 |
| Allegheny Cemetery (Photo by Katy Buchanan) |
Halloween, for a long time, hasn't been a big deal for me. (Best Halloween ever? My mom made me a Morticia Addams costume when I was in seventh grade!)
So some years ago, when the number of trick-or-treaters at our house diminished to a trickle, leaving us with too much candy to take to the office the next day, my husband and I decided that the evening would be dinner out.
Close the drapes, turn out the lights and head to a restaurant. It was a nice tradition for a while. While I missed carving the pumpkin and roasting the seeds, it was kind of a relief not to rush around with one more decoration in the busy Labor Day-to-Christmas season.
I do feel kind of curmudgeonly about it, like I'm no fun, especially with friends and family who wholeheartedly embrace it. But so it goes.
This Oct. 31, 2020, I really had forgotten about it until I had to dress in black for a protest at the home of the publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. My former employer, where the union employees have not had a raise in 14 years, no contract in three, to name two of many injustices. I added an orange scarf and purple gloves to complete, so to speak, the outfit.
After days of rain and gloom, Saturday dawned as one of those perfect fall canvases: drenchingly blue sky, leaves of red and gold and lawns still in brilliant green.
Since I was in the Shadyside/Friendship/Lawrenceville neighborhood, I did something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Revisit Allegheny Cemetery.
Decades ago, I wrote about it for the Associated Press, when I worked in the Pittsburgh bureau. Somewhat more recently, I wrote about a Japanese woman, living in Pittsburgh, who made it a point to visit the grave there of songwriter/native son Stephen Foster each year on the anniversary of his death (Jan. 13, 1864).
What I've always taken away from visits is how much history is buried there. Not a startling deduction, sure, but it allows so much room for ruminating and daydreaming. Some headstones are so sad because they testify to long-ago lives that often ended just after birth. There are grand mausoleums that have photographs inside of those who rest inside; sometimes flowers, too.
And the sculptures! The wealth of art is amazing, although I noticed today that some tombs have window openings and door grates essentially bricked over. Whether those features have been lost to the indignities of time, the elements or vandals, I don't know.
Still, it's a beautiful place. You might even say restful.
