Category: default || By jt3y

3,000 FEET ABOVE OUR FAIR CITY, June 9 --- It's 4:17 p.m., and from my window seat on the starboard side of the airplane, I can see Downtown, the Mansfield Bridge, the McKees Point Marina and my neighborhood in North Bittyburg. I suppose I could pull a D.B. Cooper and bail out right now using the air stairs, but I don't have a parachute and I think the landing would be a rough one. Also, since I haven't robbed any banks, they probably won't make any movies about me (though I might end up in Jay Leno's monologue).

So I guess I'll just stay seated. I doubt I could find the air stairs anyway, since I'm pretty well lubricated. The stewardesses --- excuse me, cabin crew --- have been plying us with free beer and wine since we left Dulles, about 20 minutes late. A connecting flight from the West Coast was late, which meant that a bunch of people who were supposed to be on our flight were delayed. Then, we had a rowdy passenger who got in an argument with the pilot and who was questioned by security. And in talking with the pilot later, passengers found out that we had to detour more than 100 miles around a bad storm system in western Maryland.

To make it up to us? Free hooch!

The Florida trip was interesting, if tiring. I used up a week's vacation time to do research for the book. All but one of the interviews was a success in terms of the information gathered, and a couple of the interviewees turned out to be very pleasant surprises. (In fairness, I haven't yet had a meeting with anyone in my G.C. Murphy research that hasn't been pleasant.)

There are plenty of places that I wouldn't mind living --- Boston (Massachusetts, not Elizabeth Township) and Toronto (Ontario, not Ohio) are high on the list --- but after spending five days in Florida, I've decided that's not one of them. As the week progressed, I found myself getting eager to get back to Our Fair City as the trip progressed. (Weird, eh?)

It didn't help that I kept getting reminded of the Mon Valley as I traveled. The Tampa airport has a Westinghouse-designed people mover system that is a dead ringer for the old "Skybus" at South Park. (The shuttles were recently replaced, as it turns out, with cars made at Bombardier's plant in West Mifflin.) I saw a restaurant on U.S. 1 near Palm Beach called the "Holiday House." In Sarasota, there's a street called "Toledo Blade Boulevard," which made me think of the Post-Gazette (which is owned by the Toledo Blade. And in the library in Leesburg, Fla., where I stopped to check my email, I listened as a man stopped at the reference desk to get a zip code for Carson Street on the South Side. He was from Pittsburgh; the reference clerk was from the Youngstown area.

I am grudgingly willing to admit that I can understand why someone might want to live in Florida, especially if they were tired of rainy summers and gray winters in Pennsylvania. But not me. I don't like heat, and I don't like crowds, and I don't like suburban sprawl, and Florida has all three of those in abundance. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be crazy to live there, but it probably helps.

...

To Do This Weekend: Meanwhile, back in the present, Billy Price and the Keystone Rhythm Band play the South Park Amphitheatre at 8 tonight. The show is free, but donations and proceeds from concessions benefit the Innocence Institute at Point Park University. ... Mon-Yough Riverfront Entertainment Council and the Caribbean and Latin American Student Association of the University of Pittsburgh host the 21st annual Caribbean Food and Music Festival from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday at Riverfront Park, Water Street between Fifth and Ninth avenues. There will be live salsa and Latin music and food. Admission is free. (In case of rain, events will be moved to McKeesport High School, Eden Park Boulevard.) Call (412) 678-1727 or visit MYREC's web page.