Pittsburgh

I spent much of the past two weeks in The Steel City; I was a key witness in a discrimination lawsuit against my soon-to-be ex-employer. (I love irony).

Apparently, like most people who are new to Pittsburgh, I was pleasantly surprised with the place. It rivals Portland for natural beauty, nested as it is among the triple rivers, of which the Monongahela is definitely the most fun to pronounce. The city is rife with hard working knuckleheads, mostly of the white variety... dudes who are more than happy to give a gal street directions or recommendations on local beers. The city has a lot of sneaky taxes, a problem the cab drivers attribute to preventing current suburbanites from moving back to the ever improving, if gentrifying, close-in neighborhoods. I observed same taxes morphing several meal tickets go from "reasonable" to the dark side of my daily meal allowance.

Still, the city thrives. Its greatest asset -- more than the amusing Andy Warhol museum, the iconic incline rides to the top of Mt. Washington, and the pretty good daily newspaper (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which features the NYT crossword and a dang good columnist named Tony Norman) -- are the people, themselves. The citizens.

Thus, I hate to tag Pittsburgh with the following...

My colleague, also there to provide testimony for Our Big Company, had an earlier flight than me. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, we had just finished the trial (which resulted in a 100% defense verdict, by the way - yippee!); and after a couple of optimistically celebratory glasses of wine, I stayed with her in the taxi queue in front of the William Penn Omni Hotel. Giddy as we were with the events of the day, it took us a few moments to realize that no cabs were servicing the line of 10-12 people. Soon, we noticed taxi drivers would slow down on the approach, then turn left or right, avoiding the hotel (the finest in Pittsburgh, by the way). After a few more moments of innocent head shaking, we observed that at the head of the line were two very "street" looking African American men.... dreadlocks, gold teeth, loud clothing - you get the picture. Further observation revealed that every couple of minutes the doormen from the Omni would somewhat discretely pull a (white) customer or two from the line and disappear around the corner where, voila!, a yellow cab was waiting. I've read about such stuff... never actually saw it. The dudes from Detroit (I would soon learn), were starting to pick up on what was happening. They, like me, really could not -- or did not want to -- believe what was happening. My friend, toward the back of the line, was getting anxious because if the people in the front of didn't get rides fairly quickly, she would miss her flight. I got an idea. "Stay here," I said to my friend, and I moved to the front and asked the Motown Men if I could test the system. Within seconds (literally), me - the white business woman "of a certain age," attracted a Yellow Cab. "Can you get to the airport?" "Of course," replied the cabbie. "Good. Thanks... Gentlemen, get in," I replied and left the scene.

I had been brimming with overconfidence and optimism about an improved America last week watching our audacious hopeful candidate wow the masses in Europe. It suddenly seemed a lot less like a three pointer.