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.

flea! Did any of your people wander down to Greene County? My folks are all over the central part of Greene County, Whitlatchs and Brocks and Whites and Fordyces and Livengoods and and and . . .

I have Achesons in Washington and Pittsburgh, and after the move to the big city I have Irwin, Hays, Hawkins, and Reiter. Very highfalutin' too - bankers and judges and industrialists.

Ah, I've got no rich folk. Farmers and laborers and distillers (which I don't think is a polite way of saying moonshiner, but I'm not sure).

edit: though I'm very proud of my Dutch pirate who sailed for the Salee Rovers out of Morocco. He sacked the town of Baltimore in Ireland!

though I'm very proud of my Dutch pirate who sailed for the Salee Rovers out of Morocco. He sacked the town of Baltimore in Ireland!

Cool! I've been to the town of Baltimore in Ireland. It is indeed a port town worth sacking.