Pittsburgh’s South Side Sally

I remember walking up to the basin (Monogahela Park) through the shortcut on Edwards Way.  We called the park “the Basin” .  It had a ball field, a steep hillside that had been cut for the field.  On the side was a spring, people drank from the water.  It flowed freely and clear.  Apparently people drank from it for years.  I wonder if it is still used?  My brother and I would walk up South 28th Street pass Jane Street to the railroad tracks, then turn right at the tracks through the trestle up South 27th Street to Edwards Way, turn left all the way to the end of Edwards Way and up the hill path to Josephine Street, cross Josephine up the side of the hillside to the Basin.  I guess this is what “us kids” called a short cut.  Wouldn’t think  it now, over 60 years old.  Along the top of the hillside grew some apple trees.  I remember climbing down the steep hillside face.  What a foolish idea.  I was lucky, I didn’t fall and crash to the ground.

I remember going up the hillside with Ken and he showed me some of the local black and yellow spotted salamanders in the rocks.  I don’t ever remember seeing them anywhere else in the South Side.  I wasn’t usually the one who dug up bugs and stuff.

We spent lots of time there in the summer.

Trains  provided noise and rumble at night and hello’s during the day.  Late night trains rumbled atop the lane behind Jane Street and below Josephine Street.  The noise and rumble from the trains actually shook the house.  This I noticed very young, but apparently I got so familiar with it that as I grew older my brain blocked them out.  Around 5 pm every evening a train came by on the upper deck of the tracks.  I often walked or ran up to Jane Street and waved to the engineer on the red caboose…he always waved back.