Here: An Index

Here is a weekly feature produced by Post-Gazette photographers and writers who roam the region to capture close-up slices of life here. Click the pictures to view each week's photo and text package.

Links go live on the date shown in the headline above each photo:

May 1, 2005: In Sarver

Lots of people feed the birds. But not like Ken Kostka. On a recent Monday morning, his day off work as a substitute English teacher and Wal-Mart clerk, Kostka packs the bird food -- bags of crickets and a big box full of wiggly mealworms -- into his minivan, which is piled with other gear: binoculars, spotting scope, metal bird leg bands. He drives to the Saxon Golf Course in Sarver, Butler County. It's home to one of the region's few active colonies of purple martins, a species of songbird that nests in large houses that used to be quite popular for people to build and maintain.

Photo and Story by Bob Batz Jr.

April 24, 2005: In Harmar

What well may be the region's littlest police station bears the signs of two departments on the outside but has room for just one officer inside. Especially when the officer is as beefy as Jeff Stinebiser. He is a patrolman for the Oakmont police. But on this morning, as he is Wednesdays through Fridays, he's stationed on Harmar soil, in a roughly 4-by-5-foot wooden booth that belongs to Oakmont.

Photo by John Beale ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

April 17, 2005: In Vandergrift Heights

At sundown an old man shuffles down Sycamore Street, past a barking dog and a backyard crowd of concrete saints. He stops, stuffs his cheek with tobacco, then eases down the cellar steps of the yellow brick building. His membership card opens the door to a cozy, companionable cave. It's Cinch Night at the Bari Club in Vandergrift Heights. The old man is first card-player in.

Photo by Bob Batz Jr. ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

April 10, 2005: In Vinegar Hollow

At first, the well-worn path seems like any other walking trail through the woods. The occasional bird flutters above, the smell of decomposing leaves fills the nose, and the gurgle from a small creek that runs alongside the path tinkles in observant ears. No wonder this is a favorite destination for local dog walkers, runners and hikers. It's not until you get about a quarter-mile into this tiny valley known as Vinegar Hollow and look up the hill to the left that you make out the obelisk-like remnants of an old stone chimney. And that's when it hits you: yours is not the first generation to trample up around in these parts.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Gretchen McKay

April 3, 2005: In Allentown

Furnish A Start is a small, low-profile agency that provides onetime gifts of furniture for people who are starting over -- often after homelessness, house fires, domestic abuse or prison.

Photo and Story by Bob Batz Jr.

March 27, 2005: In Deutschtown

It's easy to imagine the fear an 18-year-old Frank Stehr must have felt when he left his native eastern Germany in 1949 to seek his fortune in America. Armed with little more than a burning ambition, he spoke almost no English. And he'd never met the relative he'd be staying with, a much older sister who'd immigrated to Pittsburgh's North Side before he was born. But he found one thing to comfort him, and more than 55 years after arriving in Pittsburgh and discovering the group, Stehr is still singing with Teutonia Mannerchor.

Photo by Alyssa Cwanger and Story by Gretchen McKay

March 20, 2005: On the South Side

Very Cherry Art and Antiques is one of those tiny storefronts on East Carson Street that are utterly packed with stuff -- costume jewelry, vases, paintings, statuettes. Some of the items are quirky. Hanging on one wall, for example, is a framed series of blurry pictures showing a young Arnold Schwarzenegger asleep on a passenger airplane. And on the glass counter top is a white turn-of-the-century urn that contains a most unusual specimen. Sometimes, if you stare down into the urn, two beady little eyes will stare back at you. In time, a furry head the size of a golf ball will emerge. You've just found Billy.

Photo and Story by Steve Mellon

March 13, 2005: In Grapeville, Westmoreland County

Fire reigned over Grapeville for more than a century, burning white-hot inside two pop-bottle shaped furnace chimneys of Westmoreland Glass. But like many industries, Westmoreland Glass shut down in the mid-1980s. Artists moved in for a while, then party people. Someone's collection of stripped automobile skeletons found its final resting place in the powerhouse. In 1996 the buildings burned in a fabulous, 40-alarm fire. Now water and rust are taking their turns at the forgotten factory, which now looks like a wrecked aquarium.

Photos by V.W.H. Campbell Jr. ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

March 6, 2005: In McKeesport

Tucked into a skinny storefront on a one-way side street in what's left of downtown McKeesport, in the shadow of the blue onion domes of Holy Virgin Dormition Russian Orthodox Church, is a shop straight out of the old days: The H & H Fish and Poultry Market. Unless you're a regular, or at least a local, you've likely never heard of it. But it's been here since the 1920s. It's hardly changed.

Photos by John Beale ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

February 27, 2005: In Brighton Heights

The Little Sisters of the Poor home was abuzz about the coming of the giant cow. Or, giant turkey, as administrator Mother Mary Vincent Mannion thought, having misheard the details -- to her colleagues' laughing delight. Then it rolled into the lot behind the Brighton Heights home for the elderly Tuesday: A nearly 4,000-pound, 14-foot-high Holstein, one of three moo-ving billboards for the Turkey Hill Dairy in Lancaster County. The occasion: the 18th birthday of Lauren Mizak.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

February 20, 2005: On the South Side

The doors have been open less than 20 minutes when the line of want-to-be bingo players swells to the point that it snakes down the third floor hallway and around the corner toward the elevator at the Goodwill Building on the South Side. Over the din, a voice cries out slowly and with emphasis, "If you don't have a reservation, you won't get a seat. If you don't have a reservation, you won't get a seat." It is by all accounts a typical bingo night in the 'Burgh, except the crowd is populated evenly by men and women, the games carry catchy names like "Top or Bottom," "Whore-izontal" and "Quickie," and the intermission entertainment features a performance by Kierra Darshall doing a killer imitation of Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out." As the advertising flier warns, "This is NOT your grandma's bingo." This, ladies and gentlemen, is OUTrageous bingo.

Photos by Lake Fong ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

February 13, 2005: In Uptown

George Moses can't wait to take his grandsons to Frank's place. For 33 years, Frank Pelmon Jr. has given Moses his weekly shave and a little off the top. He did it the old-fashioned way. He'd sit Moses in the red upholstered chair and lean him back. Moses would rest his eyes and shut out the woes of the world. Mr. Frank shaved Moses' dad. He shaves Moses. He shaves Moses' son. The weekly task has grown into an honored family tradition. Mr. Frank cut Moses' hair for the funerals of his dad and mom. He cut the hair of Moses' son all through high school and college. A visit to Frank's place became a rite of passage.

