could sell it.
“It’ll be fun!” Danny would say, wide-eyed and grinning, his enthusiasm reminding me of how he had led our childhood games of Planet of the Apes years before, hanging off of tree branches and acting the perfect monkey. “And we’ll raise money for charity! It’ll be great!”
Danny’s charm would invariably talk me into going, and soon I’d be singing harmony with Penny Balouris, Kim Stewart, Karen Ehlinger, Pete Sourlas and other kids I’d known since kindergarten.
We’d walk up the steps to the front porches of the old Victorian homes in Bellevue and ring the doorbells, sometimes anxiously beginning to sing just after we rang the doorbell, other times waiting for the homeowners to open the front door before we started. Bundled up in out thick wool coats and scarves with the soft snowflakes falling, we almost looked like a greeting card scene as we sang “Hark the herald angels sing” and other well known tunes. Most often, people would hear us out for our first song, then we’d tell them we were singing for charity. Usually, they’d give us a donation and we’d sing another song or two. I can still recall the kindly smiles on some of these folks’ faces as they watched us sing, noticing how our harmony was perfect and our delivery was nearly professional. For some of the old ladies, it was no doubt the first visitors they’d had all day—a sad fact that we realized as we moved from home to home, spreading our Christmas cheer.
Danny had a lot to do with the entire productions. He would warm us up and go over a song plan before we began to carol. We’d loosen up a bit as we began to sing together, hearing again how well we harmonized.
“We sound good,” Danny would coach us. “They’re going to love us.”
Danny went on to study musical theater at Point Park. Last time I heard about him, years ago, he was working as an actor in off-Broadway productions. Back when we were Christmas caroling, though, Danny was the star.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer.

Why do dog owners subscribe to newspapers?

2007-12-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Some days, the best part of the newspaper is the wrapper it comes in.
I say that because I once again judge a plastic bag through the rosy specs of dog ownership. That is, I can't look at a small plastic bag anymore without considering how well it might hold dog poop.
Until recently I was smitten by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's double-ply newspaper bags, which I found to be quite protective of my hand when I scoop up Sam's "business." The Tribune-Review's newspaper bags, which are a garish red (as opposed to the PG's clear plastic bags), are merely one-ply. Until a couple of weeks ago, the PG had two-ply bags, which they replaced with one-ply bags, though two-ply bags are an obvious advantage when picking up the dog's number two.
•
This is the sort of mush-brained thinking that happens to a dog lover who's been without a dog for a while and then gets another dog.
Several months back my wife, Anne, and I got a hand-me-down dog from her parents -- a scruffy-looking, gray-and-black mongrel. His prominent underbite and his slightly upturned nose make him appear scrappy, and possibly part Irish. As near as I can figure, Sam seems to be a schnauzer-chow mix, given his schnauzer-like head, his chow-like build, curly tail and spotted tongue.
He won me over fast, and now I giddily pick up his waste. Jerry Seinfeld said, and I agree, that if aliens are watching us from outer space, they definitely think dogs are the smarter species.
As Sam and I walk through the neighborhood at night, dogs bark in a cascade of woofs and yelps on down the block. The other night two chihuahuas a couple of houses behind us ran out of their front yard and down the street after us a bit, barking mightily at Sam.
"Hey! You two get back here! Mummy can't chase you out there!" the dogs' owner yelled from an open front door. The dogs slowly trailed back, letting loose a few muffled yips, feeling like they'd done their duty.
•
At night, or in mornings, the atmosphere often is still as Sam and I walk through Blackridge, our neighborhood. Train whistles echo up the valley through the community, reminding me of every Pittsburgh neighborhood I've lived in. The calm enables me to think great thoughts.
I consider the legacy that Sam and I are leaving when I pick up his "dump," then wrap the PG bagful in a grocery store bag (because the handles are great), and trash it to send to the landfill.
Maybe archaeologists will dig up Sam's deposits in 1,000 years, analyze the contents, and be reaffirmed in their belief that ours was a civilization that deserved to end, I ponder. I imagine a scientist coming to the revelation that we 21st-century dog lovers fed our pups food from our plates. "Free-range grass-fed filet mignon!" she'll say. "They fed their dogs as well as themselves."
The other day as Sam and I rounded one of the bends of the curving roads of our neighborhood, it came to me. I felt I knew why the PG had such sturdy newspaper bags -- it obviously was a ploy to sell more papers to dog lovers.
I checked the statistics and found a high correlation between dog ownership and newspaper subscription in families, and I thought I had the PG's latest marketing scheme all figured out.
Then the newspaper's management had to change to a one-ply newspaper bag, and kill my theory.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer (jdavidbarnes@hotmail.com).

