If we all, on both sides, feel like this flood of advertising is a necessary evil at best and corrupting the innards of democracy at worst, why can’t we figure out some other way?
I figure I’ve met roughly 11,000 of my fellow humans. Sober or drunk, yinzers or out-of-towners, they’ve come in every sex, age, class, color, ethnicity, lifestyle and occupation — strippers to heart-transplant surgeons.
I find myself filled with gratitude for these places, from the highest cultural institutions to the neighborhood dives. I miss them. I know that, when I return to them, I will see them with fresh eyes.
Pittsburgh’s not perfect. But its shoulders are big. I’ve watched the city make a remarkable comeback. It has learned from its mistakes and resurrected that hell-for-leather vibrancy that once made it the world’s fulcrum.
A writer with deep Pittsburgh roots learns from her mother that ”When you can make your small talk bigger, your relationships become deeper, more meaningful.”
