A couple Cap' & Cheeses away from the Presidential Fitness Award

Lionel Richie is disappointed in you jags

Happy Monday, Pittsburgh! I wrote most of this on Thursday but then my life got in the way and here I am finally getting this finished up. This edition is bursting at the seams like me in a size 4 skinny jean, so let’s get to it!

Oh, wait! One thing. Last week my dad and I were driving to Cranberry and were chatting about places to get local produce when I picked up something in his yinzer accent that I never noticed before … tah-MAY-tah.

Gonna need you all to let me know if this is a Ginny’s Dad thing or a yinzer accent thing, because Ginny’s Mom doesn’t say it like that but she also has more of a Clairton/Welsh flavor of yinzer accent compared to my Dad’s Bridgeville/Syrian flavor. I’m starting to think maybe there’s more than one yinzer accent?

Ok, NOW, let’s get to it.

1. “Hold my Ahrn while I do a single push-up”

When I think of cities that have a fit population, my brain goes to LA and Miami with their fitness-obsessed populations shimmying their tight bodies into tiny swimwear they wear year-round the way some yinzers wear their “good” Steelers jerseys. (“If it’s good enough for the end zone dahn Heinz Field, it’s good enough for Gram’s funeral.”) I think of New York City where perfect-bodied movers and shakers pour themselves into the ugliest outfits that ever cost a semester’s tuition. Or those 2%-body-fat granola people up in Portland eating their bowls of birdseed and four blueberries before patting their concave bellies all, “So filling!” What I don’t think of when I think of a fit population is Pittsburgh, PA, USA. But …

For the 17th year, the American College of Sports Medicine released its American Fitness Index rankings of the 100 largest cities in the United States and Pittsburgh finds itself near the top of the list. The ACSM Fitness Index used 33 evidence-based indicators that determine health behaviors and outcomes and Pittsburgh landed at 17 on their rankings.

To quote Lionel Richie …

I mean, I can’t be alone in being shocked by this, can I? My disbelief, and Lionel’s, sent me to the data to figure out how we ranked so high, and it actually makes sense. Here’s the short of it: we take average care of ourselves compared to other cities, and our air is way more murderous, but we have more options for being active than other cities do.

The index takes an average of two numbers to figure out where each city ranks. When it comes to the first category, personal health, Pittsburghers are at a much more believable 44 out of 100 cities. That’s honestly closer to where I expected us to come out on such a list—not the worst; not the best; near the middle … kind of like my baked goods. In fact, the data show we stay right around the 100-city average when it comes to exercise, public transportation use, sleep, smoking, healthy eating, obesity, stroke, diabetes, etc.

Keeping that 44 out of 100 in mind, in the second category, community/environment, we come in 5th place out of those 100 cities. Whoa. How? Mostly our parks put us over the top. The percentage of Pittsburghers who live within a 10-minute walk from a park is crazy high—91%, when the average is 71.4. Our “walk score” is also much higher than the average, and our availability of every kind of recreational facility from basketball hoops to tennis courts is moderately higher than average. As far as I can tell though, this part of the index didn’t measure the usage of these facilities as much as it did the availability and ease of access, so it makes sense that we ranked so surprisingly high—we are HAVERS, maybe not so much USERS. Kind of like you and your Instant Pot.

So the lessons are this, Pittsburgh:

• We are fortunate to have plenty of community options to greatly increase our health, but we’ve got to use them more if we want to become healthier.

• At the very least, wear a collared shirt under your Steelers jersey if you’re planning to sport it in the same room as an occupied casket.

That’s just good advice all around and should be embroidered on a pillow.

2. When your backup needs a backup

We all know the sign on Kennywood’s Racer warning you that if you stand up, you will find your head separated from your body and it will probably hurt.

We’ve all grown up fully aware of this danger with this ride and we’ve all wondered why that sign is there. Who stood up and what happened? Is the person who stood up the kind of person who uses a hairdryer in the bathtub despite explicit warnings not to be that achingly stupid? Anyway! This week a new danger was revealed when an image circulated showing that a portion of the coaster looked like this …

To quote Lionel Richie …

Listen, this is how Ginny Montanez fixes things; this should not be how an amusement park fixes things! At no point in time should the phrase, “That oughta do it,” be uttered when it comes to a roller coaster support beam of any kind no matter how backup they are to the main supports. Have we learned nothing from NASA regarding redundancies and anomalies and the Swiss cheese model of accident prevention?

Of course there are people arguing that this was fine the way it was since it had never had a problem before even though this looks exactly how some MacGyvers in Fayette County keep their rickety-ass porches from falling off their houses. To you optimists I say, “Can I introduce you to the original Fern Hollow Bridge? It is in a grave, so wear your best Steelers jersey.” Everything is fine until it isn’t and if you want people to feel safe riding a roller coaster, at least hide the beams that look like this.

Kennywood did shut the ride down and do just that after being ordered to modify it by the state who also determined the ride was safe regardless because it was just backup support—which is still crazy to me but I’m no structural engineer. You can see a picture of the improved beam support here, which honestly may just be a facade covering the original hilariously scary-looking support, but at least we can all ride the coaster not having to look at a beam supported by two random cinder blocks and prayer.

Don’t stand up!

3. I believe the kids are alright

Plum High School did a super cool thing this year, allowing incoming driving seniors to donate to Make-A-Wish in order to be allowed to paint their assigned parking spaces at the school. Trib journalist Brian Rittmeyer paid the parking lot a visit and found some awesomely creative spaces! Here we have Sheetz, Monopoly and my beloved Cobra Kai.

