An agonizing scuttle
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Y’know what? A broken ankle really hurts, even four months later when you’re officially ‘on the mend.’ After getting off of the ‘T’ Light Rail, which I had ridden into town here in Pittsburgh after attending a ‘PT’ or Physical Therapy appointment nearby The T’s last stop, the ankle was definitively not happy. A weird clicking sensation was occurring on downsteps, and the muscular atrophy in my hips and upper thighs, caused by sitting in a wheelchair for two months, made itself known.
I walked half way out onto the Smithfield Street Bridge, which I had intended to cross from the other side of the river, but every step became an act of will to complete and I had debarked the T a stop earlier than my planned location.
This experience reminded me of the first time I walked to Dutch Kills from Astoria back when I first started getting interested in Newtown Creek after the cardiac incident almost twenty years ago. I was using a cane in those days, and the two and change miles walk to the waterway exhausted my reserves and it took me a couple of hours. It was a long walk, back then.
A couple of years later and this became a half hour to 45 minute walk, from Astoria to my beloved creek. You gotta just suck it up, sometimes, knowing that payoff is coming down the line. Push! Lean into it!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination and reward for all this effort were about a half mile (or a little more) away from this spot. Normal circumstances would describe the following path as a 15 minute walk. It took me an hour. Luckily, one of my favorite podcasters – Dan Carlin – had just released a ‘Hardcore History Addendum’ broadcast featuring an interview with journalist Zeinab Badawi discussing the African Kingdom of Kush. (Spotify link). Worth a listen, and it’s a subject seldom discussed.
It was about 5 p.m. when I was walking around, a pretty busy interval in Pittsburgh as everybody is moving around and going from one place to another. Auto traffic is pretty heavy, and what they call ‘rush hour’ occurs. As a former New Yorker… it’s not heavy highway traffic if it’s moving at 35 mph. Hell, it’s not heavy traffic unless you put your car in park on the BQE and lie out on the car’s hood to work on your tan while waiting for things to loosen up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, I’m goofy for funiculars, so when I saw the incline moving around on snow covered tracks, I couldn’t resist. The fact that I got to stand still for a couple of minutes didn’t hurt either.
I still had the better part of a mile ahead of me, so I leaned into the walk and got moving. Unfortunately, and this wasn’t intentional, my stride length had diminished seriously at this point. I found myself walking like a penguin, with short steps and swinging my hips around more than my legs. Doesn’t matter, said a humble narrator out loud, got to keep moving. If you stop moving, you die.
You have no idea how horrible it is to have ‘me’ inside of my head. I’m tougher intellectually than I am physically, and I’m often a real dick towards myself.
Back tomorrow.
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Silver, blue, or red?
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, your humble narrator attended a ‘PT’ or Physical Therapy appointment to facilitate the continuing medical recovery period after breaking my ankle back in September.
This week’s photos were captured during an actual photowalk, which is the first true scuttle I’ve taken in four months. After my assignation with the PT people, during which I was put through several paces, one limped over to the T light rail stop and headed into town. Along the way, I was shooting out of the windows on the light rail, as it was an unfamiliar line. I normally use the Red Line service, and I think that I was riding on the Silver Line but I’m not entirely sure. From where I boarded, nearby one of the service’s terminal yards, it could be any of them, and since they all go to where I planned on debarking – win.
A few disturbing things began to occur on the earliest part of the scuttle, notably a clicking sensation in the bad ankle, when transiting through a stride. It didn’t hurt, at first, but the sensation was disconcerting and persistent. I also noticed that the length of my stride had noticeably shortened. Normal, for me, is each step spans a sidewalk box line on every step.
By the time my day ended, it was three steps for every sidewalk box and the last mile took me 45 minutes to walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve frequently driven through the section of Pittsburgh that this T line travels along, and that’s Saw Mill Run/Route 51 pictured above, as seen from the altitude of the cantilevered tracks that the T rides on in this section.
$3, if you’re curious. That’s the fare. I’m thinking that at some point in the next few weeks I might just buy a ‘hop on/hop off’ (about $20, if memory serves) day pass to the T and spend some time at these elevated stations with a zoom lens. It’s neat, along this corridor.
The ankle was singing its song by this point. I’m normally quite sore after the PT sessions, and that was a consideration when I had resolved to ‘walk three miles’ on this particular day. It ended up being just under four miles, but that’s a subject for subsequent posts to explore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My original plan was to take the T to the other side of the Monongahela River and walk back across on the Smithfield Street Bridge prior to heading down towards a nearby set of rail tracks, but amendment occurred due to the ankle’s operatics, and I shaved a mile off the walk by debarking the T at the Station Square stop instead.
It was in the high thirties, temperature wise, and two weeks worth of snow and ice were releasing away from the ground. It wasn’t icy, but it was wet, and as I keep on reminding myself that ‘discretion is the better part of valor’ and to error on the side of caution as I get back to speed.
Scuttle. Ow! Scuttle, ow! Ow! Ow! It was like that.
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.
The day, finally, comes
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Friday, Pittsburgh warmed up past the freezing mark.