Photos by J. Monroe Butler II ~ Story by Erv Dyer

February 6, 2005: In Downtown

Like so many Pittsburghers, Brian Widmer starts the mornings by making coffee. Only he typically makes several hundred pounds of it. Widmer is the manager/roaster at Nicholas Coffee & Tea Co. It claims to be the oldest coffee roaster and retailer in the state, having been operating in Downtown's Market Square since 1919. The actual mechanical roaster only looks that old. But the equipment and process haven't much changed in decades.

Photos by John Beale ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

January 30, 2005: In Beechview

Despite the twin "Do Not Enter" signs at its midpoint, Canton Avenue isn't a one-way street. It's a no-way street. No way you're going to drive up it. Not this time of year, when it's covered with ice and snow. This Beechview byway is way too steep -- even to plow. It's the steepest street in this hilly town and, probably, the region, with a grade of 37 percent -- that is, rising 37 feet per 100 feet of run. That doesn't stop people from trying to drive up it. Not many make it. So says Dolores Love, who lived in one of two houses on the precipitous part of the pathway back in the late 1970s and stayed in this roller-coaster neighborhood, which can boast several of Pittsburgh's most upright roadways.

Photos by Martha Rial ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

January 23, 2005: In Allegheny West

Ever since she was a girl tagging along with her aunt as she did domestic work in the grand homes of Ben Avon Heights, Maezella Simpson has loved beautiful old things. Now she's officially "In Love With Yesterday's Antiques & Collectibles." That's the name of the storefront she opened Jan. 7 at 860 Western Ave. in the city's Allegheny West neighborhood. She's only been wanting to have her own antique shop for 40 years.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

January 16, 2005: In Old Crabtree

Out in the driveway at T & T Fur Post in Old Crabtree, the boys are loading 1,000 raw deer hides into a panel truck. The flattened gray fur coats were worn by former Westmoreland County does and bucks right up until hunting season. Out here it's cold. The work is ugly. The beauty is inside. The shop was once a garage. It takes a minute for eyes to adjust to the dim light, so don't bump into the plastic grocery bags hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Inside each is a frozen raccoon. They're dripping. "Don't look in the buckets," warns Theresa Siko, the sole proprietor. "Don't walk under them bags." Siko is short and broad-shouldered with rosy cheeks, a blond ponytail and nut-brown eyes. Her apron and jeans and boots and hands are dirty with the day's work. She glows with happiness. "This is my world, 12 hours a day. I love it here," she said. "I can't imagine doing anything else."

Photo by V.W.H. Campbell Jr. ~ Story by Rebekah Scott.

2004

December 26, 2004: On the South Side

If one of your holiday gifts is really crappy, it could be these guys' fault. Matt Indovina, with help from Grant Bobitski, makes and sells from his South Side basement -- well, there's no other way to put it: fake crap. Actually, there are other ways to put it, but not in a daily newspaper. These two dementedly clever nearly 30-year-olds have invoked most of them in launching their bizarre business, Custom Piles, which caters to other wise guys and gals. "It has to be one of the most universal pranks you can pull," says Bobitski, who swears his own mom gave him fake pooch poop for Christmas when he was in third or fourth grade. This is not your father's gag prop, which likely was made of rubber in some overseas factory.

Photo by Matt Freed ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

December 19, 2004: In Jollytown, Green County

When Tracy Crawford and her husband, William, first moved to Jollytown, she was surprised when someone told her there was a stack of Christmas cards waiting for her at the Community Hall just a few steps from her home. But after 14 years in the tiny rural community in Greene County that sits on the Mason-Dixon line, Crawford happily participates in the quaint tradition that has marked the Christmas season there for decades. Instead of spending money to mail cards, neighbors in Jollytown and the surrounding area simply drop them off for each other at the Community Hall.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

December 12, 2004: On Neville Island

At age 86, Steve Furimsky has earned the right to sit around and do absolutely nothing. Instead, the retired Pennsylvania railroad worker spends Sunday and Tuesday nights in the Neville Roller Drome on Neville Island. "I always say, if I didn't skate, I'd end up in a rocking chair or a wheelchair," Furimsky says with a chuckle, raising his voice just a bit to be heard over the recorded music. Or maybe it's just that old habits die hard; he met Marge, his wife of 64 years, at the old Palisades arena on Fifth Avenue in McKeesport in 1938, and the two have been skating together several times a week ever since. They have plenty of company.

Photo by Alyssa Cwanger ~ Story by Gretchen McKay

December 5, 2004: In Penn Hills

Around a bend on Saltsburg Road in Penn Hills is an inviting bright green, pink and gold sign that reads: "Johnstonbaugh's Music Center: Sales, Lessons, Rentals, Repairs." Within, it's a sensation of sights and sounds. Repair technician Justin D'Ambrosio of Monroeville, wearing a new, dark green "Johnstonbaugh's apron," is fixing string instruments and woodwinds. On the other side of the room, fellow technician Lyndsay Hunter concentrates intensely as she changes a pad on the lower joint of a clarinet. One flight of steps down, Jim Rossetti uses a hammer to "push dents" in a marching band version of a French horn. "This horn," he says as he points to all of the scratches and dents, "has been through one too many seasons of marching band."

