The Summer of Shawn (Part Two): A Weekend with the Yinzers

Every time I make the drive to Monaca, Pa., I roll my window down just enough to smell the faint hint of smoke in the air from the steel mills. I’ve made the trip so many times over the years to visit my family that the smell isn’t overwhelming – it’s more like home.  

It’s a town with a lot of heart. There’s few traffic lights, segments of rusted railroad tracks and multiple poorly lit bars where regulars can rot after work. It’s like something out of a Springsteen song. Growing up, I often described the area with such fondness and probably used “yinz” one too many times that many of my friends were enthralled by the area. I might have been the only person trying to sell people on what a sports writer once referred to as a “decrepit hamlet.”

However, my obsession with Monaca doesn’t have to do with its small-town charm. I’m more concerned with the people who live there. Like almost anyone else who has been lucky enough to grow up with grandparents, I constantly brag about my Bubba and Pappy because I truly believe they are the best. They’re the quintessential elderly couple: they met when they were young, grew up in the same area, had a big family, and inherited grandchildren who – no matter how old they get – are in complete awe of them. 

Bubba is a woman with a big heart. She has a gentleness about her that comes from raising and loving seven children and close to 20 grandchildren. She didn’t take any shit from her kids back in the day, though. Her days of chasing Uncle Ed around the house with a Wiffle Ball bat are long gone, and nowadays she prefers to wrap her grandchildren in a safe, warm embrace.

Pappy, on the other hand, is a different story. Pap – or “the Ripper” as many people know him – is full of as much life as he is Jim Beam on a daily basis, and I have yet to figure out which one affects the other. He’s a die-hard Notre Dame fan who wears a white cowboy hat, and he always has a story to tell (even if it's one that's been heard three or four times).

In late July, I took a trip to Monaca to meet up with my cousins Richard and Chad to go see a band from Pittsburgh called The Clarks that they introduced me to a few years back. Since I rolled into town earlier than I planned and Chad was still at work, I made my way to Bubba’s house.

In the creaky hallway of Bubba’s first floor is a line of her grandchildren’s senior pictures. I remember being overly excited when I was added to the wall – it was like joining a special club officially after being part of it for 18 years. Opposite the grandchildren’s photos is a collection of wedding pictures and family portraits from over the years.

Perhaps the most cherished picture in the house was taken when there were only eight grandchildren around (there’s about double that now). We’re all wearing matching red sweatshirts under the large tree in Bubba and Pappy’s front yard. For me, it’s a reminder of barbecues and laughter and a time when none of us worried about money or jobs. We were smiling, safe and content, at Bubba's house.  

My grandparents’ entire house on Eckert Road is full of history: photos of ancestors, antique furniture that has seen far too much action over the years, and books on everything from religion to Irish sayings. In the more recent days, if Bubba can get a grandchild alone in the house, she starts to tell them what she’s going to leave them once she dies. It’s not the easiest conversation to have, but for a woman who’s led such a full life and lost so many loved ones along the way, death is no big deal at this point, I guess.

After I caught up with my grandparents for a little, I went over to Chad’s house and we headed to the Steel City for the concert. A couple hours and a few beers later, we were standing in front of The Clarks as they tore into “Snowman,” one of the first songs I had heard by the band. Richard, who’s seen the band more than 10 times, and I stood right next to each other and went word-for-word singing lyrics throughout the concert. The Clarks are a superb live act, but the show’s way better when your older cousins are throwing their hands up with you toward the mid-summer Pittsburgh skyline.

I spent most of the next day at Bubba and Pappy’s house. Pappy began showing me some of the artifacts from his life that are all over the house like he’s done multiple times before. When I was younger, I sort of zoned out on during these conversations, but now, I take whatever bits of history I can get from the man. As he was entering young adulthood, he was off fighting in Korea. At the same point in my life, I was still trying to figure out how to drive. Later, I took the Ripper to the club – a rite of passage among us cousins – and watched as the dingy bar lit up when he walked through the door.   

That evening I was able to spend time with Richard, his wife, Katie, and their 9-month-old daughter, Reaghan. There was a time when Richard, who’s the oldest grandchild, was the center of attention for Bubba and all my aunts and uncles. Then the rest of us showed up and he lost some of the limelight. However, Rich has been returned to his former glory with the family because of his adorable daughter.

Although I had to be back in State College Monday morning for work, I stayed in Monaca Sunday night so I could see my Uncle Shawn who was coming to visit from Florida with his family. We congregated at Bubba’s, like always, and sat outside as the day faded. We joked and talked about memories from last summer’s trip to the Outer Banks, periodically chatting about our individual concerns. Some were minor - like Bubba worrying about the fire for the children’s s’mores or Pappy worrying about his next beer and some were a little more daunting - like me worrying about finding a job. During the heat of discussion, I noticed that my younger cousins from Florida, Tommy and Teaghan, were completely overjoyed to be at Bubba’s house. They laughed and smiled with us under that same tree from the picture.

It’s comforting to know that some things never change. 