As Lionel says …

There are more pictures to be found on Brian’s Twitter/X account and in this article he wrote for the Trib. It mentions that three students combined their spaces so that they could paint Despicable Me Minions and I need to see that. Someone get over there and snap a pic for me as ASAP as possible. I love this kind of creative energy and that the kids take it so seriously. More schools should do this, perhaps for local nonprofits making big local impacts—hint: Mario Lemieux Foundation!

Make it happen!

4. Some fantastic news about Pittsburgh history

I want to update you on something I’m directly involved in outside of stalking the downtown streets and reducing the pigeon population one verminous asshole at a time (don’t email me PETA; I am serious).

As you know, I built and launched the Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen website over a year ago knowing full well that such a map/photo history of still-visible artifacts from long-gone structures/events made much more sense as a mobile app. But I am me, and as a person who used to text her bestie Alfred/Woy the Butler all, “I EDITED ONE TINY THING ON A WIDGET AND MY BLOG SLAPPED MY FACE AND BURST INTO FLAMES. CALL 911!” I simply did not have the technical know-how or time to figure out how to turn it into an app. So I forced myself to be content with just the site.

Enter Pittsburgh’s own David Jardini, who manages to successfully straddle the space between business and history. His love and knowledge of Pittsburgh history (he has a PhD in history from CMU) drove him to reach out to me and within days we had partnered up with Penn State grad/engineer Harlan Shober to build a Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen mobile app!

We are in the early stages of planning and organization and will need your help as we go along. For now, if you have anything you’d like me to think about or any ideas you have for the three of us, don’t hesitate to reach out! Also, I remain open to user suggestions for items to add to the map.

Speaking of, I just added an item to the map. The original doors from the St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing which eventually became the East Wing of the main hospital. Details and photos are inside the map!

How cool is that? You’ll see a cross standing between the two doors in the image on the right but I haven’t yet found a photo of the cross on or inside the building. Working on it! Shout out to reader Jennifer K. who let me know about these.

5. Have dinner with me!

Alta Via in Bakery Square is hosting a benefit dinner for Allegheny Cleanways on September 3 and I’ll be there and will be giving some brief remarks about the litter and illegal dumping problem in Pittsburgh/Allegheny County.

It’s going to be a fun evening of delicious Alta Via food, drinks, and more. I’m even bugging some of my local company pals to donate sustainable items to give to the diners as a thank you for joining us. There are only 40 spots available for the dinner and a bunch have already sold, so if you want to join us, be sure to grab tickets quickly at this link here. As a reminder, Allegheny Cleanways is the organization on the ground each week cleaning up our land and rivers. Just two of their recent cleanups removed 600 pounds of trash from one set of city steps and over 1,000 pounds of trash from an illegal dump in Hays Woods. Here are pics from those cleanups.

I serve on their board’s development committee as an independent member because I care very deeply about this problem and want to support those who are making the city more beautiful and heathy for us all. Please come! We will hug!

Also consider volunteering for one of their upcoming cleanups.

6. Random n’at

• Pittsburghers who have brains understand how bike lanes improve our city in multiple ways, so it’s important that if we commit to creating this sort of infrastructure that we ensure they are respected. THAT MEANS STOP PARKING YOUR VEHICLES IN THE BIKE LANES, YOU ENTITLED JAGS. Recently I started following the automated Dash Cam 311 account on Twitter which shares photos of what Pittsburgh bike riders’ Dashcam.bike cams (this is a local company) are reporting regarding bike lane obstructions and IT. IS. CRAY-ZEE. Stop it stop it stop it. Lionel Richie is disappointed in you. Not an ad!

• I had no idea until recently that the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has a mascot and that it is a library card named Andrew CARDnegie. I am fully in love with this.

  

  (From the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Twitter account)

  Someone let him run the pierogi race alongside Mrs. T’s runners at the next Pirates game. In fact, why aren’t there guest mascot racers all the time? I want to see Iceburgh violently checking Chester Cheese into the outfield wall. I want to see Steely McBeam trying to use his steel beam* to smack the purse right out of Jalapeño Hannah’s hands. Give the people what they want.

• Someone left a bottle of OxiClean on Billy Mays’ Pittsburgh grave and his son shared a photo of it on a now-viral Twitter post. Amazing.

• Rivers Casino employees are lobbying to prohibit smoking in their place of work, and I’m going to say this: I will never understand how smoking is still permitted in casinos in particular. Absolutely bonkers because people will still gamble even if they can’t smoke; I swear it on Billy Mays’ spotless grave.

• I did a fun 15-minute interview with City Cast Pittsburgh about my recent column busting the myth you’ve all been told about Pittsburgh losing and gaining back her H. Listen here! If you haven’t read the column yet, that’s here. I have two other recent columns I have to chat with you about. Maybe next edition I can squeeze those in.

*not a euphemism

7. That’s all!

I have so many other things I need to still share with you and some cool Pittsburgh products I’ve discovered recently, but I’m out of space and time as per my usual, so I’ll pick it up here for the next edition which you will get when you get and you won’t throw a fit. Be kind! Respect the bike lanes no matter how you feel about Bill Peduto! Buy my book!

I totally thought I was making up the word verminous, but, turns out, it exists! So you better believe my band this week is the Verminous Assholes. We are once again opening for the only other profanely named band in the Burgh—the Bastard Bearded Irishmen. Bring your fainting salts and clutching-pearls.

You’re gonna need them.