Archive for March 15th, 2024
Trolling on the Ides
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever I’m under a bridge, one can’t help but go all Brooklyn in my thoughts – “Hey Ma, check me out, I’m a troll hanging out under da bridge.” The one pictured above is the Fort Pitt Bridge in Pittsburgh, spanning the Monongahela River. It’s a pretty city, I tell’s ya.
There’s a few weird cultural things here in Pittsburgh which I still haven’t gotten used to. This area was a frontline during the French and Indian War, and thereby there’s a bunch of town names which have French origins. Thing is – they pronounce “Versailles” as ‘Ver Sales,’ and “Dubois” as ‘Du Boys’ here in Western PA – which causes me headaches, and inflammation.
The Brooklyn way is to purposely mispronounce ‘fancy pants’ words and speak them as they’re spelled – hence ‘Whores Du Vores’ for ‘Hors D’oeuvres’ or ‘Antikways’ for ‘Antiques’ – but the locals aren’t being snarky like all Brooklyn people are obliged to be, and the Yinzers literally say ‘Ver Sales’ for ‘Versailles.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was a short walk, as stated in Monday’s post, one which took place on a fairly cold and windy day. I was quite pleased to reach the final leg thereby, which carried me over to the Light Rail station for a ride back to HQ. The Three Rivers Heritage Trail was exited at Smithfield Street, where I found this charming arrangement of cautionary signage that had been tumbled about by the turbulent atmospherics.
I’m really trying to lean into my exercise schedule of ‘one day out, one day in,’ at the moment. Winter, although it was a fairly mild one, is not my favorite time of year. Luckily, the camera is hungry for sights to see and I have to oblige the thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It didn’t take long for my chariot to arrive, which carried my bloated pre-corpse back to HQ. Embarrassingly, just as I was about to sit down on the train, the T light car I was in lurched forward, which caused me to stumble and fall. Everybody onboard was concerned about the old fellow with the gray beard who just fell down.
I was worried about the camera. It was fine.
Back next week with more from the Paris of Appalachia at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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