Pennsylvania Notes

There's nothing like barreling down the PA Turnpike through the Allegheny Mountains while singing along with Harry Belafonte music and munching on frosted shredded wheat.

When that happened last week, I noticed its weirdness, so I thought I'd blog it.

I was in Pittsburgh for a few days last week doing work stuff. I've been to Pitt before. I still can't decided if I like the city or not. The traffic sucks, but the city is beautiful from certain vantage points. Everything there seems dirty, but the rivers are gorgeous. So I'm in the middle. At least the drive out there was beautiful because it's just the right time of year to see all the leaves changing.

I also finally felt what it was like to have some roots somewhere. When introducing myself to folks out there, so many of them would say, "Oh, that's a good Pennsylvania Dutch name!" (referring to my last name) and then they'd list off how many relatives and people they knew with the same last name around the city. That's not a huge surprise, since my folks grew up in northwest PA. But because I moved around so much as a kid (Air Force brat), I never lived anywhere long enough to establish family roots. Most of my extended family is spread out across the US now.

Yet my parents and grandparents and more all grew up in northwest PA. To be somewhere where people recognize my last name as being from a particular area, and then having them also know tons of people with the same last name -- well, I think it's really cool. I felt like I had a heritage somewhere, you know? I don't know that I've ever felt like that before. Or maybe now I'm just appreciating it more. I know that when I've gone to see my grandma up there before (who's lived in the same small town for her entire life), if we go out to eat, she will usually end up introducing us to someone in town that we're somehow related to.

I've never met anyone with the same last name as me. The closest I'd seen is Jamie of the Seattle Mariners (not related to him, but that'd be cool). And then, lots of people, upon hearing my last name, say, "Oh, like Bill ?" You'd be surprised how many times I hear that. Anyway, my response to that is always, "No, no relation, he's plural and I'm singular."

Anyway, being in western PA was nice like that. Heck, I was probably related to some of those other that these people were listing off.

On a totally unrelated note, I also learned last week to never rent a "smoking" hotel room. The front desk clerk may tell you that it won't smell because they clean it -- but it will. I was tired of looking for other hotel rooms, so I just took their only available room -- which was a smoking room. Blech. I would avoid that if you're a non-smoker.