The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Pictured above is a bend in the Monongahela River, found just north west of Homestead during a recent walk, here in the Pittsburgh ‘zone.’ That span in the distance is the Glenwood Bridge, a vehicle bridge which carries Route 885 between the neighborhoods of Homestead/Hays and Squirrel Hill.

The vegetation along the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail thinned out just a bit here, allowing me a chance to wave the camera around.

I had a distinct sensation of being watched, but couldn’t discern where my observer might be. Figured it was probably a security camera or something.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Norfolk Southern’s #7002 was just sitting there, all inert. Luckily, a window in the verge presented, which allowed for a somewhat clean shot. As mentioned yesterday, this particular scuttle didn’t get terribly interesting for me until the very end, which you’ll see in a couple of days.

A certain amount of my concentration was focused on the actual action of walking. Despite it having been a year since the ankle situation started, I’m still rebuilding the atrophied musculature. You don’t really think about walking, instead you just ‘do it,’ like breathing. When you’re forced to relearn the procedure, it makes one quite aware of how you ‘carry yourself.’

I’ve noticed that my left foot tends to turn outwards by 10-20 degrees during strides, a left over from the ‘protecting the ankle’ period, and I’m trying to consciously fix the gait issue while I’m walking…

…and taking pictures… while listening to Christopher Lee’s unabridged performance of ‘Dracula.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s the 1894 vintage Beck’s Run Pumphouse, if you’re curious. A bit of signage adorns the fence – here’s a zoom in on it, if you want the official story from PGH2O – Pittsburgh’s version of the NYC DEP – which handles sanitary and drinking water for the majority of the area.

A bend in the river, this is where the Monongahela begins moving in a mostly western direction towards its admixture point with the Allegheny River, where the two waterbodies form into the headwaters of the Ohio River.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

An office complex of some kind faces out onto the trail. I’m led to believe that there’s ‘Gub’mint’ work happening therein, labors of the sort that one does not pry into. Apparently, there’s a fairly significant intelligence community presence in Pittsburgh. The Rand Corporation is based in Oakland, near the Universities, for instance. Naval Intelligence also has offices in the city, or so I’m told. There’s also Department of Energy facilities nearby, one of two which had ‘DOGE’ land on them.

I continued on. This part of the path was familiar to me, having walked it previously sometime in the last three years.

Still kind of boring, but that feeling of being watched just continued.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The King Conan Towboat passed by, on the Monongahela River, handling barges of minerals.

Things get a lot more interesting for one such as myself the closer to the center of things you get. More activity, infrastructure, etc. Points of interest.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s when I noticed where that feeling of being watched came from.

I wanted to scoop that kitten up and ‘put it in my pocket,’ but I’ve got enough problems dealing with Moe the Dog to even think about adding anything else to my list of ‘have-to’s.’.

Back tomorrow.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

Buy a book!

“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.