The professor hadn’t completed his PhD yet. But he did get a job. In Pittsburgh, at the seminary. This was 1983.
We had lived in Princeton a total of about 6 years in two parts. Two years for a master’s program, a year in California to try on church work (nope) and back to Princeton for four years of a PhD program. Mind you, that was mi esposo in school, not me. I was the wife. My identity was fully entwined with who he was and I will now confess to being entirely dependent on his choices and decisions. I suppose many young mothers of young children are that same kind of vulnerable and expect their spouse to shelter and provide while la mama is nurturing and keeping house. It was the thing to do at the time.
So Pittsburgh. Two years was all we could give it. There were lovely things that happened in that short time, a chance to costume design for a small ballet school, some kind friends who invited me to join their jazzercise sessions, a third pregnancy and the birth of my daughter, for a few.
Pittsburgh has a professional ballet company, quite a fine one, and I was tempted to apply for work with their costume department. Ultimately I chose to avoid downtown, (pronounced “dahntahn” in Pittsburghese) and any paid work really, as my oldest son was starting kindergarten and the younger one still at home. I enjoyed being a mom, and I also had an active brain, and some ambition for my creative self, and couldn’t help finding a place to plug in. I dropped in to a dance school on the north shore of the Allegheny river, met Debbie Benvin, the owner and Barb, one of the moms who volunteered to make costumes. They were ripe for a volunteer costume designer, and I was ripe for the project. OMG that was so much fun.
Working with that little ballet school solidified my hope of becoming a costume designer one day. An early high point of my costume design career was an evening at the seminary, one professor ‘s pet project. It was an upscale talent show he called a salon. The ballet school was invited to come, so we staged a sweet piece to Mozarts Jupiter Suite with four teen ballerinas. The audience sat around the perimeter of a wood panelled hall, with chandeliers for atmosphere and light and a grand piano to one side. People dressed to the eights, if not the nines. The girls, four excited clouds of tulle and satin waited in the hall, anticipating this chance to dance for someone besides their parents. Music began…the entrance. Then the room was still with all ears led by herr Mozart, all eyes tracing the toes, hands, heads and floating path of these four graces. Sublime.
But life in Pittsburgh was less often sublime, more often domestic. I liked our house, a small brick bungalow with no view, perched on the hillside along the Allegheny river that had cut the valley in more ancient times. Yes, the hillside. Very ancient, very steep. Pittsburgh has winters of harsh cold weather, ice and snow. We had one car, a little Ford escort that was hardly up to the task, the hills or the ice. The central road of the neighborhood on the way to our street, handily named Center Street, led straight up the hillside at roughly a 30 degree angle or more. It was made of stone blocks laid by the Works Progress Administration as the country was recovering from the depression in the 1930s. And now, 50 years later, it was rough going for both car and occupants. It could not be called a smooth ride, but the texture was meant to give a vehicle traction up the steep slope. I preferred the longer circuitous road just to the east that wound up the same elevation, but gradually. I was especially grateful for two ways up when snow and ice came through.
The harshest weather I remember was one Sunday morning when my seminary professor husband was to preach at a church on the south side. It was 10 below freezing. My breath froze in the air, and inhaling was a bit painful unless filtered and warmed by my own breath into a scarf. Sometimes cars don’t function at that temperature, and our route was across two of the big river bridges, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, exposing us to wind chills even colder than the already 10 below temperature. I’m glad I have nothing more to say about that outing other than it caused anxious moments knowing that if the car failed we would be at the mercy of some random passersby. Would they stop? What’s it like to freeze to death? I hear it’s peaceful. I’ll look kinda pretty with those ice crystals on my dead eyelashes…. I vaguely recall a small celebration of a successful crossing and return, but that could be me making things up again. Relief was enough.
It was 1983, the same year the movie Flashdance was released, and two years after Charles and Diana married, just for marking time and my hairstyle. Pittsburgh’s steel mills were in trouble or closed, and the local economy was bottoming out. We considered staying there for a short time; housing was incredibly cheap. Driving west along the Allegheny river we dipped into a small neighborhood to look at houses for sale. They were all for sale. All. Of. Them. It was a ghost town. It had been a mill town, but steel production was moved overseas.I wrote this song a few years ago about that neighborhood.
Long long way from home
I worked two days in this sandblasted town
Buttoned my blue collar down
There’s an awful lot of night after hard days alone
I’m a long long way from home
I’m a long long way from home
Rode a Greyhound to this strange new town
Left my Steelers and the steel
No familiar sounds and I’m feeling upside down
The union couldn’t reach a deal
It’s a lockout or a strike, so either way I go
Shift whistle blows and I can’t stay
I work fast though the money comes in slow
Now everyone’s moving away
I worked two days in this sandblasted town
Buttoned my blue collar down
There’s an awful lot of night after hard days alone
I’m a long long way from home
I’m a long long way from home
Mill town air was never very clear
But the people were always good
Now the houses here shed a gritty tear
For the loss of the neighborhood
But most of allI miss the neighbors tabby cats
Most of all
I miss laughter in the playground
Most of all
I miss cold ones on the front porch
Most of all
I miss cheering Steelers touchdowns
I worked two days in this sandblasted town
Buttoned my blue collar down
There’s an awful lot of night after hard days alone
I’m a long long way from home
I’m a long long way from home
In 1985 we left for Richmond, and not long after that Pittsburgh enjoyed a renaissance. I hope those houses became homes again.