One result of fracking

I spotted this at the Sideling Hill rest stop on the PA Turnpike on our way to the airport:

Most likely safe?  How about we at least regulate fracking better?  And Pennsylvanians, be sure to carry matches to the bathroom with you!

Reasons to suspect contamination include the following symptoms: headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, itchy skin and kidney failure.

Infuriating.

Vlog: My Grandfather's Hands

Since I've been back from Slovakia, and even before my grandma died, I've been trying to visit Bentleyville as often as my schedule allows, and even sometimes when it doesn't.  Now it's even more special for me as we all grieve her and realize how much she took with her when she went.  We have to work together more, cooperate more, brainstorm together more, and talk to each other more.  The dynamic is different and to say she's irreplaceable is an understatement.

The ways my grandparents kept their files over the years was different - my grandmother made albums, labeled them pretty well, and they've been a relatively user-friendly resource over the years.  Today, my grandfather pulled out this binder and a pack of college-ruled filler paper, and started showing me letters and photos off the top of the stack from some of our relatives in Slovakia, mostly from the 1980s.  So we read letters handwritten and typed in Rusyn and Slovak, and looked at pictures, mixed in with photos of his parents, grandparents, and cousins, obituaries, commemorative prayer cards, and other newspaper clippings.  Instead of being accompanied by a label, every piece has its story - which begets another story.  For example, those of you who know Svidník and that horrible old rusted-out former hotel - looking at a photo of the funeral of his aunt with that building in the background caused a short and parenthetical discussion of the current bedbug epidemic the world is experiencing.  In the meantime, Aunt Nell's in the background, mischievously taking advantage of me sitting and yelling into his good ear to quietly provoke me into asking him the right follow-up questions to get the whole story.

Aunt Nell: Maria, ask him to tell you about his Aunt Helen Zukovich.
Self: Hey Grandpap, what's the story about your Aunt Helen Zukovich?
Grandpap: She was half crazy! No, she was completely crazy!
Aunt Nell [in the background]: She was alright!

For a while, I've been thinking about how since Our People are separated by an ocean (and the Schengen Agreement, which is almost as bad), we've always used the best technologies that were available and affordable to communicate and record our lives to share with our far away families -- it used to be letters and photographs, now it's Skype and videos (and still letters and photographs!).

Letters and photographs are what my grandfather has left of his grandparents and parents and most of his relatives and friends.  I can also have video to pass along to my potential future offspring and theirs, إن شاء الله, and those photos and letters.  Unfortunately by the time he realized I was recording, he wouldn't let me record any more, even as he was telling me about who these people were and how we're related, which is information that will almost certainly die with him.

In the meantime, I'm often fascinated by people's hands, and in this case by the deliberateness of action, as my grandfather creates his/our "archives" with Scotch tape and college-ruled filler paper.  I post this, not because I think we're special because we really aren't, but to encourage you to take this sort of action in your family as well.

So after all that introduction, here's the video:

My Grandfather's Hands from Maria Silvestri on Vimeo.

Lake Conemaugh

First, from my awesome WPA-funded Pennsylvania Writers Project OUP-published Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940:

One of the greatest disasters in the State's history was the flood in the spring of 1889 at Johnstown, situated at the junctionof the Little Conemaugh River and Stony Creek.  On the morning after Memorial Day the waters rose quickly.  Then the giant South Fork Dam, which impounded 78,000,000 tons of water, burst and the torrent carried away everything in its path, crumbling the houses of Johnstown like cardboard and drowning approximately 2,200.  Flames completed the havoc.

and

In May 1889 a week of heavy rainfall raised the Conemaugh River and Stony Creek River, still swollen by spring thaws.  The waters inched up the steep hills in a manner familiar to residents, who expected no greater damage than that which they had frequently experienced, and to which they had long since resigned themselves.  On the afternoon of May 31 the South Fork Dam gave way; erected to form a feeder basin for the Pennsylvania Canal, it had been neglected since 1862.  A wall of water, 75 feet high and half a mile wide, rushed upon everything aside, exacting a toll of more than 2,200 lives and about $10,000,000 in property damage.  Bodies were carried down-river as far as Pittsburgh.  All parts of the Nation contributed to the rescue and rehabilitation work.  Only one precaution against a recurrence was subsequently taken, the widening of the Conemaugh River in 1891.

