The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Squirrel Hill to Oakland…

Locally, the ‘bicycle people’ in Pittsburgh style themselves as ‘bikePGH.’

A non-profit, the group is focusing some of its city-wide efforts on pedestrian concerns this year, and offering walking tours through the various neighborhoods which discuss traffic, safety, and transit issues. A recent excursion occurred in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, and your humble narrator was in attendance. Nice people, fairly short walk.

After the tour, though, I got all concerned with pedestrian concerns of my own. Getting back to HQ in Dormont!

I leaned into a five mile(ish) scuttle, during which I feared that my life would be snuffed out by some speeding car or random pickup truck no more than three times. Pretty good for Pittsburgh, that.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One cut through a park, which was horrifically nice and terribly well maintained. The burning thermonuclear eye of god itself stared down at me balefully, hurling electromagnetic radiates with hateful intent. The breeze carried waveforms of airborne micro-ballista at me, in the form of needle nosed pollen missiles. My skin hurt for some other reason, maybe it was the pollen, but… For once, I didn’t urgently need to pee. My left eyebrow also hurt for some reason. The ankle was… ahhh feck… I’m all ‘effed up.

The plan was – and I did check the direction on my little compass – to head towards the Monongahela River from the central triangular peninsula of Pittsburgh, but where I was poised is pretty close to the hypotenuse. One had pondered this route the night before, and ‘step one’ would involve heading towards the big colleges, from Squirrel Hill. Specifically I was heading towards the ‘Pitt’ (University of Pittsburgh) and ‘CMU’ (Carnegie Mellon University) zone of the Oakland neighborhood.

Tall buildings that stick up over the tree line, which you can use as navigational landmarks, are indeed a plus. I used to navigate all around NYC by triangulating the World Trade Center, Empire State, and Chrysler buildings.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a series of ornate bridges, found where the campuses bump up against the park. This particular bridge was closed for construction, but the bike lane remained open and I followed that course.

Can’t close a bike lane, it’s all that truly matters, the bike lane.

One feels very much out of place in this area, as a note. I’m a thousand years old, and horrible to behold in my state of decay. There I walked, scuttling past impossibly young people at the very beginning of their journey.

One must have looked like some sort of ancient mariner, trapped in his endless existential loop, marching around with a camera in a strange city.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Down below, in the park, there’s a set of rail tracks. I did spot a train going through, but couldn’t get a decent shot of it. Fail.

It was right around this point that I realized a new pair of shoes will be needed pretty soon, as too little of the treads on the soles of the ones I’ve been wearing are still extant. There has to be at least 500 to 1,000 miles of wear on the ones I’ve been wearing since last summer.

All this scuttling adds up, Y’know…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

On the bridge over the park closest to Pitt’s campus, hundreds of padlocks are on display along the fenceline.

I’m told this is a modern custom for young lovers to engage in, with the symbolism being that they are locked together. I see these all over the place on bridges, and it’s adorable, but apparently also a source of great angst for the engineers who maintain these bridges. Literally hundreds to thousands of pounds of ‘load’ are being inserted into their bridge equations due to this social media trend. Also, that chain link ain’t structural.

People, huh?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There were still miles and miles, and a river, to cross.

One leaned into it, pushed forward, adjusting the various camera and bag straps affixed to my torso as I did. A good moment to check all of my pockets, and confirm that all the small things which are secreted about my person were still there. Wallet, keys, Leatherman, cash, headphones, all the camera stuff, etc.

‘Personal Area Network’ is the underlying concept that guides me when I’m dressing to leave the house. Everything has a function, and a place.

I’ve had to expand that list since living in Pittsburgh, to include a water bottle, and a few other objects which weren’t part of the NYC version of my ‘everyday carry.’ I’m very, very embedded into the ‘EDC’ concept.

Back tomorrow with more.

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