Spring is springing in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the waters are stocked, it’s open season for vaccines and we need to keep wearing our masks, even as we celebrate another year of Brady’s Bend Township on 16-APRIL 2021.
Observations from Brady’s Bend
Spring has sprung up with an allergic reaction for me these past few weeks. There is something magical about all the trees flowering and my eyes wanting to stay closed. Spring soccer is starting. Phoebe and Crosby are enjoying all the bunnies in the neighborhood during their evening walks. My schedule is still a little crazier than I’d like, but I’m still finding time for the family zoom call on Saturday mornings. If only the steps to walk from the road down to the bank of the Allegheny would magically assemble themselves and one of the elves show up to paint the rails yellow. Let’s just say the calls to do soccer games as a referee keep going, but I’m still a little hesitant until the vaccine thing happens. In the meantime the spring project list keeps growing as the days get longer.
What have we missed?
- There is the gratitude that we’ve made it through the first full year of Covid-19 life, managing to stay connected through technology and snail mail.
- Phoebe and Crosby are really their own pack now, however Crosby is still not giving in to puppy play.
- #RileysRiverRats are doing the Can’t Stop Won’t Stop Challenge to get ready for the EBB this June, raise funds for the ALS Association of Western Pennsylvania and just get moving more. Golf, swim, paddle, run, bike, walk, deadlift, bench press, squat, pickleball, softball, 5k, 10k, 13.1, 26.2, you name it, you train for it and raise funds.
- About the EBB– The paddle portion may include a tire count. If you know of any Boy Scouts looking for an Eagle Scout project, we recently found a dump site of tires- in the Allegheny River when the flow was slow and the water level low. Please reach out if you’d like to set this up.
I recently put together my $1k, $10k, $100k, $1.0mil $10mil list so I could start taking aligned actions to help make some of small town Pennsylvania kinder, gentler and more compassionate. Growing up in Charleroi, I always felt like it was Mayberry. I could walk to the ballfield, the drug store with the soda fountain, the basketball courts, ride bikes in the alley, walk to the grocery store, play pickup soccer in the park and walk to Friday night football games. I now realize that the Mayberry feel really doesn’t exist like it did in Magic Town, since there are no school gyms, outdoor basketball hoops, Foodland or the stadium in town. I lived in a town that was still completely walkable. I call this the United States paradox.
We had healthy walkable communities and magically after WWII we created car towns. We, read governments, government agencies, highway building and delelopers demolished thriving neighborhoods like the Pittsburgh Hill District and introduced highways to drive cars into subdivisions where neighbors wave hello from their driveway, instead of porch sitting.
I just started to plant a few seeds to allow me to spread my love for sport, nature and trails to all the places that I call home. It’s ok to be local to more than one place. It’s ok to cheer for the Giants, Cubs, Brewers and Pirates unless the Cubs and Brewers play each other when it’s too root root for the Cubbies. Just like in a Non-covid hockey season it’s always the Habs and Pens. Spending time in different locals help broaden our perspective. Why are we seeing so many central American migrants? It’s likely that they believe in this country and the opportunities they can work toward.
#cantstopwontstop #rileysriverrats Golf is an endurance sport too @IndianBayou
