Gourmet PB&J

As I happened by a colleague’s desk this morning, I noticed the wallpaper on the desktop of his computer had a picture of what I am assuming was him and a girl posed in front of, what I inferred to be, his vehicle before departing to prom or some special event in which people are proud to dress up. I can only guess, really, because there was a window open over most of it and all I could see were some legs and a vehicle prominently in the background. Into my head immediately jumped sarcastic remarks about the chummy nobility of the blue-collar mill worker who worked hard to have beers with his pals – also from the mill – and was damned proud of every little thing he had from his car right down to his girl (ranking one above the other would be hard and depend upon the age of the car, the age of the girl, and how fast each one was).

The iconic and stereotypical images of such humility and happy-go-luckyness are easy to find in our popular culture in movies like The Deer Hunter and the classic Gung Ho to numerous songs by Bruce Springsteen, John [Cougar] Melloncamp, and countless others. These 70’s standards have faded considerably in most places, but still burn brightly, probably in their very DNA, in the minds and hearts of people of all ages in the Pittsburgh area. The tough, bearded images of Steeler fans and the associated qualities behind similar stereotypes, I think, were created – and continue – to be ennobling qualities of a dreary life with little hope for much beyond very modest return on dirty grueling work.