July 5, 2001

Attractions in Pittsburgh covered a wide range of art, nature, and sports. Over across the Allegenhy River from downtown, there was the new baseball park, the Carnegie Science center, the National Aviary, and the Andy Warhol Art Museum. Concentrated in the museum district was the Phipps Conservatory, the Carnegie Museum of Fine Art, the Natural History Museum and a 42-story building called the Cathedral of Learning on University of Pittsburgh campus.

On further from the museums was the mansion and the Frick Art Museum left to the city by the Henry Clay Frick family. I tried to write from the second story of the home, but the guide kept scolding me for lagging behind the rest of her group of rubbernecks. She would have made a good strike breaker for the steel and coke industries Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Frick ran in 1890s. The way she bossed the group around she'd have been an excellent prospect to summon the Pinkerton Agency to wallop the union organizers between their ears with billy clubs, or maybe whack a tourist today for stepping out of line in a hallway.

All I was doing was looking out the window of Mr. Frick's study to capture his thoughts on being a millionaire at age 25. By capturing the image, I was going to be prepared for our first big windfall to know ahead how to adapt to gracious rooms called a "study," or a "parlor." Then after we passed on, Mertzon, or Barnhart could cash in on the tourist trade, leading folks through our grand homes and splendid gardens.

But the way this old sister kept tight herding us, we moved too fast to catch the feel for such gentle surroundings. I perked up at the mention of a private train downtown. I sure needed a lift. However, the private line operated in the old days to take the Fricks' rich neighbors like George Westinghouse or Andrew Carnegie downtown to deposit more money in the Mellons' jug. Other errands may have been to give the Pinkertons the high sign to bop a few odd workers in the noggin with pick handles for going around committing such indignities as coughing black soot in public, or bumping into doors from having seared eyeballs after handling hot steel.

The tour ended in a closed porch to listen to a carved player piano play music as clear as a symphony orchestra's score. "Mr. Frick," the guide said, "fooled his guests into thinking a live orchestra was playing in the next room, the music sounded so sharp." I didn't dare tell her that old man George Foster down on the Kickapoo east of Angelo controlled his lifelong insomnia listening to piano roll music.

The biggest question was how we were going to reach downtown. As hard as the rain fell, the Grace Steamship Lines seemed the best prospect. But two blocks out the door, we stepped into a cab. For a guy pictured on his license to play a role in an Ellis Island movie, the cabby drove as if he'd been raised in a submarine. The clearest shot he had at the street was the short moment the wiper blade peaked on the windshield. He blanked on the Andy Warhol Museum destination, however, until I recalled Mr. Warhol's family name was "Warhola."

The museum is the largest collection of private art in the world. Five hundred pieces of work hang there. "Pop Art" fits in dim focus for a subject raised on Will James and Charles Russell's drawings, but Mr. Warhol and I were born in the same year, 1928. Although he died in 1988, I felt a strong attachment to such a famous man born of my generation. Not many of us better woolie and hollow horn herders want to trade places with any man. Nevertheless, having the national press and movie actresses fawning over your painting a tomato soup can is bound to beat having your brand burned on a piece of paneling at the community center in Mertzon as a final legacy. Also, I am pretty sure having Marilyn Monroe to model beats photographing a 4-H Club kid and his champion lamb for a weekly newspaper.

So I paid homage to Mr. Warhol even though my appreciation of a room full of silver-colored helium balloons portraying clouds was marred by a guard occupied with keeping the balloons in the right place. One of the collages touched on old Pittsburgh, a rowdy town of tough steel workers. A card announced, "Edward Xique, Black Eye Specialist — Black Eyes Painted." In an age of boisterous saloons and industrial unrest, a black eye painter must have done a lively trade.

On the nights of plays and concerts, velour cushions felt soft and dry after roaming the museums and racing around trying for rides off the wet sidewalks. But one episode generated the energy for the next event. Old man George Foster wouldn't have needed his player piano to sleep after a day like that ..

July 5, 2001