Photo and Story by Alyssa Cwanger

November 28, 2004: In Clearfield County

Here at the Stone Camp, a landmark hunting camp that sits all by its lonesome on an unpaved road in the forested mountains of Clearfield County, tonight is the night. Tonight, as have their grandpaps and fathers and uncles and cousins, men hunker inside this rustic two-story stone cabin, which is little changed since the founding fathers of the Sykesville Hunting Club finished building it in 1921. The men are warmed by a log and coal fire that roars in the massive stone fireplace. Some are warmed, too, by the beer and whiskey and wine that flow freely. The drinking and the card playing and the b.s.ing will have started early in the morning and continued through their traditional feed -- a Polish buffet of pierogies and halushki and pigs-in-the-blanket. In a rare and not unanimous nod to modernity, some will watch the Steelers game. They pick it up on their tiny TV only by duct-taping an antenna to a long stick outside that they also use to bang off the soot that clogs the chimney cap.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

November 21, 2004: In Ruff Creek, Greene County

It's an obvious question for a city dweller: "So, just what is the difference between a convenience store and a general store?" The woman behind the counter doesn't hesitate. "Feed, boots, hardware," the woman says with a soft Southern accent. "Character," one of her customers calls out. "A lot of characters," she corrects, smiling sweetly and winning laughter from others in the store. Easy, light banter with neighbors. It's part of the charm that makes the Ruff Creek General Store, with its hardwood floors and packed shelves, different from a modern convenience store.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

November 14, 2004: In Beltzhoover

On this corner, at Climax Street and Curtin Avenue, is a community frayed by neglect. On this corner is a crossroads boxed in by empty lots and boarded-up homes. On this corner, where every few minutes a car passes with music loud enough to shake the curb, is a notorious drug market. On this corner every weekday at 5:15 p.m. is Jim White. He is a street preacher. He's been coming to this same spot for 30 years, railing against the twin evils of violence and drugs, which he knows all too well.

Photos by J. Monroe Butler II ~ Story by Ervin Dyer

November 7, 2004: In East Liberty

There's an unusual new sweatshop in East Liberty called NAKA Fitness. One customer calls it the "school of hurt." The principal is "Big Weave." Around 7:30 on a recent night, loyal students in shorts and tights and bandanas drift into the North Highland Avenue storefront, remodeled this spring into a big white-walled room with a shiny wood floor and a white drop ceiling covered with nine whirring ceiling fans. You'll soon see why. It's time for the night's second class, hip-hop aerobics, the hard-core, now four-nights-a-week, twice-nightly staple taught by Jim "Big Weave" Weaver himself, who laughs a bit demonically as he says, "Mine is really rough."

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

October 31, 2004: In Cecil

For most people, watching TV is recreation, a leisure pursuit after a hard day's work. For Donna Phillips, Beth Barrows and 140 other transcribers and closed-captioners who work for VITAC in Cecil, watching TV is hard work. They're the people who type in closed captions for thousands of hours of programming that's viewed by the hearing-impaired and everyday people who like to read their TV shows in addition to watching. And if you've got to watch TV for work, you might as well watch something you enjoy. For Phillips and Barrows, who work on prerecorded rather than live TV shows, a favorite is the NBC reality series "Fear Factor." As closed-captioners, they concentrate more on sound than sight. Using that sense did require Phillips to take a break while captioning one episode of "Fear Factor." "They had to eat worms and coagulated blood balls," Phillips said. "The sound of the worms was pretty bad."

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Rob Owen

October 24, 2004: In the heart of Steelers Country

Mike Terranova is keyed up. Really keyed up. For the past half-hour, the New Jersey native has been pacing like a caged tiger in front of the Hilton Pittsburgh, back and forth, back and forth, waiting for his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers to arrive. One eye scans the steady parade of cars that pull off Commonwealth Place and under the porte-cochere, the other on the gold corded-off space in front of the elevators inside. But so far, no luck. Every Saturday night before a home game for as long as anybody can remember, the entire team (Coach Bill Cowher included) has gathered at the hotel for meetings and afterward -- to keep players focused and out of trouble -- a mandatory sleepover. And Terranova, who's been following the Steelers since the early '70s, is there to greet them.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Gretchen McKay

October 17, 2004: In Bovard, Westmoreland County

The Crow's Nest Mine died in 1944. Its bones lie buried beneath Bovard, a little town near Greensburg. Ghosts still shimmer round the place, even in bright daylight. Ghosts of hundreds of jobs nobody does anymore, titles that live only in looping copperplate handwriting in company ledgers and history archives. Manly jobs, like: motorman, car-catcher, dynamite-shooter, digger, pick-miner, pinner, trackman, blacksmith, tipple-boy, fire-boss, heavy-iron man.

Photos by V.W.H. campbell Jr. ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

October 10, 2004: In Pierpont, Ohio

Rogene's Kitchen is priceless. There are no prices. As the menu puts it, "You will not get a bill." You order your meal, eat, and then leave a "donation" for what you think it was worth, plus a tip if you like. This Bible-based "Give and it shall be given unto you" gimmick has helped make this homey place the most popular restaurant in Pierpont, Ohio. Of course, as note the signs out front, it's the only restaurant in Pierpont, the crossroads of state Routes 7 and 167 just over the Pennsylvania line, about a 2 1/2-hour, 116-mile drive north of Pittsburgh.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

October 3, 2004: In Oakland

At noon on a fall Thursday, Forbes Avenue and Atwood Street in Oakland is as noisy a corner as you can imagine -- an acoustic chaos of car engines, bus brakes, hospital helicopters, plus every sort of human sound from the passing throng. One sound rises slowly out of the din, then soars above it: A woman singing. Singing a gospel song. "It's a new season," she sings. "It's a NEW DAYYY!" She stands right at the corner, up against the Eckerd drugstore. Wearing a smart green suit and lace-up heels, with green eye shadow highlighting her hazel eyes, she certainly doesn't look like a panhandler. But people are dropping money into her bucket -- change and $1 bills.

Photo and Story by Bob Batz Jr.

September 26, 2004: In Garfield

Even in a small Polaroid photograph, the kid stands out. He's tall and skinny and is wearing a bright red shirt. Others in the picture stand with their arms at their sides, looking more serious. His arms are raised above his head. He's clowning. That's how Elena Hiatt Houlihan and Christine Bethea remember him: a lively young man, one you don't forget. The women lead a community project in which a group of at-risk kids collect discarded junk and use it to build sculpture. The lively kid in the red shirt had the idea of making a sculpture of a person lying in a chaise longue, listening to music. He'd collected some of the material he'd need and seemed excited about the project. But then he stopped coming. Elena and Christine weren't alarmed or even concerned. Kids sometimes wandered in and out of the program. One day in June, Elena asked if anyone had heard from Ronald. "Oh, he's dead," one kid said.

Photo and Story by Steve Mellon

September 19, 2004: In Fox Chapel

Steven Guinn looked at one corner of his Fox Chapel back yard and thought, "What in the world can I do with this?" He decided on prehistoric Britain. You've heard of the mysterious 4,000-year-old monument that is Stonehenge? Guinn has been there several times and is captivated by it and similar stone formations. So he created his own version that he calls Foxhenge.