So this leaves out how Frick and friends of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were unconcerned with the potential hazards of the dam and then because the flood was an "Act of God" they were never held responsible for the damage. 

You can go back to this post to read about my visit to the Johnstown Flood Museum, but on the way back from Dunlo on Sunday, we stopped at the former Lake Conemaugh, where I'd never been:

Lake Conemaugh, which is now part of the Johnstown Flood National Memorial

The picture of the lake area was taken from the north side of the spillway - so really, from where it all began.  And the rich industrialists never really apologized, spoke publicly about their involvement or were put on trial or anything like that because the paperwork made it so that they couldn't be held responsible for something that they really were neglectful about, namely not maintaining the spillway.  And so lots of people died and they kept on being rich.

And then three years later, the Homestead Strike happened.  Then Berkman tried to kill Frick, and by that point Frick was so hated in Pittsburgh and he was in grief about his daughter that he had to retreat to New York City and took up the hobby of art. 

Like Going to Europe, except unfortunately not quite

Sunday was the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church in Dunlo, PA.  This was an excellent excuse to go to the mountains and get some fresh air and meet the people who live out there in former coal mining villages.

After ages of joking about it, I am beginning to better understand cemetery geekiness.  After learning more and understanding more, it's so interesting to go into cemeteries full of immigrant families and see the design and language used - so telling of so much - and yet there are so many stories buried with the people in the cemeteries.

For example, this headstone on the left mixes alphabets at the bottom where it says "VIČNAJA JEMU PAMЯATЬ."  The way they use of "born" and "died" reveals the dialect of these people: rodzena, umerla, etc.

So after the panachida at the cemetery, we went to church for liturgy and then to the Fire Hall for luncheon.  The interior of the fire hall helped me to think about how analogous 'Fire Hall' is to 'Kultúrny dom' in Europe.  'Culture House' elevates the concept slightly, but it's the same difference: a large room where most of the village can gather in one room for a community-building event.

The Dunlo Kultúrny Dom contrasted with the Jakubjany Kultúrny Dom.

As we were driving to Dunlo in Cambria county, through South Fork and Saint Michael, I kept seeing signs for a soft drink called Squirt, which I'd never heard of before.  The design of these signs screamed 1960s, and I was wondering if it is a now-defunct soft drink like one of my favorites, Surge.  Apparently it's still produced but I didn't know that at the time, and so imagine what a strange timewarpy feeling it must have been to drive into Dunlo and be greeted by this:

So, we had to go in on our way out of town.  Mostly because I love these old so-called "ethnic" clubs, and while I've been to them in Pittsburgh, I'd never been to one out in the country - and I wanted to talk to some of the people from this place.

When we walked in, they had just finished their pre-Steelers game chili cookoff, and so there were assorted crock pots plugged in in a row with numbers sitting in front of them.  While I don't think there is a chili cookoff before every Steelers game, because apparently they do different food cookoffs, there is a rather small pool of people so one would think that people would know whose crockpot goes with whom.  This creates a problem because if it's a contest then it's not anonymous and if I was living in Dunlo I'd pay attention to what everyone's crock pot looked like. Or perhaps the contestants swap crock pots beforehand.  And how do they carry them in without everyone seeing?  sigh. Obviously I've just flown my city-kid flag with my stupid worries about a village chili cookoff.

Everyone was sitting around the bar (how do you know where people are on a Sunday afternoon in the fall when the streets are deserted?) waiting for the Steelers game to start, all in their Steelers shirts - I was glad that Troy Polamalu was the most popular there!  I was talking with them, commenting on how they all wore Steelers shirts, and one of the guys at the bar said to the guy next to him, "What, hasn't she ever seen Steelers fans before?"

