Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

Editor's Note: Much of the brain power --- such as it is --- at Tube City Online World News Headquarters on Dravosburg Hill has been diverted to planning for next week's International Village broadcast. We'll be filling the gaps by reprinting some "classic" (read: old) Almanac entries from the past.

This one's from five years ago --- Aug. 31, 2004, to be exact. You may recall that there was a presidential election that year, and that the Democratic candidate was Yawn ... I mean, John ... Kerry.

. . .

Hamsters Steel Themselves for Election Battle

(Originally appeared Aug. 31, 2004)

As a big fan of "Bloom County" back during the late paleozoic era, I've been faithfully reading Berke Breathed's new Sunday-only comic strip, "Opus" (it runs in the Post-Gazette locally), in the hope that it would eventually be funny. I had almost given up until this week's episode, when Pittsburgh's favorite press critic made an appearance, along with Dick Cheney ... in a hamster suit, no less. I actually laughed out loud.

Give Breathed credit; unlike Garry Trudeau, he actually draws caricatures of the people he's lampooning, and not waffles or feathers. In this case, by the way, it wasn't so much a caricature of Teresa Kerry as it was character assassination.

And a tip'o the Tube City hard hat to Alert Reader Stunt Violist, who discusses John Kerry's daring hamster rescue and asks "What if rodents were involved in American politics?"

What does she mean, if?

...

Speaking of hard hats, I respect Professor Pittsblog, but he's talking out of his hat. He was piqued recently when a guest speaker at a professional association was given a Steeler hard hat as a token of gratitude:

Here's what I see when I look at the Steeler hard hat ... I see a tribute to two industries --- steel and mining --- which have their best days behind them. I see an idealization of Pittsburgh's history. Does it hold Pittsburgh back to say that this is still a steel town, even metaphorically? Ask your friends around the country and around the world about their impressions of Pittsburgh. Are they good ones? I hope so. Are those positive associations based on the history (and continuing presence) of steel? I'd like to know the answer, but I'd wager that the answer is no.

Well, here's what I see when people tell Pittsburghers to "put steel behind them": "Yes, steelworkers and all that, look, that was a long time ago, and really, who wants to associate with such a group of lower-class ruffians like steelworkers, much less commemorate them?"

That's one small step up from "Those steelworkers were a bunch of blue-collar greedy buffoons," which I heard a lot when I was growing up. And that's just one short step removed from, "Those dumb ignorant hunkies, who do they think they are?"

. . .

Sorry. Maybe I'm over-reacting. But it gets my Irish (or is that Hungarian?) up. You're telling me that what my grandfathers and father did to build America wasn't worthwhile, and that they didn't do anything to make this country great, and that I should forget about it. I take that very personally.

Setting aside the obvious --- that Pennsylvania steel built the great buildings, bridges and ships of the world for nearly a century --- the leadership of steelworkers and coal miners made possible such "radical" concepts as overtime pay, paid vacations and holidays, and health insurance. Those didn't exist until men and women struck for their rights, often at great personal risk to themselves.

And don't forget the impact that Big Steel had on the northern migration of African-Americans to Pennsylvania in search of a better life; the steel companies pitted whites and blacks against one another, hiring blacks to break strikes by white steelworkers and helping to solidify racist attitudes that still exist to this day.

We're supposed to get past that? We're still living with the consequences of decisions that happened 50, 75 or 100 years ago. How can we expect to move forward without understanding what happened in the past?

. . .

Remembering history, and understanding it, is not the same as "idealizing" it. I'd agree that too many Pittsburghers live in the past --- the continued success of classic rock radio stations is evidence enough of that --- but too few of them remember their history. That history includes steel and coal, just as the history of New England includes the American Revolution (or should we rename the New England "Patriots," too?), and we should be doing a better job of teaching it to our young people.

Right now, most young Pittsburghers have little more than a vague awareness that there was such a thing called the steel industry, but no real memories of what life was like in the days of Big Steel. Maybe they think the decaying buildings on the riverfronts in Duquesne and Our Fair City were built as ruins.

Good on the Rivers of Steel Heritage Project for what it's doing in Homestead to teach people about the impact of the steel industry.

. . .

It's a shame that the Carnegie Museums have been so busy over the years building monuments to their wealthy patrons that they never thought to build a museum explaining how the patrons got wealthy in the first place.

Instead, they built a museum for Andy Warhol --- whose most creative and groundbreaking period lasted about 15 years, and whose art will be all but forgotten 100 years from now, when Pittsburgh steel is still holding up bridges and buildings around the world.

That doesn't mean "idealizing" the steel industry; just because I think the era of big steel was crucial to Western Pennsylvania and American history doesn't mean that I'm pining for the days of choking smog and rivers that ran thick with pollution.

But without steel and coal, Western Pennsylvania would still be wilderness. Telling us to "get past" that is like trying to conceal the unpleasant parts of history because they're inconvenient, and frankly, I find it a little snobbish.