Walking out of my comfort zone

Some things you just do.

Because they mean a lot to your wife.

Even though going downtown on a (good God!) Saturday morning and marching around for two miles is NOT my idea of a leisurely way to start the day.

But. . .this was the Pittsburgh Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes and my wife is diabetic and she's been doing this walk forever and we've been married six years annnnnnnddd. . . I've never done the walk.

Of course she drove.

We get there and park and walk down the street without being mugged.

Things went south in a hurry when, while waiting to check in, I stepped in a big mud puddle.

Shaking that off, I got my nifty t-shirt, absently-minded picked at an ingrown beard hair and bled on it.

My wife noticed, pointed it out to me and I tried to do a field-expedient pre-treat of the blood stain my smearing spit on it.

You do what you have to.

Someone from a drug company hands me an apple. Apples are cool. There are several drug companies companies on hand pushing various diabetes treatments while giving out lots of cool swag. Wife takes swag, I decline. I do take some coffee from the local grocers. If I forget any of these sponsors, they're all on the back of my T-shirt.

By the way, they have port-a-potties that actually flush some kind of blood-looking liquid. I use one and am impressed. 

We get in line for fruit, energy bars, water and bagels. We split a bagel, I am impressed that they do not skimp on the cream cheese.

We are accosted by numerous mascots. I'm not a fan of interacting with people in furry suits (surprised?) and I avoid Iceberg, the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot and some kind of giant purple dragon. I think there was another stuffed human furry but I can't remember what it was.

"At least we don't have Steely McBeam," my wife says. "That would be really scary."

Au contrare, my dear. Look down at the starting area.

I don't know what my wife has against Steely.

Anyway, at some point this walk has to begin and after several speeches it does. I am instantly accosted by screaming children. Now, I have to be honest. These are little girls who scream. You know the scream - the kind that pierces eardrums and volcanic rock. The kind of banshee shrieking only a 2-year-old girl is capable of. Boys are noisemakers too but they usually bawl rather than scream. I can't stand either but boys bawling and whining usually has a 10-foot noise radius. The little girl screaming can be heard for at least a mile.

If you want to unnerve me instantly, that will do it. The little girl is in a stroller. We pass the family but with my lumbering gait, they quickly catch up and I bug my wife to let them by. Even though the little girls has been bought off with a juice box, somehow I know it's only buying some time.

We meet other groups of rowdies and I land up walking behind my wife so these bands of unruly diabetes walkers can pass by. I don't want to hold anyone up.

We cross the Hot Metal Bridge. Unlike the Liberty Bridge, it does not catch fire, nor shake, but I am on guard.

We then walk the trail along the Monongahela River toward the midway point. It is along this path where we first encounter angry reckless bicyclists who did not realize 1300 people were have the unmitigated gall to take up their precious bike paths of which our mayor is so proud.

My head is on a swivel for them as they suddenly appear out of nowhere shouting "PASSING ON YOUR LEFT; WALK ON RIGHT!"

Yeah, uh, go fuck yourself.

Other non walkers emerge from the bushes on the trail. They look like runners and are equally annoyed. They could be decoys for muggers so I keep my eye on them.

We grab out water and the midway point and I steel myself for the return trip.

On  the way back we dodge more angry bicyclists and annoyed joggers. I notice that we have been following a group of folks that include a. . . little person? I don't know what the correct term is so I'll use the term from television. It annoys me that at 30 inches tall she's walking faster than I am. So it goes.

And then it happens - the stinging pain down the right side of my right leg. No doctor has ever been able to give me a straight answer as to what causes the pain, it just happens, usually while walking or standing too long and usually at the worst possible time. I had taken two Aleve pills prior to with my Neurontin to prevent this, but they fail. Of course they do.

Crossing the bridge again, I start to limp slightly and fall further behind my wife, who, helpfully takes pictures in order for me to catch up.

The view. Can't beat it.

I stop to rub my leg and then, gamely with jaw set, march on toward the finish line. And then it happens.

"Sir!"

You talkin' to me?

"You're leaking water."

So I was. I was carrying my water bottle upside down for some reason.

"You'd take the next drink and find it was empty," she said.

So I would. I feel stupid. I thank her, right the bottle and move on.

Startled by a loud noise, I realize it's a train.

I limp slightly over the finish arch and, although I need to sit down, the DJ is too loud so we move down the river a bit.

And it's over. I have survived the Pittsburgh Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes. I am relieved, my wife is happy. I had raised almost $250 online from some nice generous people. I walked to honor their pledges but mostly for my wife and hopefully, someday, for a cure.

My wife is happy with me and that matters a whole lot more than the sting in my leg.

I took the selfie. I appear to have a tree growing out of my head, but it's all good.

Traitor!

I’ll admit it.

I slept with a Cleveland Browns football. 

