These river towns are rough, very working class, and built on the backs of mostly Catholic immigrants and their descendants. Most of them sit beneath the spires
of an enormous Catholic cathedral, watching over the saturday night crusing muscle cars with the frowns of bygone priests. Oil City, Emlenton, East Brady, Templeton, Kittanning, Ford City, Freeport. Growing up male in these river towns means
forging an identity in masculinity and street cred. I remember wrestling guys from Kittanning. When we bicycled past Kittanning High School, I was filled with memories of childhood tournaments on Saturdays, sometimes going into the early morning hours, with fathers screaming from the stands. Oil City always had a great team as well. Football was the true religion of this region. Boys here learn to tackle before they learn to put on their sunday best. These towns are dirty and unsophisticated to outsiders, but for some reason I was thrilled to share them with Gabriela. Each time we crossed an iron bridge over the Allegheny
into another town with all of its stories, I couldn't wait to unveil it all to my wife and her rural Kansan upbringing. In Emlenton,
there was the pizza joint that looked like it hadn't been revonvated since the 1950s, with a server who didn't seem to have the courage to converse with us.
Even as I was starving, I loved her humility. In Parker, there was the guy at the "bicycle shop" who replied to our query about gears constantly slipping by saying, "yeah, I wouldn't want to touch that, there's a screw somewhere to adjust, but I don't know how to do it." And we loved him as well. In these places, the menu has fried food and pizza. If you're lucky, there's pasta or a baked potato. East Brady lives and breathes football and hometown hero Jim Kelly. This all brings me to our tour through Ford City today. They were having their annual summer festival in the park and we decided to see what all the commotion was through the trees.
We found about a hundred people sitting on lawn chairs watching dozens of young men compete in a bench press contest. There was a woman on a loud speaker calling out the names. There was a judge who also was a kind of coach, screaming to the young men when they started the bench press
to "Preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessss!" There was the casual clapping of the spectators, as if they have seen this a hundred times before. There was the look on Gabriela's face.........a mixture of curiosity, confusion, and boredom with this rust belt display of the manhood ritual, Allegheny river style. This tour has been full of opportunities to share my family history with Gabriela. We biked right past the very house that my Irish immigrant great grandparents Michael and Bridget Welsh lived and raised their eight or so kids. Michael was employed to take care of the tracks along a certain span. They lived between the tracks and the river in a 1000 sq. ft. house with no running water. This is where they died and it's the closest thing the Walsh family has today to an original homestead.
Instead of a 160 acre spread in the midwest, however, our Irish ancestors found themselves chained to the rails, tethered to the locomotives that must have shaken the whole house as they barreled past literally 20 feet away. This house is in a section of the river about 4 miles north of Kittanning called Mosgrove. It's the only real house, just to the south of about a mile of RVs and boat docks that have been recently built. A great trustle bridge looms
about 1/2 mile to the north. It's now owned by a guy named Rob Morrow, whose grandfather Bob Morrow was the caretaker for two of my grandfather's cousins (Edna and Marie Welsh), who lived and died together up the hill from Mosgrove. We met Rob and I was delighted to learn that the house still stands and that it's still in his family.
He and his wife now live there and have updated it and added an addition. We also found the graves of Micheal and Bridget Welsh, buried in St. Mary's
cemetary in north Kittanning, next to three of their daughters. One of their sons, John, is also buried there, along with his three children and wife. And finally, as we meandered up the Freeport/Butler bicycle trail toward Saxonburg, we came out as Sarver and there it was:
the Sarver Fire Hall. This is where my parents met at a square dance around 1960. I have been there a couple of times and I love the story and recognized it right away. I even tried to get into the place, but it was all locked up. As my parents approach their 50th anniversary, this landmark becomes more and more important. We took a break at this place where such an important union began. It bears mentioning that today we were fortunate enough to meet my parents, brother Matt, and babygirl Lily at the Villa restaurant in Cadogan. This is my parent's favorite restaurant, run by an Italian guy from the area. The place is always packed. When you walk in, the waiting room to your left is full of old church pews. The restaurant itself is dark, with a kind of pinkish hew that fills the room and blends beautifully with Italian opera and renaissance painting on the walls and the smells of just baked bread and tomato sauce. It is as if you have entered a vortex and arrived in some bizarre pocket of western pennsylvania. The people pack the place every night.
My parents drive 5o minutes to eat there. Each way. Today, I followed my father to the hostess station to watch and observe how he works his magic. In all the years we have been going there, we have never once had to wait. Dad has a short conversation and we are ushered to our table. This time, I watched. He slowly approaches the hostess....then says hello waiting cautiously for a sign of recognition. When he gets this, he knows he is in. "Hi, we've been coming here for 25 years but couldn't make a reservation today. Our son and daugher in law are bicycling from Oil City. Do you think you could get us in?" A minute later, we are seated and Lily has her first taste of the best marinara sauce in Pennsylvania.
we were so happy to see her. Today was a short pleasant 21 miles from Saxonburg to Cranberry mainly on rolling country roads.
to harvest the ripe berries and call out "goldmine", which was the call for Doug, Greg and Laura to come running to help in the berry collection.
