Moving to Pittsburgh

That sounds about right. Cope graduated from Pitt in 1951, so I'm assuming he was class of '47 at Allderdice.

 

My advice is to move quickly.

 

That's the good news. The bad news is, it's Iron City and/or Duquesne Pilsner.

I think there is a Grisham novel where the main character is a Duquesne law grad. Odd choice.

 

Great city. Affordable by the standards of cities around it too.

 

There isn't a huge tsunami of people moving to Pittsburgh to spoil the city either, unlike Austin or Nashville.

 

You'd be surprised, given local real estate prices. Old-ass houses by me are getting bought, gutted and flipped for $400K or more.

 

I ever tell you about the time I met Myron?

 

If you did, I don't remember. I met him a few times in the press box, but never got to have a real conversation with him.

 

Nor did I but the Sunday after September 11, I was still working as a front desk clerk at the Carnegie Library when this little man walked in in gray slacks and a dress shirt with blue sweater over top and got in line behind a couple of people. I glanced at him and thought, "that dude looks just like Myron Cope." After I assisted the people in front of him, he walked up and said "excuse me, can you direct me to the Pennsylvania Department," in a voice that could only be him. I stifled the urge to yell, "holy shit! You're HIM!" and told him to head up the steps and to the right. After he walked away my coworker said, "was that..." and I said "yep." Just a regular dude at the public library on his day off. I think he was writing his book at the time and was probably digging up some information.

Marino Parascenzo told me a great story about how Cope once wrote a freelance story for a magazine when he was first starting out. When the publication, which was based in New York, stiffed him, he hitchhiked from Erie to New York, walked into the publisher's office and said, "I'm Myron Cope and where's my $50?" Guy was so shocked he paid him on the spot.

 

Cope was a piece of work. Off that topic, the best part about journalism classes at Pitt in the '90s was having real journalists like Parascenzo, Pohla Smith, and Bill Moushey teaching them. (I never met Parascenzo, but I heard many stories.)

 

Great city for a honeymoon 'specially when the Flyers are in town.

 

I have been to Pittsburgh many times and my biggest problem with it is that it is full of Steeler fans.