This story was first published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07348/841666-294.stm

A Pittsburgh Christmas

2007-12-13T05:15:00.000-08:00

I missed seeing “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this year, but one of its tunes has been playing in my head—“Skating.” Part of the tune has a rapid scale passage, and the tinkling of the notes sounds to me like snow falling. As I looked out my window the other day and the snowflakes fell, that tune kept playing, carrying me back to the simplicity of my childhood Christmases in Bellevue.
Our family’s Victorian home on South Bryant Avenue smelled like pumpkin, apple, blueberry and mincemeat pies and other treats from before Thanksgiving through New Years. My sisters and Mom baked the pies, cooled them, then placed a dozen or so of the delicacies on a couple of shelves in a built-in china cabinet in the dinette. We boys would proudly show our friends the variety of pies in the cabinet, making them beg for a slice.
Mixed with those sweet smells were the intoxicating aromas of dozens of different kinds of cookies, brownies, lemon bars and other crunchy deserts, all of which my four sisters and Mom baked and somehow guarded from us eight boys until the holidays. Some of these treats literally were hidden away for a bit, while others were frozen until the holiday. This meant that we boys would walk into the house and smell cookies, poke around the kitchen and the fridge and find none and then be really hungry for the treats. We’d seek out the source of the mouth-watering aromas and find nothing. Or we would find the cookies packed away in the basement freezer, with notes attached to them:
“These cookies are for Christmas! Do not touch them! –Mom”
Some of the batches of cookies were baked in the days just before the holidays and then stashed from us boys. A “batch” in our house was four-dozen cookies—Christmas cookies and gingerbread cookies, chocolate gobs and lady locks, chocolate chips and peanut butter cookies, Buckeyes and oatmeal cookies. The girls and Mom made dozens of different kinds of cookies, meaning there were hundreds of cookies to stash. A few of the cookies would be pilfered as they cooled in the kitchen, but Lisa, Leah, Jennifer, Michelle and Mom vigilantly guarded the sweets and kept most of them safe for the holiday. (In Old English, the word “holiday” meant “day to overeat.”)
After they cooled, the cookies would be carefully stacked in layers of waxed paper in department store shirt boxes, which were taped shut. Then the boxes would be hidden under the girls’ beds, or in their closets, and in Mom and Dad’s room.
On mornings during the holidays the house would smell of warm coffee cakes, which Dad bought at Barkus Bakery, up the street in Bellevue’s business district. He’d buy four or five different types of coffee cakes, carry them into the house with a big grin and be the first to have a piece of the nutty, glazed delights. Then he’d place them on the shelf under the pies in the dessert closet. Dad might make two or three trips to the bakery for the cakes during the holidays. Now, many years later and years after he died, mornings around the holidays can remind me of hot coffee, warm coffee cake and laughter. Even back when, Christmas presents were secondary.
One year, we kids got no presents. It was the year Dad lost his civil engineer job with U.S. Steel, when I was a teenager. Things were so tight that Dad sat the family down and told us we just couldn’t afford to have all the presents like years before, because we simply didn’t have the money.
“We’ll still have all the food and everything like before, just no presents,” he said.
I remember feeling sad that I wasn’t going to get anything, then I didn’t care. I felt bad for my younger siblings, some of whom were little kids. Thinking back to that Christmas, I don’t dwell on the lack of presents. I remember how we were all together—Dad stoking a fire in the fireplace, the girls playing cards with Mom in the dining room, a Christmas tree in the living-room and Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” playing on the stereo.
A while back I was talking with a friend at the gym and I mentioned that when I was growing up our family was poor. (I based that belief on the fact that we only had one full bathroom for part of my childhood, and also because if I wanted a nice pair of tennis shoes, I had to ask for them for Christmas.)
Later in my workout, an acquaintance from the gym walked into the weight room. In seeing him, an African immigrant, I was reminded of his experience—he had actually lived in a hut, in a war-torn country—and I was ashamed for calling my family poor. Remembering the holidays back when all of us were together, I realize again the gifts we had in a good meal, some sweets and each other’s company.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer.