And really, here we must give some much-deserved credit to immigrant ingenuity.  For a bunch of people who were really discriminated against, who had the worst jobs, couldn't speak English really well and so on, they really knew how to get around the blue laws back in the day when they founded these clubs! I had commented on how much I really enjoy these ethnic clubs, and same smart aleck at the bar said, "If anything, here we're ethnically challenged!"

Many of the people from Dunlo have roots in the village of Malcov, which is between Bardejov and Čirč.  On the wall in the bar, between the pinball machine and Steelers memorabilia, was the requisite homemade plaque honoring the founders of the club.  So if you're reading this and have roots in Malcov, some of your relatives may be here:

But to me, the interesting thing about this is not its potential as a genealogical goldmine, but rather that fist at the bottom of the left column.  Those old coal miners must have had some radical politics, and whoever made this sign knew it?!  Oh, and by the way -- not too many Slovaks at the Slovak American Citizens club, eh?

And now, finally, a comparison of grazing cows, to prove how legit this place is:

 

Which is in America, and which is in Europe?

Some Things I'll Miss and Some Things I've Learned

So, a sort of conclusionary post -- though this blog will continue, albiet with more of a southwestern PA/East Coast vibe, which is kind of good, because of course adventures can happen closer to home.  And this post will probably be updated over the next few days and weeks.

But let me start this way: the music I love listening to is Kandráč, Mačošková, et. al.  I was listening to it a bit on the plane and granted, I was mega PMSing, but really I couldn't listen to it without crying and yet I couldn't not listen to it as I was hurtling 400mph in the opposite direction of the music.

1.  I'll be back, just hang in there, I definitely will be.
2. Posts in the near future will be chronologically mixed up, which is the result of me having a stable connection for the first time since the last time I was in the US.  I still have some video to post from early June (!).
   

Leaving was too bittersweet.  I couldn't wait to see my parents (and the rest of my family who I've yet to see), but really, I absolutely don't want to leave, though I already have.  As if it was planned, I didn't even get a last look at the Tatras because the day was as overcast as my mood.  Vienna, which has always been a good place for me to transition between east and west, was lovely as always, even though it was a too-short visit. 

So.  Some things (among many) I'll miss:

1. .5l (1 pint) of beer for less than €1.  €3.80 for a beer in Vienna was a bit of sticker shock, for inferior beer.  And not to bitch even more, but lots of American beer is so noticeably hoppy with such little nuance that it's disappointing.  Yes, I know I'm spoiled and snobby, but I'm also willing to discuss and back up my opinions.
   
2. These bacon rolls to the left.  Fluffy dough, with bacon and cheese.  They were a bit overcooked when I took this pic, but perfect when I bought my last for the train trip today and subsequent breakfast.  Hypernova may be overpriced but this made it all so worth it.
3. Public transportation and being able to walk to places.  Driving in suburban traffic is not fun.  And there's just so many people everywhere.  Where did they all come from?
   
4. My crew.  In Prešov and Ružomberok.  This is the main thing.  I can live without the bacon rolls, but my crews were too excellent -- and it's always the people who make the place most special.
   

Some things I've learned to try to always have with me, especially on hikes:

1. knife/multitool: for many things, namely cutting pork products and vegetables, but you never know anyway.
   
2. fire starting mechanism: for creating cooked pork products in the wilderness, where the pork fat tastes even better than it does in 'civilization'.
   
3. change of clothing: because it may start pouring and no one likes being soggy, though better yet, don't forget your really good, easily packable rain jacket in America -- bring it with you!
   
4. small first aid kit: because you may cut yourself on irresponsibly abandoned beer bottles far away from the nearest village.
5. wet wipes: more refreshing and less alchoholy than Purell and similar products.
6. tissues in those plastic travel packs: good for blowing the nose and also good when there's blood everywhere.
7. hand lotion: it's just nice to have when you want it.
8. toothbrush and a clean t-shirt: you never know where you're going to sleep.