Photo and Story by Bob Batz Jr.

September 12, 2004: In Robinson

Ask Judy Romano if her husband, Bob, is crazy, and she answers without hesitation. "Oh yeah," she says. "I think -- I know -- he's nuts. But it's a good nuts." The two are head-over-heels in love -- with dahlias, and with each other. Their yard is 2,000 square feet of nothing but dahlias, more than 200 of them. Some have blooms the size of a quarter and others are bigger than a dinner plate, creating a deep green forest punctuated at every turn with stunning colors. Bob Romano was in his colorful back yard on Labor Day, beginning his annual ritual of setting up umbrellas over his prized flowers. Yes, umbrellas. "That's what gets the attention, the umbrellas, not the flowers," Bob Romano said, laughing. "People stop all the time saying, 'We've driven by 15 times, it's driving us nuts. What's with all the umbrellas?'"

Photos and Story by Doug Oster

September 5, 2004: In O'Hara

It's easy to lose your sense of time and space in the Bayernhof Museum, once the home of entrepreneur Charles B. Brown III. One minute you're winding your way up a steep narrow staircase to a rooftop observatory with a 16-inch telescope; the next, you're slipping through secret passages that lead down to a man-made cave. Hidden doorways open to rooms filled with rare musical instruments, antique music boxes and child-sized Hummels. And even the most mundane of fixtures -- lamps, cabinets, bird cages -- reveal wonderful surprises. Brown was a single and somewhat eccentric man. He loved to entertain, and after he'd made his fortune, he spent the last years of his life building a home that would intrigue and amaze visitors.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

August 22, 2004: In Butler County

Ah, the lazy days of summer. In the country, it means helping Dad with his chores, and on a recent afternoon it meant mowing the 2 1/2 acre lawn in an antique tractor. "It's a Farmall," offers 2-year-old Victoria Lyndon through tears brought on by the lack of a nap and the fact that older sister Rehanna, 4, is taking a turn on the tractor in a field next to some apple trees. Even cranky, Victoria knows her tractors, her mother Marcia points out. The whole family does.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

August 15, 2004: In Squirrel Hill

A half-hour before her wedding, Danielle Skoncey was in khakis and T-shirt, reconfiguring the 61C Cafe into a tiny wedding hall. Greta, her dog, was being decked with flowers for her role as ring bearer. Skoncey and Moshe Marvit have both worked at the Squirrel Hill coffee shop at the corner of Murray Avenue and Bartlett Street for several years, and when they began talking about getting married, manager Keith Kaboly jokingly suggested that they get married in the cafe, Skoncey said. The couple, who said the cafe had become like a home and its owners and employees like extended family, decided that it would be the right place to exchange vows.

Photos by Martha Rial ~ Story by Lillian Thomas

August 8, 2004: In Jeannette

On the guardrail at the Second Street railroad bridge, a little man hunches inside a plaid cotton shirt, watching the Monday sun go down over the silvery tracks below. He looks up, smiles across the pavement and shouts, "Hiya, honey." Hap Pringle loves a visit, even with a stranger. He lives at Trinity Haven Personal Care on First Street in Jeannette, but he just calls it The Home. He likes to sit on the low stone wall outside and chat with passers-by. He takes his walks every morning and evening to keep arthritis from binding his joints. But he has to stop sometimes and catch his breath. His heart, you know -- double bypass. He's got to take care. Pull up a guardrail and sit. Mr. Pringle will talk to you.

Photos by John Beale ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

August 1, 2004: In New Alexandria

On a Friday night in summertime, up on the hill on the edge of New Alexandria, more than 100 dutiful old servants made the final sacrifice to their owners' mad passions. More than a thousand spectators surrounded the mud arena and screamed encouragement while rusty Cougars, Impalas and Suburbans slammed and smashed one another to death. They spun, crumpled, burst into flames and sent fenders and fluids spurting skyward. The little town echoed with shrieks, impacts, death rattles. The Romans had gladiators and wild beasts. The Spanish have la corrida -- the bullfight. And for the past 28 years, New Alexandria in Westmoreland County has had the Lions Club Demolition Derby.

Photos by Lake Fong ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

July 25, 2004: At the Frick Park Lawn Bowling Club in Point Breeze

It's not like bowling as most people know it -- except how the bowlers try to affect their shots with body language. "It's short!" shouted Hank Luba as a small white ball, or "jack," stopped before rolling the required minimum distance of 70 feet. Twice. "IT'S THE WIND!" he yelled to the other players at the opposite end of the "rink." In this sport of lawn bowling, this is the equivalent of a lane, except the playing surface is 120 feet long and out of doors and its surface is manicured grass, like a golf green. In fact, the rinks form one of two "bowling greens" of the Frick Park Lawn Bowling Club in Point Breeze.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

July 18, 2004: At Seven Creeks Springs

Drive west on state Route 22 into Ohio, past Steubenville, exit at Lovers Lane, and signs point you the rest of the way to Seven Creeks Spring. Or, as one arrow spells it, "Seven Creaks." The native sons who sell water there bill it as the first state-licensed self-serve roadside spring in all of America. How do they know that? That's one of the frequently asked questions they answer on their quirky Web site, (where they'll also tell you how to brew tasty whole-bean coffee -- by leaving the beans whole). They believe they're unique. "However, we advertise as first, instead of only, because we feel it is a just a matter of time before there will be more springs like ours as people learn more about drinking water."

Photo and story by Bob Batz Jr.

July 11, 2004: In Downtown Pittsburgh

A garage sale held by Stephen Ambrose, Mister Rogers and Quentin Tarantino. That's how Jeff Keenan describes the look of his office. It's overflowing with military figures, Pittsburgh memorabilia and really weird flotsam of pop culture, such as a stuffed bounce-able snow monster Bumbles from the TV movie "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." "One of my favorites," Keenan says with a kidlike grin. He's the dean of business education at Western School of Health and Business Careers on Seventh Avenue at William Penn Place. But he proudly refers to his office as the "Western Museum of American Curio-ology."

