Last evening after we unpacked at the convention hotel, we were picked up by Marion and Bob who took us up to the top of Mount Washington to a lovely seafood restaurant with a "to die for" view of 3 rivers, all of Pittsburgh, and most of Pennsylvania if you have an active imagination! We looked down on the submarine we will visit this week and on the baseball and football stadiums. My cousin Bob joined us with his friend Maureen so we had a table of 6 to share old stories about my Uncle Bob and my dad and their family growing up. This morning we started Labor Day with a 2 1/2 hour parade that was key noted by Joe Biden. When we realized the parade was going right by our window, we watched from the 17th floor. The sub vets walked in the parade with a car trailing a little submarine that is carried to all the conventions. Marion picked us up at 12:30 and we went to the church (St John the Baptist) where our grandparents (Michael and Sarah) were married July 1, 1908. But the church has been sold and purchased by a company that turned it into a brew pub. Oh dear. I took photos of the aisle and where the altar would have been (it is now the brew kegs)… we sat in pews and ate and drank brewery beer. Then Marion took us through the old neighborhood where my father and uncles and aunts grew up, but the houses are gone, razed and a hospital was built on the land. We drove on Winebiddle Avenue where Sarah went to Ursuline Academy which has been purchased but it looks like it is still used as a school. Drove then to the Calvary Cemetary where, under a Celtic cross with the name Mccarthy on it, our grandparents, my dad, and my sister Annette among other family members are buried. We dug the grass and dirt off Annette’s little stone and I have to call and ask the cemetary folks to put some base under it. That was a teary time… Marion’s parents are buried there too. We parted promising to find some more time this week to see some amazing place that Pittsburgh has to offer. Tomorrow we begin the convention with a trip to the flight 93 memorial site. God bless the people who died in the September 11 horror that will be memorialized this week. God bless you.
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