Roots

I'm not sure if it was in yesterday's entry or just coincidence, but Valley native Connie Cox on Tuesday sent me another of those "You know when you're from Western Pennsylvania" pieces. Seeing the subject line, I thought, "this again," but it turned out to be mostly new material, and most of it specifically appropos to Western Pennsylvania. So in the hope of moving the dialog forward, I give it to you now:

You know you're from western PA when...
You walk carefully when it is "slippy" outside.
You often go down to the "crick."
You've told your children to "red up" their rooms. I still "red up," just not as much as I usta.
You've ever gotten hurt by falling into a "jaggerbush." Cactus got lotsa jaggers.
Your mother or grandmother has been seen wearing a "babushka" on her head. I still wear a babushka, only now I call it a "scarf."
You've ever "warshed" the laundry.
You know you can't drive too fast on back roads, because of the deer.
"Gumbands"... need I say more? (For my sons, these are rubber bands.)
You know Beaver Valley, Moon, Mars, Slippery Rock, and New Castle, are actually names of towns. As are Nanty Glo, Colver, Revloc (Colver spelled backwards).
A girl walks up to three of her girl friends and says..."hey guys."
You hear you guyses, and don't think twice (ex.: "you guises house is nice").
You know the three rivers by name. Yep, sure do.
But, the tie breaker would be, can you then spell them? If that still doesn't work, then name, pronounce correctly, and spell the name of the main tributary into the Monongahela at McKeesport.
You remember the blizzard of '50 and remember not being able to go outside because the snow was over your head, and you would have suffocated.
You've made an igloo and the neighborhood kids have played in it.
You drink "pop," eat "hoagies," love perogies and halupkies.
You know what a "still mill" is.
You expect temps in the winter to be record breaking cold and temps in the summer to be record breaking hot.
You know what Eat 'N Park is and the song that goes with it...Eat N Park's the place...for...SMILES.
Y'ns is a commonly used word.
You didn't have a spring break in high school.
You spent your summer holidays at Kennywood, SandCastle, or Idlewild.
You've been to the museum and the Pittsburgh Zoo for school field trips.
You've swum (!) in either the river or the fountain at the Point.
You know every word to Here We Go. (Here we go, Steelers, here we go, Pittsburgh's going to the super bowl.)
Lebanon bologna was always in your refrigerator when you were growing up. And Spam was in the cupboard.
You refuse to buy any condiments besides Heinz.
No matter how hard you try, you can't stop speaking Pittsburghese.
When you misbehaved, you got a lickin'.
Your favorite time of the year during school was the KDKA "farcal berry pirogie" radio fundraiser.
Your last name has 10 or more letters in it (2 of them are a Z and/or a V) and nobody can pronounce it.
The only food served at your wedding was rigatoni and stuffed cabbages.
The volunteer fire hall was the best hang-out in town forSaturday night dances.
You know you're from Western PA because you are reading this...
AND
You'll send this on to family and friends who used to live in the Greater Pittsburgh area!

Has it awakened other memories of distinctly Western Pa. "culture?"

Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman
(The other side of yesterday's golf joke.)

The CIA had an opening for an assassin. After all of the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were three finalists, two men and a woman.

For the final test, the CIA agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions, no matter what the circumstances. Inside of this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill Her!!!"

The man said, "You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife."

The agent said, "Then you're not the right man for this job."

The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about five minutes. Then the man came out with tears in his eyes. "I tried, but I can't kill my wife."

The agent said, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home."

Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow, and said "This gun is loaded with blanks. I had to beat him to death with the chair."

— Sent by Mike Harrison

Thought for Ash Wednesday

The separation of secular and sacred is the ultimate triumph of secularism! The only way really to do Christianity is to make it thoroughgoing, filling the whole life, touching every physical, emotional, spiritual thing. We must reclaim our sense of holy things, holy places, holy people. Can God act and work through physical things? The answer clear in the Bible is yes. God was always using stuff to work good in people, whether it was the relics of Elisha bringing a dead man back to life, the image of a serpent being venerated to heal the bite of the asp, or handkerchiefs being passed from the Apostle Paul healing the diseased. I think if Christians, especially in the West, will reclaim that sense of a truly incarnational (which literally means meaty!) faith, a sacramental, mysteriological way of living, then that awful separation will begin being effaced. We will be all the more able to soak every moment, every molecule with the powerful presence of the living God.

—Andrew Damick
From his journal

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