Welcome, lurkers!

I'm thrilled about Pittsburghians. Welcome LWA--- (not using the whole name, does that help?) and Mala! It's a gorgeous city now. My sister used to live on Mauwhinny (sp?) Street when she was getting her BFA at CMU, which was Carnegie Tech then. The whole street was torn down to make way for the new art museum. If the end doors of the factory were open at night, you could see glowing liquid metal being poured at Bethlehem Steel, as we drove home from visiting C Tech back then. I grew up in an historical fort town in Westmoreland County, next to and prettier than Latrobe, from which reservoir waters Rolling Rock beer is brewed (or used to be). I knew about Connie and Parker, but sox, I thought you live near DC!

I live north across the Golden Gate Bridge from SF in Marin County, and early-retired exactly three months ago after 30 years working as a paralegal in Oakland. I've never spent this much time in my home town and county before, and wow, it's a great place to live. The politics are much more to my liking than PA also. I know I'm lucky and boy howdy do I appreciate it. I'm taking some classes for fun at the local community college (mid-term next week!) and checking the movie and some of the show threads from time to time. I see some B'tsas locally and love knowing all the people here and love love love reading Natter when I have the time.

PS Tim has a new show called Terriers? This wasn't posted in Press because why?

Aw, I love stories of Old Pittsburgh.

Hiya vroom and lwa!

I learned to knit in a yarn store on a lunch break. I haven't done it for a while but maybe I'll get back into it this winter. I knit rectangular things, tubular things, and once a hat.

I'm smonster, I live in NC, and I'm in the process of changing jobs. I have two cats and a doggie who found me. I am in Bitches, Natter, tv threads, Movies, and Music, though I suspect I will have to give up some of those since my new job is not computery.

Is that anything like "Pittsburgh-that-was"?

Java cat, I moved from Baltimore to PA three (gak!) years ago. It was a good decision. And I miss home something awful even 3 years later, but this board kept me from completely losing it during the move.

Hey, I like the lwa.

And I'm a Tartan, too! I graduated from CMU, but my dad was a Carnegie Tech alum, and he refused to call it Carnegie Mellon. We don't live all that far from campus as we are in Forest Hills.

While I have very dim memories of the steel era and I can remember seeing the differences in the buildings when they began the clean-up effort in the 80s when I was visiting family in the summers, I did not grow up in Pittsburgh. I was born here, most of my family is from here, but from the ages of 4 to 22, home was Carlsbad, CA. I love living here, but I've come to know the city while it was reinventing itself.

smonster--best of luck with your new job!

I would highly recommend Regent Cruise Lines for working, if for no other reason that they are small and nice.

My mom and I sailed on Regents, the boat was very nice, and the crew all seemed pretty happy. I got to know some of them pretty well, and some of them had worked on other lines. they had good things to say about Regents.

Sox, wow, I'm behind on info. Well, welcome to Penn's sylvania.

My mother, who was born in 1916 and who is doing pretty well these days, played bridge with her contemporary Peg Kemper, whose father was an MD in Pittsburgh, so, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Peg said that they had to wash their curtains every week, there was so much soot in the air.

Except for some shopping, visiting the sister, and cultural stuff with the family or school field trips, I didn't spend much time anywhere except around my home town. I moved to Calif. just a few years after high school. But! I went to a 50 yr. reunion of contemporaries of my parents at their son's house on Burry Avenue in Bradford Woods -- isn't that part of Forest Hills? Very pretty. I know Sewickley better from horse world stuff.

eta: after a little Google mapping, nope! It's pretty shocking how bad my geography is for anything not right next to the old hometown.

If anyone is interested in ancient (i.e. 19th century) Pittsburgh history, I have been doing some genealogy about my family there. My family dominates Washington, PA, from about 1790 on and my branch went to Pittsburgh in the 1840s; my grandfather was born in Shadyside in 1913. The Pittsburgh family memoir The Spencers of Amberson Avenue by Ethel Spencer (a good read!) is by his first cousin. Everybody is buried in Allegheny Cemetery. I think one of these years I'm going to need to do a Pittsburgh and Washington genealogy field trip.

My Pittsburgh people are Pernells. If any of us are related that would be fun.