And I want to read one about my childhood in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh is a--
I grew up there.
And it was then a very--
at the same time a very Calvinist
and a very commercial city.
And my family had been involved there
in the steel business for several generations.
And it was a place that I left as soon as I could.
This is called "Easter in Pittsburgh."
Even on Easter Sunday, when the church was a jungle of lilies
and ferns, fat Uncle Paul, who loved his liquor so,
would pound away with both fists on the stone pulpit shouting
"Sin, sin, sin and the fiery fires of hell."
And I cried all afternoon the first time
I heard what they did to Jesus.
It was something that children shouldn't know about
until they were older, but the new maid told me.
And both of us cried a lot, and so mother got another one.
And she sent away Miss Richardson
who came all the way from England because she
kept telling how her fiance, Mr. Bowles-Lyon,
died suddenly of a heart attack.
He just said one day at lunch, "I'm afraid I'm not well,"
and the next thing they knew he was sliding under the table.
Easter was nice.
The eggs were silly, but the big lilies were wonderful.
And when Uncle Paul got so fat from drinking that he couldn't
squeeze into the pulpit anymore, he
had to preach from the floor.
There was an elders' meeting, and they
said they would have the pulpit rebuilt.
But Uncle Paul said, no.
It was the Lord's manifest will, and he would pass his remaining
years in sacred studies.
I liked Thanksgiving better because that was the day father
took us down to the mills.
But Easter I liked next best.
And the rabbits died because we fed them beet tops and the lamb
pulled up the grass by the roots and was sold to Mr. Page
the butcher.
I asked Uncle Robert what were sacred studies?
He said he was not really sure, but he
guessed they came in a bottle.
And mother sent me away from the table when
I wouldn't eat my lamb chops.
"That was ridiculous," she said.
It wasn't the lamb of God, it was just
Caesar Andromache Nibbles.
But I couldn't, I just wouldn't.
And the year of the strike, we didn't go to church
at all on Easter because they said it wasn't safe downtown.
So instead, we had prayers in the library.
And then right in the middle, the telephone rang.
It was Mr. Shupstead at the mill.
They had had to use tear gas.
Father made a special prayer right away
for God's protection and mercy.
And then he sent us out to the farm with mother.
We stayed a week and missed school, but it rained a lot,
and I broke the bathroom mirror and had to learn a long psalm.