It was one of those mechanically signed cheap footballs where the older it got, the more the pebble cover flaked off. Dad got it for me in 1969 so it had the signatures of Leroy Kelly, Don Cockroft, Jim Kanicki, Milt Morin and, well, you get the picture.

My dad was actually at the 1964 NFL Championship game where the Browns laced the Colts 27-0. It would be the last time the Browns . . . well, you know.

Dad got me a pennant. I think my ex-wife has it which means it was probably burned in a ceremony with all my other stuff I failed to take with me before the divorce.

It kinda gave me nightmares

The pennant had an angry dwarf in cleats throwing a football. 

This is what a ‘brownie’ was supposed to look like. If you want to make fun of that, take a good hard look at Steely McBeam.

Like any Cleveland youngster, I grew up pathologically hating the Steelers. And since this was the 70s, there was a lot of hate to process – until the Dawg Pound days. 

But it just didn’t matter. Yes, I froze along with everyone else at Cleveland Stadium on the day the Brian Sipe threw ‘Red Right 88’ and the Browns Super Bowl dreams into the toilet against the Oakland Raiders.

I sat through ‘The Drive’ and ‘The Fumble,’ fuming about what God had against the Browns and Cleveland in general. 

Love ya' Cleveland!

Slowly, slowly, my frustration was reaching a boiling point. That point was reached when He Whose Name Must Not Be Mentioned moved the Browns to Baltimore. 

And while you're at it, shove it up your ass

I was through - finished. I had lost too many vocal cords yelling at a team that could never quite put it together and I had nothing to show for it except a nervous tic when anyone mentioned John Elway.

I was working in Illinois when the ‘new’ Browns appeared. Already kinda rooting for the Bears, I tried, I really tried to work up some enthusiasm for these strangers who wore the right colors and played just as bad. But I couldn’t. Because they stunk too.

So work brought me to Pittsburgh in December 2010. My first ex-wife’s family was all Millvale-Etna-Shaler Township denizens so, that being the only neighborhoods I knew, I got an apartment there and moved in with my wife who never fails to remind me that Big Ben is a Miami alum.

Gratuitous photo for my wife

Pittsburgh. Never thought I would find myself here, of all places.

My wife, a big hockey fan and native Clevelander, was excited to be in an NHL city so becoming Penguins fans was easy. The Pirates played in the National League so technically, I could still be an Indians fan if I wanted to but I lost interest in the featherheads pretty quickly.

Shaler Township's famous homemade fountains. Take that Etna!

But what about the first love of my sports life, the NFL? What to do?

Could I? Would I? 

So the month we moved to the ‘Burgh, the Steelers were heading for the Super Bowl. 

Now I don’t normally think of myself as a ‘front-runner,’ but it took about a week to get all the black and gold I would need for the end of the season. I turned faster than Benedict Arnold.

My wife remained a Browns fan. Needless to say, her family and my former Cleveland friends were aghast, aghast I tell you, at my treachery.

The cry of traitor! rang from one end of my Facebook to another. 

You know, I get this every time I go back too. Sheesh!

What I did to the beat-up garden shack in the backyard didn’t help either:

Stiller pride! It's priddy n'at

OK, some said. We get the ‘when in Rome’ nonsense, but seriously, you aren’t serious . . . are you?

I finally got sick of it all and wrote down some talking points for these benighted Clevelanders which I have compiled here.

Saw the Stillers beat the Browns there

First, I gave up my youth for a team that held its fans in contempt and for an owner who eventually left the city. This – is a team that has sucked and continues to suck in every obscene way imaginable. Hell, even the locals call Browns Stadium ‘the factory of sadness!’ 

I live in Pittsburgh now and I think I’ve earned the right (by suffering) to root for a franchise that has a little more than a clue about what it’s doing. If you lived here, you might feel the same way.

We let you know if we don't like you

Second, about Pittsburgh: I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to live in a city that doesn’t constantly whine every time anyone says something nasty about it. Cleveland has so many self-image problems the whole city needs a shrink. We don’t feel the need to grab visitors around the lapels and scream about a world-class orchestra or LeBron James. 

Pittsburgh has so much to offer that we take it all in stride – including the sports championships. We don’t need to constantly explain how great our city is. You like us? Fine. You don’t? Get ahta tahn. Like that? I'm still learning Pittsburghese.

The inference is intended

I used to get nostalgic for Cleveland. No more. The city wallows in its own self-pity and even if I were offered the opportunity, I’d never go back.

Three last things:

Seriously, that stuff is awful

I still won’t drink the swill that is I.C. Light. 

You have to draw a line somewhere.

I’ve gotten used to Steely McBeam even though my wife hasn’t.

 

And I still have that football. 

Yeah, I'm holding it. Xmas 1969. I will never live this down