Two things I needed to buy within 24 hours of being back, thus proving that my routine has been modified a bit over the last year:

1. slippers: not easy to find in the middle of August, but I can't do shoes in the house anymore.
2. a drying rack: some of my new €urotrash wardrobe can't handle the dryer.  Plus air drying is so much nicer anyway, even though it necessitates ironing.  We'll see how long I can hold out.

Immediately, I realized that the biggest challenge is going to be to keep on a reasonable diet -- not diet in terms of losing weight, but diet in terms of eating well/right.  Because whereas before I didn't live within a 30 mile radius of a McDonald's, now fast food is everywhere, with hydrogenated oils beckoning me in an overwhelming cacophony.  And I want it, badly.  Tacos, for example. 

I can report mild culture shock and yet at the same time, an eerie comfort with my surroundings.  Eerie because it's comfort mixed with uncomfort, and culture shock mixed with expectations. Keeping up with my Slovak is a priority and at the same time having everything in English all of a sudden is strange, too.

Let's see how long this all lasts, shall we?

Attention PennDOT:

Today, on one of the main drags of Prešov, I saw workers filling in potholes with (I am not making this up) something that looked very much like manure.  Since asphalt costs money because oil-based products cost money, and it's always a source of budgetary woes in Pennsylvania, I recommend this thrifty Slavic fix.  Especially because we all know that there is plenty of manure in Pennsylvania in the area, roughly speeaking, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

For everyone who's been asking

No, I won't get to watch the Superbowl live.
Yes, this bums me out massively.

The Steelers are the one known entity capable of causing homesickness in me -- I spent Super Bowl XL in a NJ dorm room (eating some CluckU chicken products -- oh New Jersey. [sigh.]) with a bunch of kids from all over the country who, though it wasn't their fault, did not possess the depth of emotion necessary for a fulfilling experience.

Now for Super Bowl XLIII, I'm in a country where 99.9% of people surveyed think American football is "barbaric" and the most famous Pittsburgh sports figure is not Hines Ward, Big Ben or Troy Polamalu but Miroslav Šatan and arguably even still, Marian Hossa. On Sunday night when the game starts, it'll be after midnight and I'll be at the convent, where everyone except me wakes up at 5, so I won't be watching the game live. I've already warned my colleagues that on Monday morning, I'll either be exceptionally happy or extremely sad.

I can see it now: my theoretically-futurely-existing child(ren) asking me, "[Insert name referring to my maternal status], where were you when the Steelers won their record-setting sixth Super Bowl?" and I will respond, "I was asleep, sober, and in a convent; not on Carson Street, not on Fifth Avenue, not at Market Square [landmarks my still-theoretical offspring will know even if they are not being raised full-time in the 412] not full of Iron City (though definitely not IC Light, puh-leeze)."

Alas, after the most glorious phone call I received at 6am on 5 November 2008, here's a hint, mum! Like that night, I will probably sleep fitfully.

Despite the somewhat negative tone of this post, I'm not certainly not unhappy here, nor is living in the convent a drag at all -- so I end this post with a little flava that kind of synthesizes my being here and my being a proud Pittsburgher:

But if the Rusyns, already denied a country, change their traditions, what do they have left? Righetti and Silvestri boast that their past has bequeathed a postmodern notion of identity, one in which there is no essential "national character."

"The Rusyn movement is international, and decentralized," Silvestri says. "It's anarchic, and that's what I like about it.

"You can be nationalistic without being a nation," she adds. "Is Steelers Nation a country?"

That, says Robert Hayden, "is a very healthy, refreshing attitude."

UPDATE: Oh, and check out this amazing article from New Hampshire by someone who grew up in Cleveland(!) of all places, and who manages to extol the Steelers and none other than Pete Seeger in the same column, a huge achievement in my book:

"And I'll bet, especially given the passion for sports of the previous occupant of the White House, that somewhere on the premises is at least one gargantuan screen TV, ready and waiting for the new president and his charming family to watch the Steelers - of course - win next Sunday's big game.

So far it is a good new year."

