The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

So… yeah.

Failing to follow a detailed itinerary, which I had prepared in advance, with a literal turn by turn set of directions in the notes app on my phone, ignoring the carried prophylaxis against directional confusion offered by a compass… your humble narrator instead found himself staring down the barrel of a faraway place called Homestead.

There’s a waterfront rail trail I could have picked up from there to get back ‘to the center,’ but it’s a photographically boring route for most of that scuttle. It was also getting quite hot out.

Also, there was no freaking way that I was going to go and walk back over that steep hill which I had just surmounted. Bah!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The 1936 vintage Homestead Grays Bridge is what this one is called.

Spans the Monongahela River, and over on the opposing bank was once found the United States Steel Homestead Steel Works. These days, that land which once made steel is a shopping mall.

I’m here a bunch for mundane ‘business of life’ tasks all the time, but always with the car. Dog food and paper towels at Costco, burgers at Red Robin, catch a movie at the IMAX – that sort of stuff.

In the distance, that’s not a continuation of the bridge, instead it’s a terrestrial road leading down a hill. I cannot say it enough times, how insane and challenging the terrain is, here in the Appalachians.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Hey, it’s the water of the Monongahela River. The muddy color, I’m told, is caused by sediments the waterway picked up on its north western journey through West Virginia.

They’ve got rivers out here which flow in all sorts of directions.

Since NYC is the logical center of all reality, and everything else in the world is just a distorted reflection of or a reaction to the Five Boroughs, it blows my mind that all global rivers don’t follow north/south axes like the Hudson does. What cheek…

I mean, it’s obvious, right? Right? RIGHT?

As a note, yeah I know about the Nile… it’s just interesting that my brain constantly jumps back to the ‘rivers naturally flow north to south’ paradigm, all the time.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Lucky for me, I was distracted by and got to shout ‘Hey Now!’ once again, as Norfolk Southern #6998 appeared.

It was at the head of a group of three locomotive engines, and they were hauling bucket cars filled with a black mineral – probably coal or coke, but can’t say for sure – so – mineral.

It also reminded me that I had to go food shopping at Aldi pretty soon.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One debarked the bridge, and headed for a decision point.

The atmosphere was fairly warm, and the first stage of this scuttle had been a lot more strenuous than I had intended, due to that steep and unending hill. I walked through the shopping mall, which was largely shaded. Debating my next move while doing so…

Bah… better to clip things off. Discretion, valor, all that.

Can’t believe that I walked the wrong direction. Again. Gah!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Another ‘Hey Now!’ buoyed the flagging personal opinion about my own capabilities and efficacy.

CSX #7106 hurtled by, hauling a long line of double stacked cargo box cars. I was in front of the Costco anyway for this shot, so I went inside and bought one of their footlong hot dogs and drank a half cup of lemonade.

Cooled down a bit in there, but your humble narrator was spent. A quick but expensive rideshare cab ride ensued, and then I was once again confronted by Moe the Dog at HQ back in Dormont.

Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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