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

July 4, 2004: On American Street

American Street is not paved with gold. At least, not the top layer that you see immediately. It's paved with asphalt, uneven patches of which don't match, and much of which is cracked and crumbling. You could throw a piece the length of the entire street, because it's just one short block. The street starts at the 5400 block of Second Avenue, the main drag through this Glenwood neighborhood and adjacent Hazelwood in the city's tough 15th Ward. Across a gravel lot and an alley called Herbert Way is American Street's sole house: A fat three-story, green aluminum-sided duplex with steps and a fire escape that lead to other units. The shaggy, chain-link-fenced corner lot encloses mongrel garages on the far side along Dyke Street. That's where American Street ends, in chicory and Queen Anne's lace, just before the CSX railroad tracks.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

June 27, 2004: In Perry Township, Armstrong County

If Mel Check has an obsession with radios, he comes by it honestly, a passion born after spending 34 years as an engineer at KDKA radio, the nation's first commercial radio station licensed on Nov. 2, 1920. Since his earliest days at KDKA, when some of the original engineers were still alive and working, Check has been fascinated by the technology that gave humans the ability to send sound waves across the miles, at first through Morse Code and later with AM-FM stereo sound. Such was his interest that his wife, Pat, dubbed the hobby "Mel's Folly." Now, though, nearly four decades and 500 radios later, Mel's Folly isn't just a family joke, but a full-fledged museum devoted to radio.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

June 20, 2004: In Weltytown, Westmoreland County

Twelve fat butterworms wiggle and twist in Patti Sevcik's palm. They're thick and shiny, maybe a little slimy. For $2.50 they can be yours. "Mealworms are cheaper, and they're not so gross. We sell big ones, three dozen for $1.50. Great for trout and crappies. But bass like leeches," Patti says, matter-of-factly. Only about five people fit inside Swivel's Bait Shop in Weltytown, Westmoreland County. It used to be a one-car garage outside Sevcik's little brick house on Blacksmith Road, but in '95 or '96 Frank, Patti's husband, put up pegboard walls and turned an old freezer into a minnow tank. He lined the walls with creels and reels, flies, spinners, spoons, hooks, lines and sinkers. And swivels, of course. Most of the creatures dwelling in Sevcik's refrigerator today will end up in Mammoth Lake, just over the hill, within the week. "We keep them in the fridge so when they hit the warm water they really wiggle and squirm," Patti explains.

Photos by Martha Rial ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

June 13, 2004: In Blacklick Township, Cambria County

When strangers approach the front door at Harry Altimus' home along Route 422 heading toward the Cambria County seat of Ebensburg in the springtime, he already knows what they want. Sometimes people just stop along the highway and take photographs from there. Other times they walk into his neighbor's yard for a snapshot. Some people, though, the ones who are really interested, knock on his door. What started out as two tiny shrubs -- about 18 inches tall each when he first planted them in 1951 -- have grown into one half-moon-shaped behemoth that now measures about 22 feet tall by 46 feet wide.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Paula Reed Ward

June 6, 2004: In the Mexican War Streets

Erin Speier remembers crying five years ago when she found out she was moving from Denver to Pittsburgh. She had just been accepted into the University of Pittsburgh dental school. "I was just so excited to get my number one choice." Recently the tears were back. When friend and Mexican War Streets neighbor Nancy Ewing asked her to give a little speech at the farewell "stoop sit" neighbors were holding for Speier, she became emotional. "We owned our first house here, got our first dog here and had our first baby here," Speier sniffed. "You all took us in and we're so good to us. I'm so sad to leave. I can't give a speech."

Photo and story by Annie O'Neill

May 30, 2004: In Downtown

In the ever-widening controversy over which building is the thinnest in the land, there soon may be a resolution. Two buildings are vying for the title. One is in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's called the Sam Kee Building, and it's situated in the city's Chinatown section. The other is in Pittsburgh, at Forbes and Wood streets. It's called the Skinny Building because -- well, it sounds better than the Emaciated Building, doesn't it?

The Sam Kee Building has been puffing itself up as champion for some time now. "Guinness World Record -- Shallowest Commercial Building in the World," touts one promotional Web site. It also boasts: "Ripley's Believe It or Not -- World's Thinnest Building."

Pat Clark likes the "Or Not" part. He and Al Kovacik lease part of the Skinny Building and have been promoting it as an arts venue. They've challenged the Sam Kee Building to a "Skinny-off."

Photos and story by Steve Mellon

May 16, 2004: In Etna

It's a perfect afternoon for baseball. By 3 o'clock, clouds remain in the sky but the sun is struggling through, and it is decided: No rain will come. The batter takes a few practice swings, then steps up to the plate. His teammates on the bench watch, relaxed but interested in the way that young and physically confident men can be. They admire the work of the pitcher. The ball whiffs through the air and lands in the catcher's mitt with a pop. Good speed but just outside the zone. "Ball. One-oh," comes the call. It's not a game, just a scrimmage, a way to wrap up a day of drills and tests for those who wish to play for the Allegheny Valley Brewers, a semi-pro team based in Etna.

Photos and story by Steve Mellon

May 9, 2004: On the South Side

On future weekday afternoons and weekends, sometime in 2005, the Wabash HOV facility being constructed on the South Side is to be a one-way route, through the Wabash Tunnel, for people to get out of town. But these nascent "high occupancy vehicle" ramps already have drawn a few people to come into town and enjoy their stay here. One of them is James Linkous. The 45-year-old from Bluefield, W.Va., has been driving from the Carolina Steel plant in Abington, Va., with beams for the Wabash ramp. On an urban job like this, he and his fellow drivers typically would spend the night at the rest area outside the city on Interstate 79. But when they got to this construction site, they saw that not only did it have a place for trucks to park but it was also right beside the riverfront entertainment complex that is Station Square -- instant night out on the town.

Photos by Annie O'Neill and Darrell Sapp ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

May 2, 2004: In Monroeville

Every morning, on a hilltop in suburban Pittsburgh, God awakens. All around, traffic zooms, construction booms, cell phones ring, cash registers ching. But on this tree-ringed hill in Monroeville, inside the exotically sculpted red stone edifice that is the Hindu Jain Temple, all is peaceful and incense perfumed. No people are evident, save for the chanting seeping from behind the carved wooden doors of one of the five mini temples. Inside it, a priest is performing the morning ritual of bathing, dressing and feeding two of the deities who "live" here.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

April 25, 2004: In the Hill District

Shortly before 8:10, as they do every weekday morning, the students, teachers and staff of Miller African Centered Academy line the halls and staircase of all three floors, linked hand in hand. Two young girls, dressed in their school uniforms, stand in the center of the hallway. One holds the red, black and green flag symbolizing African nationhood, while the other carries the red, white and blue American flag. Principal Rosemary Moriarty stands in front of the main office regally dressed in traditional West African attire. She clutches the hands of two students. At 8:10 come the first explosive sounds, simultaneously evoking a startled jump and soul-stirring excitement.

