Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for June 14, 2012

My husband and I went through Pittsburgh in 2000. I had lived there 1940 – 44, and remembered going to a fantastic park with an Olympic-size pool (Dormont). The park and pool were still there, more fantastic than I remembered. Hillsdale Elementary was in great shape, but was now some kind of government building. The streetcar tracks in back of our apartment building were still there, with streetcars still plying their way. The only thing missing was the store across the tracks (converted into apartments by 2000) where I’d walk daily with my penny to get a piece of maple-sugar candy with a prize (once a tiny magnetized horseshoe with its bar, another time teeny scissors that would “scissor” for you). Good times, at least for some of us.