Penn Hills, PA 63˚F ☁️
Started August 1, 2014
September 26, 2025 10:01 AM

Was a time you could walk cross Allegheny River Boulevard at the traffic light below the Nadine Pumping Station to find a path through tall summer weeds that led to the a muddy bank of the Allegheny River. Development, the railroad, and the municipality have successfully blocked the way. Proof, I believe, that progress tends to the ugly in the face of our lives.

My friends and I spent summer days fishing for golden Carp and ugly Catfish. Mostly caught the jewels of civilization’s detritus and the infamous Monongahela White Fish. Truth is, I didn’t do much fishing. Threading slimy night crawlers out of a styrofoam cup onto a blooding hook never pleased me. Digging them the evening before was too much like farming to me.

But the real knot that kept me from unlacing the pleasure of fishing was the extreme ennui I felt holding the rod for hours waiting for some damn piscatory creature to nibble, decide to set the hook in its mouth so I could haul it in to fry it as a bony meal later in the day. Once, I spent a whole day on the beached body of a barge downstream about a quarter mile. Not one fish shivered my line. I did lose a few things out of my shirt pocket into the sparkling blue Allegheny.

So what did I do while the others fished? I listened to the sometimes angry, other times sweet sound of the waves against the beach while I downed a few cool sips of beer iced in the cooler we muscled with great effort to our decaying river perch. Yes, we were under the age, PA drinking permitted. Made the cool liquid and bitter taste of the beer so much better. Iron City Lager.

Often, I brought my Silvertone gray-painted acoustic F-hole guitar and sang a few songs. Composed some. A couple weren’t bad. Listened and told stories. Dirty jokes. Three priests and a nun go fishing… Dreamt a little of Huck, Tom, and Jim.

The river, by its flowing banks, can weave you into its heady rhythm. Tugs and barges would cause a tidal wave of wash over our feet every fifteen minutes or so. Pleasure boaters mid river, hiding from the office and heading for the next pool down over the dam at Highland Park, allowing access to the Point (the confluence of the Mon, the Al, and the O Rivers), and destinations south all the way to New Orleans, would wave as they chugged past.

Lazy. Dreaming. Days. Better therapy than any Doc could ever imagine. I closed my eyes. Felt the dimming of the sun on my skin. The water whisper a soft lap. A hum from the highway above and across the water. A smell of antediluvian decay. The earth is rotating and twirling, holding me down on the bank. The whole of the cosmos vibrating for all time.

We packed and humped home. Tomorrow never promised the same.