WEBVTT

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And I want to read one about
my childhood in Pittsburgh.

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Pittsburgh is a--

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I grew up there.

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And it was then a very--

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at the same time
a very Calvinist

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and a very commercial city.

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And my family had
been involved there

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in the steel business
for several generations.

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And it was a place that I
left as soon as I could.

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This is called "Easter
in Pittsburgh."

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Even on Easter Sunday, when the
church was a jungle of lilies

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and ferns, fat Uncle Paul,
who loved his liquor so,

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would pound away with both fists
on the stone pulpit shouting

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"Sin, sin, sin and the
fiery fires of hell."

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And I cried all
afternoon the first time

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I heard what they did to Jesus.

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It was something that
children shouldn't know about

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until they were older,
but the new maid told me.

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And both of us cried a lot,
and so mother got another one.

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And she sent away
Miss Richardson

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who came all the way
from England because she

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kept telling how her
fiance, Mr. Bowles-Lyon,

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died suddenly of a heart attack.

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He just said one day at lunch,
"I'm afraid I'm not well,"

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and the next thing they knew
he was sliding under the table.

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Easter was nice.

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The eggs were silly, but the
big lilies were wonderful.

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And when Uncle Paul got so fat
from drinking that he couldn't

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squeeze into the
pulpit anymore, he

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had to preach from the floor.

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There was an elders'
meeting, and they

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said they would have
the pulpit rebuilt.

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But Uncle Paul said, no.

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It was the Lord's manifest will,
and he would pass his remaining

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years in sacred studies.

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I liked Thanksgiving better
because that was the day father

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took us down to the mills.

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But Easter I liked next best.

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And the rabbits died because we
fed them beet tops and the lamb

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pulled up the grass by the
roots and was sold to Mr. Page

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the butcher.

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I asked Uncle Robert
what were sacred studies?

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He said he was not
really sure, but he

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guessed they came in a bottle.

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And mother sent me away
from the table when

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I wouldn't eat my lamb chops.

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"That was ridiculous," she said.

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It wasn't the lamb
of God, it was just

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Caesar Andromache Nibbles.

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But I couldn't, I just wouldn't.

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And the year of the strike,
we didn't go to church

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at all on Easter because they
said it wasn't safe downtown.

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So instead, we had
prayers in the library.

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And then right in the
middle, the telephone rang.

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It was Mr. Shupstead
at the mill.

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They had had to use tear gas.

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Father made a special
prayer right away

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for God's protection and mercy.

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And then he sent us out
to the farm with mother.

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We stayed a week and missed
school, but it rained a lot,

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and I broke the bathroom mirror
and had to learn a long psalm.

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