Unfortunately, I had a ‘PT’ or ‘Physical Therapy’ appointment mid afternoon, but I also had a plan. The car was left back home in my driveway, and a cab ride took me to my appointment. After an hour of getting the actual heck beaten out of me by trained professionals, the camera bag was affixed over the filthy black raincoat and your humble narrator embarked on the first actual scuttle he’s been capable of in a very long time.
The plan involved me walking the better part of a mile, to find the terminal stop for all three of Pittsburgh’s light rail ‘T’ lines at the South Hills Village station and then catch an inbound train set. Good news is that most of that distance was accomplished by walking through a heated and evenly floored shopping mall. Part of the plan which I didn’t count on is how incredibly diminished my physicality is, after this whole broken ankle experience.
That first mile was agonizing, despite it taking place mostly on those polished mall floors. Made it though. You have to ignore pain, and then lean into it, otherwise you’re a wuss. Brooklyn!
This is the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was quite glad to to see the Pittsburgh bound ‘T’ arrive. It’s immaterial which line you pick up here (there’s three – silver, blue, and red. I normally use the red line from HQ in Dormont), as they’re all -ultimately- heading towards the same place and this is one of the terminal stops. I think the one I boarded, pictured above, was the Silver but I could be wrong. At any rate, I was happy to just be sitting down. I’ve also really missed having this service available to me during all of this disability time.
Since this line was traveling on a set of tracks unfamiliar, I decided to shoot out the windows as we moved along. The ankle was angry.
The PT session had involved a stationary bicycle, weight machine leg presses, and several odd exercises (one of which sees an elastic belt strung twixt the ankles and you ‘crab walk’ sideways with it on and stretch it out laterally. This is harder than it sounds). What emerged during this walk, however, is that my stride length has greatly diminished. Something else I need to work on, I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s suburban in character, the South Hills Village area, and the T runs on a dedicated track which travels past the back yards of mostly one family houses, the odd medical building or warehouse, and then past apartment houses as population density grades higher and higher, and eventually The T runs onto a cantilevered elevated track which is set into the side of a very steep hill as it nears the center of all things in the City of Pittsburgh. It’s all very complicated.
Back tomorrow, with more from this return to a scuttling form of life.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
Bother
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Snow, snow, snow. That’s what we’ve had here in Pittsburgh for the last couple of weeks. One has been as careful as possible, given the ankle situation, but I still have to attend my PT or Physical Therapy appointments twice a week at this point so snow or not – I gotta go. The Mobile Oppression Platform, a Toyota, has been performing ably in these challenging situations. There’s a transmission setting for ‘trail’ onboard, which allows for full all wheel drive and lessens torque in the drive wheels which ameliorates slipping.
This weather has been an absolute misery, which is so much worse for Our Lady of the Pentacle as my infirmity has resulted in her having to shovel the snow, and be the solo walker for Moe the Dog. Moe pees a lot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems like every 48 hours or so, a new band of winter weather smacks into the area. Temperatures have been frigid as well, single digits at night and never getting out of the 20’s during the day. Today is meant to be relatively warm – 36 degrees – and I’m hoping that this afternoon I can get out and about for a few hours with the camera.
Practice has long been to maintain a couple of weeks worth of photos, ahead of what’s being published here, in order to maintain the daily schedule. The shots you’re looking at right now were developed in photoshop just last night. I hate rushing about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s the oft mentioned Mobile Oppression Platform in the shot above, caked in snow and ice. That’s my back yard and driveway, if you’re curious, and I shot this one from an open garage door. Why don’t I keep my car in the garage, a certain fellow named George is about to ask…
Answer is that the car is too tall to fit through the 1960’s era garage door.
I use the garage for storage, and I’ve set up a table in it to use as a desk for scanning the news while drinking my morning coffee, and for ‘writing posts’ time. Some variation of the scene above is usually what I’m looking at while jotting off these missives.
Back next week.
“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.
Going home empty
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A last triad of images, from a rather unproductive afternoon, but given that in this post-broken ankle interval, I’m vaingloriously trying to maintain a daily schedule here in the absolute trough of a Pittsburgh winter, it’s the best I could do. Norfolk Southern let me down, there should be trains moving around in the shot above. Blast!
I was prepared, by the way. I had a radio scanner in my camera bag and everything, but no activity. Thwarted!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was cold and bored, so for some reason this vine imprisoned hunk of cement on the rail bridge caught my eye. After about a half hour or so of waiting around, I limped over to the Mobile Oppression Platform (a Toyota) and fired the engine up.
With the exceptions of the days I go to ‘PT’ or ‘physical therapy’ and the day directly following one of the sessions when sore, I’m beginning to feel ok most of the time, regarding the injury. The PT sessions involve a lot of targeted exercises which are coached directly by the therapist. These include some time on a leg press, an interval on a sort of bike, stretches, and there’s a few things they have me doing which just look ridiculous.
At least they do when I perform them, as I’m fairly comical to watch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The nose of the MOP was pointed towards home. This time around, I opted to use the West End Bridge, which I’ve mentioned several times before in connection with walking rather than driving over it.
You’ve got pretty good views from this bridge, which hangs over the headwaters of the Ohio River. 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 