Thank you, Allegheny County

This is rather serious. Today, I got my absentee ballot in the mail, and it will be back on its way to Forbes Avenue tomorrow morning, first thing. If you're not already registered to vote, it's almost too late, but not quite. It's quite a responsibility, enough people have fought for this right, please don't waste it.

Johnstown, PA - Cambria City, represent!

Confidential to Christina -- I swear I was going to do a post about this!

I've been doing things Rusyn for quite a long time, mostly as part of an organized group doing some public program to promote things Rusyn -- but this post shows a progression of Rusyn culture in America. Why? Because this event of Rusyns was developed organically, thematically and anarchistically. A bunch of Rusyns got together to do something highly related to being Rusyn, almost spontaneously though also very planned. It was a great time, and something that I hope happens elsewhere, because it is culture-building.

The day started with visits to the main places of the American Carpatho-Russian Greek Catholic Orthodox Church -- we went to liturgy, to the chancery, to the seminary. After that, a great lunch at a Johnstown restaurant, and finally what was for me the main attraction -- the Heritage Discovery Center.

It's relatively new, and so the museology is new. Like at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, you are given a person to follow through the museum -- I think they had 8 or 10 people to choose from in Johnstown. I was a young female immigrant from Calabria who came to America to get married -- but being the museum geek that I am, I also waited around every kiosk where you scan your card so that I could see what the other ones were like also. They definitely represent a cross-section of the diverse groups who came to Johnstown.

We had a rather lengthy introduction at the ticket desk, which contextualized the mass immigration to the US between 1870-1920ish as the result of mass depopulation after the Civil War -- maybe that's one reason, but I think that the whole situation is much more nuanced than just that. Then, the only negative sort of thing that happened there: at the end of his talk, the introducer mentioned that at the end, we would be asked at a kiosk "Should we allow more immigrants into the United States?" and that we should answer yes, because then we would find out what really happened to the person we had gone with through the museum. I don't know how often this guy works, and I was happy to see that people overwhelmingly said yes, but it wasn't really good of him to give us that information and I definitely think the results are skewed, as much as I'd like to think that visiting the Heritage Discovery Center helps people to remember that they are descendants of (often illiterate, non Anglophone) immigrants so that they change their stance on people who immigrate to the US today.

The visit is a well-organized forced-path experiential-learning extravaganza:
(click to enlarge photos)

First, you arrive at Ellis Island, where the train ticket agent calls you a unwashed idiot or something xenophobic, and then you sit in the train station in Johnstown watching trains arrive and people meet their friends and relatives who have just arrived in America (above).


At various points throughout the exhibition, you can listen to actors reading first-hand accounts of immigration narratives. I tend to have a problem with faux accents in museum settings -- this is a trick also used at another great museum about immigration, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum -- I don't think that the device really helps explain the situation, and it comes off as cheesy, crude and gimmicky. Here though, I really liked this diorama/sound bank. It looked great and served its purpose really well -- you can see how well designed the HDC is.


The interactives were fun for everyone. One was about separating coal from rocks on a moving conveyor belt, which was also really fun and showed how labor-intensive industry was at that time. They also really make it clear that they (established WASP boss people) felt that these dangerous jobs were unskilled labor, which I think is far from the truth.


Personally, I would have loved to have learned more about labor organizing, but I also know that a lot of immigrants, especially from eastern Europe, were not interested in being organized. It's really enough of a topic for a stand-alone exhibit. Again, amazing design with a standard style that just really worked throughout the galleries.

Not content to see just one museum in Johnstown, we also went over to the Johnstown Flood Museum.

Mostly I hissed at the arrogance of the wealthy who caused the flood, and wished that Alexander Berkman had succeeded. The museum is small, but also really well done, and brings the situation to the present with a photo gallery of contemporary Johnstown -- how far things have come... Pennsylvanians really get off on lighted 3D map displays in museums (cf. Gettysburg), but they're so cool because they really are helpful and it's nice to not be looking at some computer-generated thing.

Our day ended with a trip up and down the world's steepest inclined plane that can also hold 3 cars:
We got drinks at the top. / It was vertigo-inducing.