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Yesterday, we published a terrific #AMPLIFY contribution from Chi Chi who is a 47 year queer Latina living in Pittsburgh. Chi Chi is from Panama, but grew up about a mile from where I grew up – we went to different schools and never met. Until #AMPLIFY. We have plans to meet in person next […]
I grew up in West Mifflin in that strange little suburban space between the rural Mon Valley and the fluffier South Hills bedroom communities. It is a strange space and the folks at Tube City dare to explore it in their weekly Mon Valley podcast ‘Two Rivers, 30 Minutes’ – can you name the two […]
Behind the scenes, this information is some of the most frequently sought from my blog this time of year. So I’m going to make it as accessible as possible. There are two major two distributions that are open to the public. Play It Forward will distribute gently used toys, books and similar items on Saturday […]
Like most kids, I grew up with a mixture of urban legend and cultural frights that together made for terrifying experiences. Our neighborhood was the border of “The Woods” which lent itself as a source of horrifying creatures sneaking through the backyard and into our lives. Nevermind that during the day, we ran wild and […]
Backpacks or similar bags are de rigueur for school students, no matter what grade. There are always trends in terms of what’s a cool bag, but for many youth – a durable bag that functions is pretty much what they want. So I have this blue backpack that I purchased in August 1998 for grad […]
When I was a child, I kept coming across passages in books about olden times that described how Independence Day was celebrated. It was nothing like my own experience in the 1970s’ and 1980’s Pittsburgh suburb of West Mifflin. Here’s an excerpt from a particularly vivid memory – Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder From […]
Benjamin Franklin said: “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” Do you think you know yourself well? Well, technically Benjamin Franklin wrote this in 1750 book Poor Richard’s Almanac. I just completed an intake process for new mental health providers yesterday and one thing that struck me was how […]
With a surname of “Kerr” you probably aren’t too shocked to learn that I’m part Irish. What was shocking to me was when I learned the whole story about my ethnicity. I grew up in blue-collar West Mifflin, the daughter of a steel family. We were Kerr’s and Pryor’s – and everyone told me that […]
Today’s prompts – 3 in 1! 1. I was born in Upper St. Clair, lived in Mt. Lebanon and then Baldwin before landing in West Mifflin at the tender age of 2. My parents still live in West Mifflin. My earliest memory of our home in West Mifflin is the smell of a diaper pail […]
I can’t recall specific great dreams or even my worst nightmare (who would want to?) so I thought of some recurring themes. 1. Banshee. My father told me about the banshee when I was a kid. So wailing winds combined with the tree branches scratching my window and an overactive imagination led to some terrible […]
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