Why I quit Barnestormin (and why I’m back)

2007-12-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

I recently received a note from a reader of this blog, who asked if I was still blogging. It’s a good question, and lately, it’s also a question I have been pondering. The answer is, I am resuming work on Barnestormin, after a sabbatical of many months. You might still wonder why I quit for so long, though. While I don’t think I owe anyone an explanation, some of you have been very kind readers, and I want you to know, if you give a rat’s hind.
I’ve been meaning to get back to Barnestormin, to again pontificate for the truth-hungry masses, but I’ve had other things to do. I’ve also had something of an aversion for blogging, and so I’ve avoided it and worked on other things.
Lately I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot more than I’ve been doing it, for several different reasons, including:
Blog burnout. For a while, I spent a fair amount of time (almost every day) composing essays and some investigative stories for Barnestormin. I got so busy I was able to compile nearly 200 pieces on this blog before I deleted some essays and quit writing for a long while. But I was a bit underwhelmed by the response to Barnestormin, though I confess I didn’t know what to expect when I began to blog. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of really nice people showed up to read my writing and to support my effort. But a virtual pat on the back doesn’t buy milk and bread.
Escaping the weenies. Unlike some bloggers, I got too personally involved with my blog. Some bloggers rarely comment on their blogs, which I find strange. Others don’t allow comments, which is even stranger, since doing so makes such blogs technically not blogs. I took the opposite approach, trying to “engage” my readers.
I found that a lot of people in this little old blogosphere are petty and vindictive, with questionable opinions and motives. That, and other things, made me angry, and my anger crept into my writing. I began to feel icky just being involved with this whole blog thing and I even expressed those feelings in a Q/A I was interviewed for a while back that was done for Carnegie Mellon’s Creative Writing newsletter.
No blog for you. It annoyed me (and it still does) that some people prowl around trying to anonymously anger bloggers, and also that some bloggers have so many axes to grind that you’d think they’re lumberjacks. But I can’t let the weenies keep me down, so I decided recently that I would get back to blogging on my own terms.
Maybe I’ll become a Comment Nazi and destroy comments that I deem offensive, or maybe every once in a while I’ll just delete a post and all of its comments because I wish I hadn’t published the post. You may think that’s not playing by the rules of the blogosphere, but I don’t care. I am the dictator and sole proprietor of this blog and I’ll rule it as I please. If you don’t like it, you can cancel your subscription to Barnestormin at any time. It will cost you exactly what you paid to read my stories—nothing.
A tough line to pen. Though my cavalier attitude might suggest otherwise, freelancing is not simply lying on the sofa and eating nachos and drinking beer while the inspiration comes to you. Freelancing, that is, full-time freelance writing, is about a daily grind of calling people who don’t call you back and trying to meet deadlines, some of which are ridiculously short deadlines. Freelancing is also about keeping the hopper full of stories. Not only must you have to stories to work on now and for the next few weeks, but you’ve also got to have stories set up for months ahead, as well as possible quickly done stories that you might do in the next few weeks. You have to constantly be sending out pitches for possible stories to editors. You also have to stay in close contact with the editors with whom you work the most, and you have to stay on good terms with them, however tough they may be or regardless of how late their publication is in getting your paycheck to you.
And that’s just the journalism side of freelance writing—doing professional writing for corporations or PR and advertising agencies is another thing altogether. Some of those businesses don’t pay you for your work until after the client pays them for the project. That can mean delays in payment that are a few months long. It’s kind of like working for some monthly magazines, which work six or ten months in advance, and only pay you after your story is published. You can grow old waiting for such paychecks.
I also have been doing some freelance writing for a couple of PR agencies in Pittsburgh. I’ve done some writing of presentations and speeches for a government contract for one agency. I’ve also done mostly media training and related writing for another agency.
In the past several months I’ve done a fair amount of writing for a new Pittsburgh monthly publication, Pittsburgh Professional Magazine. I’ve enjoyed doing a number of profiles on people and stories on companies in and around Pittsburgh. In November, I did the cover story on Judge Dwayne Woodruff. I’m hoping the magazine succeeds, because owners Mike and Barb Yablonski are great people, with a great idea and a passion for that vision which will help to enhance life in Pittsburgh. PPM’s stories are not online, but I urge you to read it if you get a chance. And please advertise in Pittsburgh Professional Magazine if you have the need.
Within the past year I’ve been doing a fair amount of stories for a publication that I’d never heard of a couple years ago. The Cooperator is one of a group of publications owned by Yale Robbins, a Manhattan-based publisher that also owns Office Buildings magazine and other real estate-related publications. I’ve been writing stories on the state of the office space market in Pittsburgh for several years for Office Buildings, which is a publication that focuses on market reports and forecasts for various markets. One version of the mag covers Pittsburgh, another covers midtown Manhattan, another covers Boston, etc. I have written stories on the Pittsburgh market, the Cleveland market, and the Manhattan markets. My work with OB led to work with The Cooperator.
The Cooperator is a monthly publication that has editions in New York City, New Jersey and Boston. The publication covers issues and information of interest to those living in or working with co-ops and condominiums. I have never lived in a co-op or condo (though I have lived in apartments), nor have I ever been a resident of NYC, NJ or Beantown. But I’m writing about issues of interest to folks in those places, and I’m learning a lot about managing condos and co-ops.
Back to the book. For several years I have been working on a book that I refer to as a sort of primer to print journalism. I have spent a lot more time in the past couple years working on the book. I started the book out of the excitement I felt at learning the craft, jotting down notes on tips and different tactics to use in reporting and writing newspaper and magazine stories. The “primer” has ballooned into a pretty large manuscript, which includes quotes from numerous local and national journalists and a nice essay by Dennis Roddy . A little bit of what will be in the book has been on this site, for those readers who have paid attention to my stories on writing.
While I have been advised that the best way to sell a nonfiction book is to query the idea and get the publisher to essentially pay you to write the book, rather than writing it first and hoping a publisher will buy it, it’s too late for me to take that approach. Besides, other people, like this guy have managed to sell a book that they wrote first. I hope to be in such good company.
In the meantime, I’ll be posting my thoughts here more frequently, because I’ve missed doing the Barnestormin thing. I don’t know how frequently I’ll post, but I have a feeling I’ll be weighing in a lot in the upcoming weeks. I hope my old regular readers, and maybe a few new readers, too, will be checking out this blog. And if you have an interest in writing, specifically print journalism, feel free to make a comment or send me a question, if you have one about the craft. I promise to respond.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer. Email him at pittsburghreporter@yahoo.com.

