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| Heinz Pickle Pins |
True Pittsburghers
Being a Steeler fan means so much more than football. It means being from a corner of the world unlike any other. It means donning the black and gold and having the right getup for the game.
It means being from a place where the people are so tough-minded that they have survived the Homestead strikes, the Johnstown flood and most recently the Etna Floods. These people have the DNA of hard work, in mills and mines, without the necessity of complaint. They live simply, with no frills. They don't have movie stars or fancy cars.
Instead, they have simple traditions like kielbasa, Kennywood, and celebrations, aka festivals and picnics, pronounced pitnik.
They live in distinctive neighborhoods like Polish Hill and the Hill District and all of the surrounding counties. These people are genuine. They don't have chic internet cafes and cappuccinos, but they have The Original Hot Dog joint, Primanti's, Eat n' Park and Iron City Beer (aka by its initials, IC but actually now even the Burgh has cappucinos, etc...)
People from Pittsburgh don't have sunny beaches or fancy boats, but the rivers roll gently, connecting the small towns of people whose histories have been built on strength and humility.
People from Pittsburgh don't have the biggest shopping malls or the best nightclubs, but they'll take Friday night high school football and Steeler Sunday over anything. Well there is a big change as country wide with malls and outlet stores and all manner of yuppie brand chain restaurants in the same.
Steeler football means so much more than you think. It symbolizes a Diaspora of generations who had the best childhood they could imagine.
They ran free without a care or concern in the valleys of those Allegheny Mountains. Indeed we did run, bike walk all over the hills, few of us ever had our own car....
Their blue-collar world was easy ... there was no one to tell them that they lacked material things. There was no one to tell them that they needed more.
As the steel mills closed and the jobs disappeared, some of these people had to leave. While the world benefits because they spread their Pittsburgh values, they long for their home where things were simpler and more pure. Our hometown area today is nothing like it was when we were growing up in the best of the times in the 50's and 60's.
They teach their kids about Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, L.C. Greenwood, Joe Greene, and Myron Cope in hopes of imparting not just the knowledge, but the feeling that they represented.
They are everywhere, those Terrible Towels. They wave, not just for the team, but for the hearts they left behind. They wave in living rooms in Fort Lauderdale and in the bars of Washington , D.C. I have found them in Memphis at the bar b que where the owner Tony never forgot the 'Burgh.
They wave all the way to the Seattle Superdome! They wave for the Rooney family, whose values mirror our own - loyalty, grit, and humility.
They wave for football players like Jerome Bettis and Hines Ward, whose unselfishness and toughness have allowed sports to be about the game and the team. Even if you no longer live in the area, you have South Western Pennsylvania in your blood no matter where you go. And deep down in your heart of hearts, you can still hear the Super Bowls of times past, the excitement in everyone's voices gathered round the TV on Football Sundays! It's more than football, but its football at its finest! If you now live in Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, Indiana , California , Florida , Nevada, or Texas, be proud of where you were born and who your FIRST favorite football team was! Go Steelers Picksburgh GO STILLERS! Ah yes! "Picksburgh"
Yunz (the only place in the world where you hear this word. I was in an airport in Atlanta years back when I heard a man say "yunz" and I said, "From da' Burgh? To which he said, "How d'ja know? I told him "yunz" gave him away...and he grinned. ) so Yunz is from the Picksburgh area or maybe you grew up there if:
1. You didn't have a spring break in high school.
2. You walk carefully when it is "slippy" outside.
3. You often go down to the "crick."
4. You've told your children to "red up" their rooms.
5. You can remember telling your little brother/sister to stop being so "nebby."
6. You've gotten hurt by falling into a "jaggerbush".
7. Your mother or grandmother has been seen wearing a "babushka" on her head.
8. You've "worshed" the clothes.
9. I ask you to hand me one of those "Gum-Bands" an' you actually know what I'm talking about.
10. You know you can't drive too fast on the back roads, because of the deer.
11. You know Beaver Valley, Turtle Crick, Mars, Slippery Rock, Green Tree and New Castle are names of towns. And you've been to most, if not all, of them.
12. A girl walks up to three of her girl friends and says, "HEY, YINZ GUYS!"
13. You hear "you guyses" and don't think twice. Example: "yunz guyses hause is nice."
14. You know the three rivers by name and understand that "The Point" isn't just on a writing instrument.
15. Someone refers to "The Mon" or "The Yough" and you know exactly what they're talking about.
16. You remember the blizzard of 1993 (or 1976, or 1950, or 1939, or...) and remember not being able to go outside because the snow was over your head and you would have suffocated.
17. Someone starts the chant, "Here we go Still-ers!" and you join in. In the proper cadence, waving the appropriately colored towel.
18. You drink pop, eat hoagies, love perogies and one of your favorite sandwiches actually has coleslaw and french fries ON it.
19. You know what a "still mill" is.
20. You expect temps in the winter to be record-breaking cold and temps in the summer to be record-breaking hot.
21. You order "dippy eggs" in a restaurant and get exactly what you wanted.
22. You've been to the Braun's Bread Plant or Story Book Forest for a school field trip. We went to the Heinz plant and the Isaly's plant for Cub Scouts.. Commentary: A bus ride to the Heinz factory was an achievement of 6th grade. We would never have dreamed of what schools do today, bus trips to another state and flights to Hawaii from CA. Doubt they will treasure that as much as we did the Heinz outing; I still have my little old pickle pin.
H.J. Heinz, a marketing genius, developed the idea for the pickle pin at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. In hopes of drawing attention to the company's second-floor display, Mr. Heinz hired a few local boys to scatter the fairgrounds with cards promising a "free gift" if visitors ventured upstairs to the Heinz booth. People climbed the stairs by the hundreds of thousands to the Heinz Co. exhibit, where they tasted samples of the company's many varieties and received a pickle charm.
23. "Chipped ham" was always in your refrigerator when you was growin'up. It's how you first ate barbque! Isaly's was the very best.
24. When you call the dog or the kids you shout, "Kum-mere" and they come.
Wonder how many of yinz guys actually understood all dat? Some folks just don't.
I grew up with quite a few of those language quirks. My folks came out of MO and OK where some usage was different but there was overlapping language also. Not sure of the pronounciation of 'yunz' But yu unz was common and still is in much of the south. 'Crick' and 'worsh' have been part of my vocabulary since childhood. I had to make a real effort to get that R out of wash. Professional sports were not a part of life in the years of the "great" depression, and where it was baseball dominated. Though, when dad was home, I remember listening to the "blow by blow" commentary of professional boxing on the radio. Joe Louis, the "brown bomber," was world champion for many years. Your comments do trigger memories. Thanks.
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