Photo by Annie O'Neill ~ Story by Michelle K. Massie

April 18, 2004: In New Sewickley, Beaver County

It happens often enough that it's comical. Gary Powell awakens early, walks outside and finds strangers sitting on his backyard swing, hoping to buy gas for their car or to get their battery changed. "What time do you open?" they say. "I don't open," Powell replies. It's easy to mistake the building behind the Powell home on Mercer Road in New Sewickley, Beaver County for a business. A refurbished gas pump, circa 1919, sits at the top of the driveway next to the garage, which is covered with gas station signs of all shapes and sizes.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

April 11, 2004: In Confluence

Here's a recipe for Somerset County Spring Pheasant:
Ingredients
A handful of good guys (a Monongahela father, his two adult sons, one son's future father-in-law and that man's son)
A day off their usual long, hard weeks of work (rare)
Five shotguns
Two or three fine bird dogs
Pheasants
Camouflaged and safety-orange hunting gear (for garnish)
Stuffing (see below)
Directions
In the early morning, mix the men into a pickup truck and a Jeep ...

Photo and story Bob Batz Jr.

April 4, 2004: In Delaware Township, Mercer County

Deep in the gray woods of Mercer County stands a glowing wooden jewel box. It's a chapel, a fairy-tale building straight from the misty Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe. Its name is SS. Cyril and Methodius Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox Church, and it stands at the end of Pew Road, a mile and a half of rutted gravel in Delaware Township. It was put here by a small group of Americans whose ancestors worshipped in similar churches in similar wooded hills, an area now divided among the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. They re-created this piece of the past, they say, so their future won't forget. We don't tell many people about it," said Michael Ristvey, an attorney at nearby Hermitage, who oversaw its creation. "It's hidden back there in what has to be the prettiest place in Mercer County." But visitors still find their way here, bidden by word of mouth. Those who phone ahead can have a tour of the place, led by the youthful resident priest.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

March 28, 2004: In Beallsville

It's the gargoyles perched on the corners of the porch roof that first catch your eye as you drive along Route 40 through historic Beallsville in Washington County. Then the sign jumps out: CASTLE BLOOD. Then there are the hearses parked in the driveway. If it were Halloween, it would not be surprising. But any other time, well, it is curious, especially when you consider that the rambling three-story house is a private home.

Photos by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

March 21, 2004: In Somerset County's maple country

Jane Wable is so sweet. Makes sense when she tells you how, just months after she was born in 1921, her mother put her in a laundry basket and carried her to the sugar camp. In these parts, up on Negro Mountain or on the other wooded ridges of southern Somerset County, folks know that a sugar camp or maple camp is a place for making maple syrup and sugar -- the sweet rewards of boiling down sap tapped in late winter from sugar maple trees.

Photos and story by Bob Batz Jr.

March 14, 2004: In Brookline

Mary Jane Doran used to get home to Brookline by the No. 39 streetcar. Last week, she was transported there by photographs. "Oh my!" she said, sifting through a bag of old photos while sitting on one of the twin beds in the room she shares with her sister, Marita Garrow, at the Southwestern Assisted Care Residence in West Mifflin. For an hour, she was back in the city neighborhood of Brookline, where she was born and spent almost every one of her 89 years -- most of them in the same house. She could practically smell the peonies that bloomed in their yard. She could practically hear their little white dog, Salty. "This is on Chelton Avenue," she said.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

March 7, 2004: In Lawrenceville

As John McGrane moves through the old St. Mary Lyceum in Lawrenceville, basketball fans stop to greet him every few steps. "Hey, Mr. McGrane." "Mr. McGrane, how ya doin'?" "What's up, Mr. McGrane?" John "Baldy" McGrane is a fixture in this gym, built in 1913. He's as much a part of the building as the old church pews that serve as bleachers in the balcony. He knows every square inch intimately. McGrane is 84 now, but he started playing basketball here seven decades ago.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

Feb. 29, 2004: On the South Side Slopes

There is more than one "Passion" playing this week. Mel Gibson's controversial epic "The Passion of the Christ" is getting all the publicity. By today -- just five days after opening -- it was expected to earn roughly $30 million, making it the biggest-ever box-office Bible film. Meanwhile, one of the longest-running live Passion plays in the country opens today on the South Side Slopes, on not much more than the passion and prayers of its cast and crew and other supporters who worry that this year could be the last. So the curtain rises on what they call the 85th season of "Veronica's Veil," which was first performed on Feb. 3, 1913, in St. Michael Auditorium on Pius Street.

Photo by Annie O'Neill ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

Feb. 22, 2004: In Beechview

Saul and Samantha Franco Jimenez have transplanted the little store that sits on a thousand streets in Mexico to 1619 Broadway Ave. At Tienda La Jimenez, there's Boing and Jarritos pop in the cooler, images of Our Lady of Guadalupe on display, Mexican candy and spices by the door, elaborate cut-paper banners used for parties hanging from the ceiling, and a photo of Saul's hometown of Olinala in the mountains of Guerrero over the counter. Samantha is from Lawrenceville. She sounds like a Pittsburgher until she switches to Spanish and sounds as if she could have been born the next town over from Saul. She learned her Spanish at Taco Bell.