You can be sure if it’s a Westinghouse

2007-06-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

Talking about the acquisitiveness of modern America, comedian George Carlin once quipped that a house is “just a place for your stuff.”
Whether the stuff fits the house would seem to be the owner’s concern. But Heinz History Center officials believe George Westinghouse’s stuff is too important to stay in a little museum in the inventor’s “Castle” in Wilmerding.
You might wonder why it matters if the George Westinghouse Museum, a collection of Westinghouse’s artifacts and a $250,000 endowment, goes to Pittsburgh to a site where more museum-goers are likely to see the collection. Those opposed to the move, which has been in the works for years, say their fight is about keeping the artifacts in their historical and geographical context, and about their pride in their town and its place in history.
“When the museum was started in 1985, nobody wanted all the stuff,” said museum board member and Wilmerding mayor Geraldine Homitz, explaining that a group of volunteers assembled the museum’s collection from cast-offs they collected from the old air brake company. “Now Heinz History Center is having the 250th anniversary [celebration] of the city, and they have to do an exhibit on the industrialists, and it’s easy for them to just take our collection,” she said.
Westinghouse Valley
Most people have heard of George Westinghouse, but not as many know of the borough of Wilmerding. The industrialist/inventor founded Westinghouse Air Brake Company in the small valley borough outside of Pittsburgh and the company still operates there, now under the name Wabtec. For more than a century, Westinghouse’s legacy and Wilmerding’s existence have been intertwined. That connection is most visible in the fortress-like stone “Castle” that served as the company’s headquarters and also as a community center in its early days. No matter where you walk in Wilmerding, the Castle is visible with its vaguely ominous presence hulking above.
During his career, Westinghouse started about seventy companies, and several of them still exist. Westinghouse Electric Company, located in Monroeville, is going strong and recently won a contract to build several nuclear reactors in China. The company also is planning to build a nuclear power-focused campus in Marshall.
Westinghouse enterprises once dominated the Turtle Creek Valley. The company’s “mother plant” covered 92 acres through Turtle Creek, East Pittsburgh and North Versailles. That plant manufactured generators for other plants, and in the 1940s it employed 20,000 people. Regional Industrial Development Corporation of southwestern Pennsylvania bought the property for $12 million in 1989 and is redeveloping it as a business incubator site. The acreage is still littered with vacant buildings that once were part of the bustling plant.
With much of Westinghouse’s physical and intellectual legacy being bought up or leaving the east suburbs of Pittsburgh, Wilmerding’s preservationists don’t want to see the George Westinghouse Museum become a part of the trend. They object to how some on the Museum’s board of directors has been working to have the Museum absorbed by the Heinz Museum.
Crucial Votes
Members of the Westinghouse Museum narrowly defeated a recent vote by the Westinghouse museum’s membership to change the organization’s bylaws and allow for proxy voting. The vote was held at Westinghouse’s former Churchill campus, and was intended by some on the board to pass, and thus allow out-of-state members to vote without having to travel to a meeting, say dissenting members of the Wilmerding museum. If the vote had passed, the change would have expedited Heinz History’s Center’s acquisition of the Wilmerding museum.
At a meeting on June 7, the George Westinghouse Museum board of directors voted 7-5 to bring the proposed “merger” of the museums to a vote of the membership. The vote will happen tomorrow night at the George Westinghouse Research and Technology Park in Churchill. The vote will decide the fate of the smaller museum.
In a June 15 letter from George Westinghouse Museum Foundation chairman Richard Shumaker to the museum’s membership, Shumaker states that the Board had considered many factors with regard to the proposed merger, including the museum’s “Mission Statement… the decline in our membership and visitors to the Museum, the wishes of George Westinghouse IV and the Westinghouse family, [and] the future viability of the Museum given its limited financial resources and almost all volunteer work force. The Board painstakingly examined the effect of such a move on Museum members, docents, Wilmerding itself, residents, the Castle, and other relevant factors. The Board studied the effect of a rapidly increasing rental population, police activity, plus real estate and banking objectives.”
