Shut Your Pie Hole

16 March

On Saturday Laura and I went to a place called Lawrenceville.We wanted to get a 12 volt battery to hook up to a solar panel. Something that we want to rig up that will run a portable blender. We want to get started on getting our vending licence to sell solar oatmeal smoothies that will make the claim of feeding someone for the whole day. And on a sunny day we can make solar yogurt right on the sidewalk or wherever we might be vending. The electrical warehouse was closed so we took a long walk down Butler Street. This is a part of town that I had never explored before. But, I did teach in the area many times at two different schools, Arsenal Middle School and Washington Polytechnical School. Arsenal Middle School used to be Lawrenceville Catholic High School. I spent half of my education in a Catholic school. And I give credit to this school for most of my restraint in dealing with people in life.
I never realized what a magnificent structure Arsenal Middle School is from the outside. It is made out of hugh sandstone blocks with no wooden trim. And just walking by it as a tourist, it looked great. When I taught there, however, it appeared to me to be just a prison for 13 and 14 year olds.This was the first school where I saw them take a kid out of there in hand cuffs. Now they are consolidating the schools putting more kids in bigger schools. I think they were better off with more smaller schools. But the budget rules and they have to save money
Since I had never explored this part of town it all looked new to me on foot. The main street is growing with art galleries, theatres, bars and all kinds of curiosity shops. After we strode down the main drag we started hitting the side streets. And for once I had my camera. I felt like I was on vacation. It was a really mild day and the people all seemed friendly. This part of town is beside the other river in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny River, so we had to head down towards that river to take a look. But first we went through streets of row houses and rehabilitated factories. This is a community building itself out of urban blight. I just had one of those cheap throw away cameras but everywhere I looked I thought I saw a great picture. So we were just walking along and I was snapping pictures. And there was one that I took that I thought would be great. There was a tiny off-colored spudsy bird with a reddish hue. It was walking on this quiet urban street with old row houses all around. I took its picture then noticed that the biggest building in down town Pittsburgh could be seen about three miles away in the background. I took another picture with this tiny bird and the huge building in the background. Then I came across a yard where the owner had a bunch of bowling balls placed in a winding sphere.In the remainder of his yard were bricks so I guess he did not have any grass to cut. I understand that bowling balls wear out you can only use them so many times before they start to lose something in their quality. I guess this guy’s yard was a shrine to a lifetime of bowling. These are the times when I start to think that I should just walk around the world with some cheap cameras and photogragh everything.
18:57:53 - gregsg2 -