To anyone outside of this region and to strangers, I am a "Pittsburgher". My location label on Twitter is "The 'Burgh". Even on facebook, I list it as my hometown. Pittsburgh is like home to me. My field trips were to the Carnegie Museums and Science Center, Heinz Hall, Kennywood, the Pittsburgh Zoo, Pitt's Cathedral of Learning. I watched Mario Lemieux lift Stanley Cups for two years in a row, fight Hodgkins, return to the ice, and save the Penguins not once, but twice. I watched Bill Cowher replace the legend (wait for it) ary Chuck Noll and become a legend in his own right. My grandfather worked in steel until the day he retired in 1983. I'm exceedingly proud of this city and how it's gone from steel and old-school to "green" and cosmopolitan. All without losing its character and the proud ethnicities that are represented in the neighborhoods, shops, and restaurants.
But technically speaking, I didn't grow up within those city limits. Or even Allegheny County for that matter. Nope, I grew up in "the County", as we fondly call it. Beaver County that is. A place known for being backwards, uncouth, and where everyone is either a hick or "ghetto". It seems there is no in between where I grew up.
Sometimes, it's a source of embarrassment. Such as last week, when a receptionist didn't understand a lyric on someone's ringback tone which then resulted to my school district going on lockdown. Who doesn't know the lyrics to "The Fresh Prince of Bell Air" theme song?! Although, this is not the first time Ambridge High School was in the national news in my memory. When I was in 8th grade, some graduating senior women were banned from their National Honor Society Induction because they wanted to wear pantsuits instead of dresses or skirts. My own senior year, I proudly walked out of the school and protested a ban on white t-shirts. This was after our new principal banned them as "under garments"; he had suspended, then publicly shamed one of my classmates in the auditorium upon his return from suspension.
In that way, I have often tried to deny AHS, or even Beaver County as a whole. I'm NOT ghetto or a hick. I like the ballet, I cheer for the Pittsburgh teams, I can navigate the entire city without GPS. I belong to the city. I never actually lived in Ambridge, I live in Economy, it's on the county line, just count me as Allegheny instead. But I actually personally never had a problem with my high school, my county or my youth, I was only fighting the stereotypes that people had about it.
I like being from a small town. I like that my name means something here and is connected with my ancestors, who are well loved and remembered. I like that I went to the same high school my dad, my aunt and my cousins did. I like that my great grandfather settled here from Tennessee, built a home and a family business right in a tiny, rural boro, when it probably didn't have a stop sign yet. Not that we have many stop signs now, but you get the gist. My own grandfather picked his lot to build on because when looking at the land, he was walking and startled some quails into flight. Being an avid hunter and fisher, he took that as a sign. His brother, my uncle Jack, built his house just down the street.
I like that 10 minutes from my house, there is bar that has karaoke on Friday and Saturday, everyone sings good (not fake) country music, and pitchers of Iron City Amber are $7. Because you know what? That is some fun times right there. I like that for where I live, I legitimately need a 4x4 because the roads are windy, hilly, old, and dark. I like that one of my best friends lives in a log cabin up a quarter mile long, gravel driveway. I like that in high school, we made our own fun, even if it was sometimes destructive, dangerous, stupid, or unglamourous. We were never rich, we were never cosmopolitan; some may say that's why we were so "behind" the times. But I don't think we were. We liked the same music, fashion, tv shows, etc. as everyone else did. We were just somehow more real.
It's not that I don't know anything different. Even within my small "backwards" school district, many ethnicities, faiths and background were always represented. In college, I lived on campus, was a member for a sorority and studied in Ireland. I've done a fair amount of traveling. After school I moved around, including living in the city for a couple years. Throughout my lifetime, I've always been exposed to different places and people in several different ways, from family vacations to road trips to field trips and everything in between.
Yes, I am happy to visit the "Great White Way" and see a show such as Les Miserables, visit my crew in Jersey and take a trip to Hoboken for cannoli from Carlo's Bakery, relax at an all-inclusive resort in the Carribbean. I've done them all and I'd do it a million more times if could.
I enjoy a good craft beer, fancy foods, girlie martinis. I love to dress up and have a pinterest board full of fashionable outfits. I own the 6-season boxed set of Sex and the City. I do consider myself as a relatively cultured person. I'm not especially naive, and most of the time I can not only behave myself, but enjoy myself in any situation.
But I choose my small town life because the grass really isn't always greener. Sure, I do see things occassionally that I'd like to turn my nose up at. And I miss how close I was to things when I lived in the city. Sometimes people are close-minded or un-evolved in my mind. For all of those situations, there's something I appreciate though, like how I feel that the sense of community and tradition has not been lost. There's almost a Mayberry-esque quality to it. Everyone knows everyone, everyone wants to help. Sometime it does seem a little small, and there are certainly things that get on my nerves.
Seeing a friendly face almost everywhere you go is a comforting and enjoyable thing. I get my doses of the big city when and where I can, which is relatively often; from catching a concert to hanging out with friends, to a sporting event. It's only 20 minutes away. Some say 20 minutes and a couple of decades, but I don't feel that way. I'm happy to be somewhere that has always accepted me, whether I was at the shooting range with my dad, or dressed to the nines and stopping to get some cash out for a night out on the town. Which is more than I can say for some "evolved","cultured" people I know. Apologizing for the place I grew up and the village that helped my parents raise me is like apologizing for being me, and I refuse to do that.
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