  

The Summer of Shawn (Part One): Dirty Lots and Things that Go Boom

Graduating from college came with a strange mix of excitement and fear.

After I walked across that stage in early May 2013, I felt the weight of bills and job pressures on my back. It was yet another point in my life when I truly felt I was growing up.

When I should have been searching for entry-level jobs at any publications hiring, I was happy-hour hopping and staying up late – trying to make sure I didn’t miss a precious, reckless minute of university life. I was able to land a part-time, unpaid internship at a news website, though, and that allowed me to continue writing after school.

Instead of getting a part-time job in addition to the internship to actually make some money, my roommate, Kory, and I turned to Craigslist. There, we found lists of online classifieds that we saw as opportunities to continue our post-collegiate, no-job lifestyle.

And in early June, we found our true calling: selling small explosives from a tent.

The ad stated that over a 10-day period, vendors could make between $3,000 and $5,000, depending on sales. Kory and I saw that money split two ways and immediately made some calls. By the next day, we were on track to become TNT Fireworks salesmen. We traveled almost two hours for a daylong training session about how to calculate sales, report numbers and set up the product – all of which we listened to with a “no shit” attitude.

On the day we received our product, we spent 12 hours unloading boxes, stacking Pop-Its and bottle rocket fountains, and sweating all over the Walmart parking lot where our stand was located. Our day was finally coming to an end when a steady rain started to fall. I drove back to our apartment for a quick shower and meal, but when I walked in the door, drenched in stench and rain, I looked at my phone – three missed calls from Kory.

“Dude,” he said with defeat, “the tent caved in. The fireworks are getting soaked.”

The only words I could mutter in my state of disbelief were, “Are you kidding?” For the next couple weeks, everyone else who heard the story repeated that same question.

It turned out that the tent was set up wrong. A few of the poles were crooked and there wasn't enough weight holding it down. Some guys from the tent company came out late that night and secured the tent with concrete blocks as the Leaping Lizards and Mad Dog Fountains lay in puddles. At around 2 a.m., we sat in the back of my mini-van speechless and nearly defeated.

“So this is the real world,” I joked into the uncomfortable silence. Kory looked at me and smiled briefly. Our anxious laughter carried us through that first night. By the next morning, we both desperately wanted out of this arrangement. I went to my internship while Kory tried to explain to our regional manager that we had lost all interest, enthusiasm and, more importantly, our Snakes and Morning Glory Sparklers. The manager, with all his slippery, used car salesman aura, simply pointed to the fine print and let Kory know that he signed a contract. If we quit, legal action would be inevitable for the $10,000 worth of merchandise. We were stuck. Instead of taking it to court, we did what any pair of new college graduates would do – we put minimal effort into redecorating and visited the nearby six-pack shop daily.

By Friday, our tent was back up and running. Sales were slow and the tent was bare, but we were actually doing it. To reward our efforts after our stressful week, we threw a small party inside our tent. The middle table that had been our main display with assortments and prize packs earlier in the week became the beer pong table. Things got a little out of control, and after a brief conversation with the local cops, Kory and I spent the rest of the morning sitting outside of our tent, sipping warm beer and taking in the dull, orange sky.  

And that’s when we met Josh.

Looking back, the signs were all there that Josh was homeless: the overly stuffed backpack, the makeshift cast for his broken hand, the blank stare at his hand as he sifted through broken cigarette remains from his pocket at 4:30 in the morning. Maybe the fact that he was young and conversational blinded us from how crippled his posture was from carrying his life on his back for months.

The next day, when our replacement fireworks arrived, Kory and I started to see what we were dealing with in Josh. He continually asked for money and ate all of his meals at the nearby McDonald’s, which was open 24 hours. When we broke it to him that he couldn’t hang around anymore, he asked to call his sister.

“I’m down at the Walmart by your house,” he said to her. “Can you pick me up?” There was a long, stale pause. “Because it’s fucking raining. You keep saying you love me but you never show it.”

With that he hung up and called his “friend.” Twenty minutes later a small, soft-spoken man from a local church named Andrew came to pick up Josh. He told me that Josh’s family had basically disowned him. They drove off and I realized that Kory and I were probably the closest things to friends Josh had had in years. We would see him periodically for the rest of our time there, wasting away on a bus bench with his head bobbing in the wind seemingly from intoxication or exhaustion. 

After the busiest day of sales - July 4 - Kory and I sat on our lawn chairs, watched the nearby fireworks display and took a deep sigh of relief. We handed out free sparklers to children as the colors exploded overhead.   

Days after we returned all of our extra fireworks and made a modest profit, I drove by our lot. The tent was gone and most of the spots were empty. A slow-moving line of cars in McDonald’s drive-thru was getting longer by the second. Some people looked pissed and others looked hungry. Most were just waiting and daydreaming about something the comfort calories just never seem to provide.

Before the light changed, I took one final glance at the parking lot. It looked as if Kory and I had never been there. 

And I couldn’t help but feel a little upset at the thought that we would never be there again.