Photo by Martha Rial ~ Story by Lillian Thomas

Feb. 15, 2004: In Darlington

Route 168 South winds through the bucolic hills of Beaver County, a well-paved two-lane road that takes travelers past neatly kept houses, the occasional business and more than a few farm animals. Along this road is the place where Mary -- "everybody knows me as Mitzi" -- and Carl Dulaney have chosen to live out their retirement years in a tiny one-story home on 20-some wooded acres. Carl, 65, spends most of his time outside, clearing brush, burning wood, tending to the property. It looks much like the land owned by his neighbors, except for the line of barren tree trunks along the roadway that are sawed off across the tops and capped with colorful construction helmets.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

Feb. 8, 2004: In North Fayette

Like the old Lincoln Highway out front, the Fort Pitt Motel isn't as busy as it used to be. Still, at this time of year, you can't even get onto the waiting list for rooms that offer what the brochure bills as the "Pocono Touch." Translation: Big, red, heart-shaped whirlpool tubs, bubble bath and nudge-nudge-wink.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

Feb. 1, 2004: In Altoona

For years, the Benzel family got letter after letter telling them their packaging was wrong. Instead of "pretzel," the little red bags read "bretzel." The company's loyal customers thought they should know about the typo. What those customers didn't know, though, is that bretzel is the German word for the salty snack that now comes in sticks, twists, thins and braids. And it was also the name Adolph Benzel gave his pretzel company in 1911, when it first opened in a 75-square-foot building in Altoona. Almost a century later Benzel's Bretzel Bakery is more than 2,000 times its original size. Now owned and operated by Adolph's grandson, Bill, and Bill's wife, Ann, Benzel's is an Altoona landmark.

Photos by V.W.H. Campbell Jr. ~ Story by Paula Reed Ward

Jan. 25, 2004: In Emsworth

Most people would be humbled -- frightened even -- by the view from the top of the Emsworth Dam. That?s serious whitewater churning up the river some three stories below. Lockmaster Chris Johnson, however, finds a certain solitude in the thunderous sound of the Ohio River as it crashes through the dam?s eight concrete gates. ?Everything looks so small from up there,? he says. ?To me, it?s a place where I can get my thoughts together.? But the day-to-day operation of the locks and dams is anything but peaceful. Open 24/7, the 83-year-old facility is nearly always bustling with activity. And since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Emsworth and sites like it are viewed as potential terrorism targets.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Gretchen McKay

Jan. 18, 2004: In Latrobe

If the buildings at St. Vincent Archabbey and college were a family, he would be the old uncle who tells tall tales. He's handsome still, despite his age. He stands tall atop the highest rise on the St. Vincent College campus, 90 feet of well-laid hand-made brick stacked back in 1893. He stood as generations of students, seminarians and Steelers came and went, and new buildings rose at his foot to house libraries, labs, gyms and classrooms. His name: "Sauerkraut Tower."

Photo by V.W.H. Campbell Jr. ~ Story by Rebekah Scott

Jan. 11, 2004: In Muse

Bertha Diesel remembers the conversation quite vividly. The year was 1945 and Diesel, then single and twenty-something, was working in a Canonsburg defense factory when her mother came to her with a question. "Will you help me?" Sophia Sharek asked her daughter. "If I buy it, will you help me?" Bertha could hardly say no. Her mother, a Polish immigrant, had always dreamed of being a business owner. Opportunity presented itself in the form of a tiny store in Muse, a coal patch in Cecil, Washington County.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna Pro

Jan. 4, 2004: In Bloomfield

Soma is the name of a tarot card, as well as the name of the woman in the Bloomfield storefront where a bust of Jesus shares space with Pan, a Zodiac manual, Greek underworld god Osiris and many denizens of Santeria. Soma -- she uses just one name -- is turning a cavernous space that adjoins the storefront at 4814 Penn Ave. into The Eye, a salon for conversation, art, performance, tea drinking and tarot-card reading. She started tarot reading as a teenager. "There's always been an interest. I remember begging my father for a palmistry book in third grade," she says.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Lillian Thomas

2003

Dec. 21, 2003: In Bellevue

She tilts her head flirtatiously and, as a cha-cha comes over the sound system, gently swings her shoulders and hips. In response, he crosses the dance floor a few steps. He takes her into his arms and the two lock eyes, oblivious to others around them. In perfect unison, they twirl on the hardwood as music fills the dance hall and prisms from the ceilings mirrored balls twinkle in the darkened room. They are a playful pair, smiling at one another and laughing, communicating with their expressions and their moves in that unspoken language that is borne out of 48 years of marriage. Indeed it is a seductive pas de deux that Shirley and Buck Boyd perform, and they are not alone.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

Dec. 14, 2003: On the Blawnox-O'Hara border

Bob Paganico doesn't show for an interview. He doesn't care to have the name of his business mentioned. Forget posing for a photo.In the end, Paganico remains a reluctant voice at the end of the phone, almost fearful that self-promotion will in some way destroy the magic that brings together a merry band of volunteers who operate the Spirit of Christmas charity from a table in Bob's Garage Lounge, his tiny bar and restaurant on the border of Blawnox and O'Hara. Each year, the charity raises between $20,000 and $25,000 in a little more than two weeks, money that is used to buy toys, clothes and food for 200 needy families, including 400 children, in the North Hills.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Johnna A. Pro

Dec. 7, 2003: In Blythedale

This is the time of year when a million licensed hunters go out into Pennsylvania's woods and fields in hopes of bagging trophy deer. Bill Miller sits in his basement and lets the trophies come to him. He's a taxidermist. And this is the time of year his shop really gets stuffed. "The opening day of deer season, I have to be here," Miller is saying in the don't-hit-your-head-low work room beneath his home in the coal-patch town of Blythedale. It's in Elizabeth Township, where Allegheny County's southeastern border is doodled by the Youghiogheny River.

Photo and story by Bob Batz Jr.

Nov. 30, 2003: In Etna

On the duckpin lanes in the basement of the DOH Club in Etna, Monday nights are for the ladies. But they can't -- nobody can -- bowl without the boys. About a dozen women are yakking and putting on their bowling shoes. The boys are nowhere to be seen. Bunny saunters through the room, past the shoe rental counter, to the far end of the lanes and shouts to nobody apparent, "Hey Joey! You're working Number One tonight." A high-pitched "OK" emanates from back behind the pins. The pin boys of Etna are ready.

