Wednesday 2 February 2011

Pittsburgh Girl



In my last post (Girls Night, January 14) I mentioned not being into American football with its first downs, tight ends and wide receivers. Televised football games are the background noise in my house every Sunday. It's a sound that lulls me to sleep, with one exception: when the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing. To be more precise, when they are in the play-offs that lead to the Super Bowl.

Why? Pittsburgh is my hometown. I haven't lived there since I was five years old, when my mother's remarriage turned me into a globetrotting Army brat, but I am still a Pittsburgh girl at heart. Most people I know who left the city feel exactly the same way. It is some deeply ingrained loyalty that does not go away. When one Pittsburgher meets another there is an immediate connection.

It would be generalizing to say Pittsburghers are the nicest people you will find anywhere, but I find it to be true.

It's easy to identify each other. While visiting the salt mines near Hallstatt, Austria, a couple next to us asked, "Did younze go dahn the chute?" I know Pittsburgh when I hear it.

Other verbal giveaways: "How you doin', hon?," "How's come?" and dropping "to be" in a sentence, as in "My lawn needs mowed." The odd dialect is thought to have developed from Eastern European and Welsh immigrants.

My mother could not wait to leave Pittsburgh and never had a nice thing to say about it when I was growing up. She mellowed as she grew older, but I can remember a time when she didn't like to go back for a visit even though her whole family lived, and still lives, there.

I never adopted her attitude. For me a trip there was going home. My relatives still ask when I am "coming home" for a visit.

In the early 1900's, immigrants flooded into the city to work for a pittance in the steel mills. Everyone identified with an ethnic group. My maternal relatives were from Eastern Europe, my paternal ones from Syria, and we knew lots of Italians, Greeks, Serbs, Poles, Irish, Germans. Even today, it is still common in Pittsburgh to refer to someone as "an Italian boy," even though he is fifty years old and his family came over from "the old country" in 1912.

A typical Pittsburgh wedding reflects the city's ethnic mix. In between doing the electric slide and hokey-pokey on the dance floor, a guest is presented with a buffet that could feature rigatoni, stuffed cabbage, grape leaves, pierogi, kielbasa, and sauerkraut. That might be followed by a return to the dance floor for a polka, tarantella or Arabic dance. Later, a huge spread of delectable sweets made by family and friends will be laid out. That might include Italian frizelles, Hungarian nut rolls, Syrian baklava, and German strudel.

(weddingbee.com)
When the steels mills were in full production, the pollution caused from it created a thick black smog that led to Pittsburgh once being described as "hell with the lid off." That changed after World War II, when there was a concerted effort to clean the air and rivers.

When the steel industry died in the 70's and 80's, the town almost went with it. It lost over half of its population. Things were looking as bleak as the narrow wooden houses that still ramble down the Pittsburgh hills. Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown" evokes the mood. A bright spot, and source of great civic pride, was the success of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won four Super Bowls in the '70's.

There was something about a winning team in a losing city that made everyone in town band together to root for them. They always had a devoted fan base, but in the '70's people who had never had an interest in sports made an exception for the Steelers. My grandmother bought one of the original "Terrible Towels" and laid it across her TV during Steeler games. When they scored, she dutifully walked across the living room to twirl it. Upon her death, that towel was passed on to her eldest child, my aunt, who treats it like a priceless family heirloom.

A regeneration project begun in 1977 has been so successful that Pittsburgh now regularly appears at the top of lists of the most livable cities in the United States. The former Steel City is now known for cutting edge health care, education, film locations, technology, financial services, and of course the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The formerly rough working class town is paradoxically home to a lot of old money names like Mellon, Heinz, Frick, Phipps, Westinghouse and Carnegie, to mention a few.

The city once known for its depressing black air has inspired artists like Mary Cassatt and Andy Warhol. Authors Michael Chabon, Rachel Carson, Willa Cather, and Annie Dilliard all hail from Pittsburgh or its environs.

Musicians Christina Aquillera, Perry Como, George Benson, Henry Mancini and Stephen Foster come from the area, as do dance legends Martha Graham and Gene Kelly, actors Jimmy Stewart, Jeff Goldblum and Sharon Stone. David Selznik, the producer of "Gone With the Wind" is a Pittsburgh guy, as are George Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris wheel, and Robert Fulton, who invented the steamship.

With such illustrious figures to choose from, whose statue greets you when you arrive at Pittsburgh's International Airport? Former Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris, in a recreation of his 1972 "Immaculate Reception," a catch made with just 22 seconds left to play in a game that became the first ever play-off win for the Steelers. That act is considered a turning point for the Steelers, a formerly losing team that went on to become the one with more Super Bowl wins than any other (six).


I'm getting out of my comfort zone in describing football plays, but I think I've made my point about how tight the connection is between Pittsburghers and their Steelers. Try to come between them at your peril, as this true story illustrates:

Several years ago, a family friend was involved in a legal situation that could have had serious consequences. He was watching a Steelers game when two investigators appeared at his door with a few questions. His response:

"How dare you come to my home on a weekend!? When I'm watching the Steelers! Who do you think you are? Get the hell out of here!"

They left, no questions asked.

In one of Pittsburgh's hospitals this week, newborn babies were wrapped in Terrible Towels. A hospital supervisor explained, "They're born Steelers fans here in Pittsburgh."

(Mike Jones/Upper St. Clair Patch)
By coincidence we will be in the States when the Steelers play in the Super Bowl on February 6. Despite my limited knowledge of the game (first downs are good, offsides are not the same as out-of-bounds), I can't wait to cheer on the home team.

If you are fans of the other team, I have just one question:

How's come?



top picture: about Pittsburgh.com