Seeing Far Enough

Warren had a xylophone to deliver to a percussionist in the Pittsburgh area. He had repaired and refinished the bars, and built a new case (the part the bars are strung on).

Warren's custom work is beautiful.

He also had a large order of bass drum stands and gong stands, as well as a set of reconditioned xylophone bars, to deliver to Volkwein's Music, which is also in Pittsburgh. So Thursday night he loaded a trailer and his truck, and very early Friday we set off.

Pittsburgh is about four hours from our home, and we left before the sun had risen. Preferring the lesser traveled roads, we angled east then south before joining Interstate 70 at Zanesville. Our route took us through smaller communities and past farm fields, much of them swathed in a thick layer of fog. About 45 minutes into the trip, I happened to glance over my shoulder and see the setting moon, full and red-tinged with the rising sun, sinking into a fog bank.

We arrived in Pittsburgh in mid-morning, stopping first to deliver the xylophone to a very pleased customer. From there it was a quick hop to Volkwein's, where we spent the next several hours.

We were greeted at the Volkwein's delivery door by a sousaphone bell undergoing a touchup. I played sousaphone in high school marching band, so it caught my eye right away.

Warren and Jack, the president of Volkwein's, have had a personal, professional, and business relationship for three decades. They are both passionate percussionists, so we were not there merely to drop off the order. Instead, we were there so Warren and Jack could discuss percussion playing and gossip about other percussionists. We were there so they could talk their way through some problematic instruments and look at rosewood bars and snares and timpani pedals and slapsticks. Warren needed to measure a set of crotales for dimensions for the mold he will build for casting the set he is making this winter.

It was a chance for me to watch Warren in his element as a percussionist, as a craftsman, as someone whose skills and talents in percussion making are respected and valued. I had glimpsed some of that before, but this was five hours of Warren and Jack roaming through the workshops and storerooms of Volkwein's, pulling instruments off of shelves, joking each another, grabbing a pair of drumsticks and trying out a new practice pad and then discussing the tone and bounce of the pad.

It was a joy to behold. I told Warren later that he had bounced from topic to topic. Even his body language was different as the two men compared notes both on and off the multitude of drums.

We left Volkwein's mid-afternoon. We wanted to spend some time in the city before heading back; it was time for that part of that trip. Both of us wanted to stop at the nearby Ikea store. This was a great idea in theory; in reality, I was so exhausted after much of the day in Percussion Land that I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of stuff there. Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed the sleek designs and bright colors; instead, even after taking a dessert break at the in-store café, I whimpered "Can we leave now?"

Despite my exhaustion, I still wanted to go to downtown Pittsburgh. I wanted to ride an incline, which is sort of a cable rail car that travels up and down the steep hills of the city. (Pittsburgh used to have 15 of them; it still has two fully operational ones which are part of the city's transportation system.) And we both wanted to eat hotdogs at the O, up by the University of Pittsburgh.

Warren checked and double-checked. "Are you sure you are up for this? We don't have to do this." He was worried about how tired I was.

One of the frustrations of being a citizen of Cancerland in that I have no control over my energy levels. I never know if taking a few moments here and there will recharge me or whether my reserves will still be below E. As a result, I tend to go ahead and do rather than stop. I gamble that I will find some energy somewhere and more times than not, I am right.

I was right yesterday.

"Let's go to the incline."

We rode the Monongahela Incline. The ride up was fun and full of folks just happy to be there. Speed is not the issue when riding an incline; just by choosing it as the way to scale a hillside, you are announcing that views trump haste. From the base station, it took us some 360 feet up a hill to a neighborhood. Some of the riders got off and walked on down the street; they lived there. Those of us who were day-trippers, though, wandered down the sidewalk to a series of viewing areas overlooking all of downtown Pittsburgh.

I turned to Warren and said "if I lived in Pittsburgh, I would want to live up here and work down there so I could ride the incline every day."

The views were magnificent. We were there as evening was falling, and the setting sun just washed the tops of the skyscrapers.

The overlooks are popular for bridal parties and we saw two different ones. I can see why, with the city spread out behind them as the photographers snapped away.

Lights came on all over Pittsburgh. The full moon began rising in the east.

It was magical. And I was renewed.

After an hour or more up at the top of the city, we reluctantly tore ourselves away, rode the incline back down, and headed out to dinner before driving back to Delaware. Our destination? The Original Hot Dog Shop, also known as the O.

The O was one of several hot dog shops featured some years ago in a PBS show about - what else? - hot dogs. One of our "for fun" goals is to eat at as many of those shops as possible. As my stepdaughter Elizabeth would say, why not?

The O is pretty much a dumpy diner that caters to the Pitt students. At 9:00 at night, which is when we arrived, it was hopping. Students, locals, Warren and I were all there, all ordering hot dogs.

These are the dogs cooking on the grills.

And this is the great neon sign outside.

After the O, we turned back towards Ohio and home. We arrived home late, tired and worn and grateful to fall into our bed at last. (It was three a.m.)

I am a little groggy today, not thinking or moving quickly. All the same, I feel more alive and centered than I have for weeks. The jaunt to Pittsburgh turned something on inside that had been much too dormant. Our little trip renewed my enthusiasm for experiencing something new, whether it was riding an incline or sampling a hot dog

Emerson wrote "The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."

Emerson being Emerson, you never know whether he meant the physical or the metaphysical eye. Probably both, I suspect. All I know is that as of late I have felt worn around the edges, grasping for moments of quiet, for moments of gratitude, for small moments of great reward.

Today much of that lassitude has fallen away from me. I am no longer tired in the ways that count most - the ways of my heart, the ways of my spirit.

Yesterday I could finally see far enough.