Photos by Annie O'Neill ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

Nov. 23, 2003: In Sewickley Heights

It's almost lunchtime on a recent Saturday when Jim Dempsey climbs out of the Sewickley Hunt Club's battered pickup and onto a field in Bell Acres. Slipping on a pair of heavy work gloves, he grabs a grocery bag out of the bed and motions to his son J.R, who's remarkably cheery given the task he's about to undertake. "Here," Dempsey says, handing the 17-year-old an empty spray bottle. Out of a white plastic bag he pulls one of several Gatorade bottles filled with an amber-colored liquid. "Fill it up." J.R. obliges with a grin, and a few minutes later, the pair is trekking through the woods toward Camp Meeting Road. Dempsey follows a muddy bridle path and hollers instructions -- Watch that branch! Be careful you don't trip! J.R. trails a few feet to the right in the underbrush, squirting the contents of the spray bottle on the ground every few steps. The pungent odor of fox urine fills the air. It's a stinky job, but hey, someone's gotta do it.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Gretchen McKay

Nov. 16, 2003: In Johnstown

The double image of the serious-looking Newfoundland on a stoop, his shoulder encircled by a young girl who leans against a man chomping a short stogie, is the only visual record of one Johnstown hero: a dog named Romey. The dog, memorialized on a stereocard, saved three lives in the Great Flood of 1889. Over the years, stories of such animal heroes got tangled with a 700-pound zinc lawn ornament. Morley's Dog, as he's called here, has stood guard before his master's Johnstown mansion, been washed away in the Great Flood, then recovered to stand guard again. He's been beaten by vandals and repaired by being stuffed with concrete. And he once appeared in a movie with Paul Newman.

Photo by Annie O'Neill ~ Story by Lillian Thomas

Nov. 9, 2003: In Ross

Fifty years after she started here, Laura Wlodek is back to work on McKnight Road in Ross. She opened Wlodek's Select Meats as part of what was called the McKnight Shopping Center when it opened at Babcock Boulevard and Peebles Road in 1953. The site had been covered with trees. Parts of McKnight Road still were unpaved. "That was a long time ago," she says. People like Laura and her husband, Adam, were beginning to move into these farm fields, and she knew they would need places to shop.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

Nov. 2, 2003: On Mt. Davis

This summer, Herb Ohler wasn't doing so well. The usually hyper 71-year-old retired steelworker, who lives in the Westmoreland County coal patch of Hecla, had come through a quintuple heart bypass and valve replacement around Christmas. Now he was back in the hospital with gout and complications. As his 23-year-old friend Charlie Smith puts it, "He was at a low point." When you're better, Smith told him, I'll come over and we'll go for a drive.

Photo and story by Bob Batz Jr.

Oct. 26, 2003: Off Interstate 80, Venango County

America's worst apple pie is made by a Clarion County woman named Betty Best. She makes them for the Plaza Restaurant at the Emlenton Truck Plaza off Exit 42 of Interstate 80 in Venango County. She makes pies three days a week, sometimes dozens at a time, and this 24-hour operation still sells out. The restaurant first put up billboards along I-80 advertising "America's Worst Apple Pie" back in 1989, and Americans -- being Americans -- have been pulling in eager to try it ever since.

Photo by Steve Mellon ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

Oct. 19, 2003: In Carnegie

Arnie Fonzarelli, the Duke of Cubbage Hill, walks a 3-mile route along Ewing Road every morning. The guy with him is Bill Riddle, who's been taking the route for nearly two decades. "When you're older than dirt you gotta keep moving," says Riddle, who celebrated his 39th birthday for the 34th time in May. He and the Fonz leave every day at 7:30 a.m., "unless it's pouring down rain," Riddle says. "If it's pouring, the dog just turns around and won't leave the house." Everybody knows them.

Photo by Annie O'Neill ~ Story by Lillian Thomas

Oct. 12, 2003: On the South Side

Liliana Ticlla arrives at the South Side clinic looking apprehensive and in obvious pain from the severe headache she'd been battling. She was referred to the Birmingham Free Clinic on 9th Street, which offers Spanish-language services on Saturdays. She caught a ride there and sat in the tiny waiting area, speaking quietly in Spanish of her worries as she waited. Then along comes Julian Escobar, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh. Julian is a warm, intelligent, never-resting, bilingual force of nature. He sits down with her, looks right into her eyes, introduces himself and explains how everything is going to work. You can see right off that everything will somehow be OK.

Photo by Martha Rial ~ Story by Lillian Thomas

Oct. 5, 2003: In Braddock

Like many of its neighbors, the empty house at 201 Talbot Ave. in Braddock is covered with vines. Its doors are sealed with plywood, and a portion of the porch roof has collapsed. Monstrous weeds choke the tiny side yard. Within the house an eerie quiet reigns. Silence has waited a long time to stake its claim. For nearly half a century, as home to the family of Frank and Cecelia Zygmunt, the house was filled with sounds of life.

Story and Photo by Steve Mellon

Sept. 28, 2003: In Pittsburgh's Strip District

It's wine-making time here in one of the world's great wine regions. Oh yes -- making homemade wine is a strong tradition in the Pittsburgh area that goes back generations. Multiple generations keep it going. You can get a taste of this at Consumers Produce in the Strip District, a longtime hot spot for winemakers from as far away as Harrisburg.

Story by Bob Batz Jr. ~ Photos by Steve Mellon

Sept. 21, 2003: In Allegheny Cemetery

On May 31, 2002, the 125,000 buried here were joined by 700 newly dead. That day, when a macroburst slammed down, hundreds of trees perished when they were ripped up or knocked down. The damage was still apparent when artist Ruth Stanford first visited the Lawrenceville cemetery in October, despite months of cleanup. "There were still massive trees toppled over, uprooted like toothpicks. There were uprooted monuments and headstones. There were headstones tangled in the roots of trees in some places," she said. "I started thinking about that: Cemeteries are generally such calm places, and here was a relic of this powerful event."

Story by Lillian Thomas ~ Photo by Annie O'Neill

Sept. 14, 2003: Between Hyde Park and Leechburg

Even in a region stitched with bridges, the one between Hyde Park and Leechburg is without peer. The three-span suspension bridge stretches 600 feet across the Kiskiminetas River but is only 4 1/2 feet wide -- wide enough for one person to pass another on foot. That's the only way to cross what locals know as "the walking bridge."

Story by Bob Batz Jr. ~ Photo by Steve Mellon

Sept. 7, 2003: Mill Run

The bride wore a white cowboy hat decorated with plastic flowers and tulle, blue jeans, white sneakers and a gray T-shirt from "Jellystone Park, Mill Run, Pa." Maid of honor was Cindy Bear. Yogi was best, um, bear. The ring bearer was Boo Boo.

Story by Bob Batz Jr. ~ Photo by Steve Mellon

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