Sunday night – Stilluhs

Greetings from Pittsburgh.. home to heinz ketchup. carnegie mellon university, many of my good freinds.. and the pittsburgh steelers.. (or Stilluhs.. as they’re called here) . Diane and I are down here visiting our good friends larry. leah and hannah while I give a talk at CMU. where I went to grad school. Diane, Max and I leved her from 1988 till 1991. Max was only six weeks old when we moved here.. which was.. Gulp// 21 years ago !.. The place really hasn’t changed much. It was nice then.. and it’s still nice now !

Hannah, who’s Max’ age , was wonderful enough to come and pick us up at the airport this morning.. we drove back to her folks Larry and Leah’s house in Ohaara twshp. Larry and I were friends in grad school.. he’s now a porf at CMU.. and Leah is a childrens book author.. they live here with their 15 year old italian greyhound , Bruno..

First order of business today was for Hannah and I to go watch the Pittsburgh Steelers play the CLevland Browns.. I have not been to a professional sports game since high school.. so it was a huge adventure !

There was so much stuff goign on.. so many things to see and watch that it would have been fun even if they hadn’t played !.

in the second quarter Pittsburgh was abotu to score their first goal.. so I got out the Samstone I was carrying. i figured i’d put it somewhere as soon as the Steelers scored… and they did !

Out came the ‘terrbible towels’.. a yellow rag that everyone here twirls when soemthing good happens on the firl. I remember them having terrible towles 20 years ago.. I htink we have one in our house even.

Then came the half time show.. a marching band playing.. among other things.. ‘free bird’ !.. Where’s my lighter ?

The game lasted about 3 hours.. and hannnah patiently answered every quesiton I asked about the rules and the players.. It was an awesome time ! Hannah had a secret parkign place that made escaping super quick.. we got home in no time.. Around 5, folks started showing up for dinner. Leah put out a real feast.. exotic cheeses, a whole salmon, salads, veggies.. It was great.. as was the conversation. It was a really cool and ecclectic crowd tonight.. ..

Our uber-gracious hists… larry and leah.. larrys a Prof at CMU and Leah writes kids books.

They’re daughter Hannah.. who’s studying statistics and politics at CMU.. (and teaches footbal rules ot clueless vermonters)

Our friedn Steve.. who had drivig in with wife Kate from State college to see us.. !.. Kate and steve were our some of our closest freinds when we lived here in the 80’s. I’d met steve in a grocery store a few days after we moved to town. Their son Mathew is only a month younger than max. .. Steve teaches Geograpy at Penn State.