It sounds as if some on the Westinghouse Museum board are tired of slumming it, and are hoping to duck out of what they perceive as a declining community. Some of the Westinghouse Museum members think such a move would only impoverish the community a bit more.
Dennis Pittman, a Mt. Lebanon native and the manager of McKeesport city government, is the youngest of the group of dissident Westinghouse museum members. Pittman represents Wilmerding’s Compass Bank on the museum. But like his dissenting peers, Pittman has warily observed some of the moves of the Westinghouse Museum board during the past few years. He thinks moving the museum from Wilmerding would hurt the town.
“They really should be working to make Wilmerding a destination point. Wilmerding still can and should be a destination point. The key to that is this building and the museum,” Pittman said of the Castle and the collection.
Room for compromise
Some Westinghouse museum members aren’t opposed to sharing part of their collection with the Heinz Museum, but they want it back after the Heinz has exhibited the collection. Such an agreement isn’t what Heinz History Center officials want.
“We’ve been in negotiations a couple of years now to have their collection merged with our center,” said Heinz History Center spokesman Ned Schano. “Our hope is that the Westinghouse Museum will merge with the History Center.”
“I’d rather not be quoted,” Schano said after giving the quote to me over the phone.
After making several calls to officials at the Heinz History Center who didn’t respond, I again called Schano and he assured me he would get my questions answered by the vice-president of the Heinz History Center. Instead of receiving answers to the handful of questions that I emailed along, I received an emailed statement from Schano that quoted Andy Masich, president and CEO of the Heinz History Center:
“The Senator John Heinz History Center and the George Westinghouse Museum Foundation are working together to develop a plan of action that will best preserve the Westinghouse legacy for future generations. We are exploring options that are in the best interest of the Westinghouse Museum Foundation’s mission.”
The vague statement would leave pretty much anyone incredulous, given its noncommittal stance. What do Heinz History Center officials fear in answering a few questions about this matter? Are they really that hurting for cash? It all makes you wonder how the late Sen. John Heinz, beloved by many working class people in Pittsburgh, would have felt about this impending move. Would John Heinz have thought that muscling old people to grab their collection and endowment was pomme de terre?
Apparently many of the Westinghouse Museum membership feel that the absorption of their museum by the Heinz Museum would be in the smaller museum’s best interest. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any of them to talk to me about their thoughts on the controversy.
Looking at the Castle, standing in front of it and gazing at its stonework, or even standing inside and remarking on the woodwork fine enough to be in any of Pittsburgh’s elite clubs, a visitor might wonder why anyone would want to take the Westinghouse Museum collection from this grandly historic place, where the artifacts themselves once were part of George Westinghouse’s life?
Recently I met several of the dissenting Westinghouse Museum members to talk about the proposed museum “merger.” The Castle was the obvious place for the meeting. Gathered around a long table in a high-ceilinged, wood-paneled boardroom on the building’s fourth floor, the group of borough residents and museum members, mostly retirees, seemed unlikely dissenters.
George Corletti, a Wilmerding native and former Westinghouse Air Brake employee, grew agitated as he listened to his peers talk about the possibility of the small museum being absorbed by the Heinz Museum. The lanky, gray-haired Corletti seemed to be resisting the urge to stand up and shout.
“All they understand is that they’re going to take the museum’s endowment, and send it to Pittsburgh,” Corletti said, shaking his head. “The museum is part of Wilmerding and part of us.”