A second life for ‘disposable’ athletes

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Sharon

The first few days I was in Pittsburgh I saw several greyhounds, which piqued my curiosity.

I met Andy Callaghan at a A Fair in the Park in the Shadyside area and found out why.

Turns out there are a couple tracks nearby and also rescue organizations that help rehome dogs who would otherwise be killed after their racing days are over.

Callaghan rescued Monty (left) and Skye from Pittsburgh-based Steel City Greyhounds.The dogs are pretty well adjusted and let lots of strangers pet them. Both have raced at one of the area tracks. Skye tore her cruciate ligament at some point, but it was never mended.

Callaghan disagrees with the way the dogs are considered disposable in the racing industry and are routinely killed once their 'career' is over.

Though racing is what they are bred for, they are fundamentally hunting dogs and could be happy serving other purposes, he believes. He says its amazing to watch them run for the fun of it.

There were lots of interesting dogs running around at the craft fair. Monty made friends with a pit bull named Fig.

A Steelers fan

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Sharon

Ben Sheets, 28, watches the first game of the season against Tennessee at a bar in Mt. Lebanon, an unincorporated suburb of Pittsburgh.

A network administrator, Sheets has been on the waiting list for Steelers season tickets since he was 16. He should be eligible in eight years. Of course, season tickets today cost about $30,000, so he may end up selling his spot on eBay.

Red Bull and vodkas were his drink of choice the evening of the game.

After seeing his head in his hands for a little while, I got worried.

"Umm, dude, are you O-"

"Am I praying?" he said. "Yes, I am."

The Steeler's took the game in overtime.

“And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may ask yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?'”

Posted on September 10, 2009 by Sharon

I saw Dwayne for the first time in a Wal-Mart parking lot when he walked to the door of his RV and patiently let his dog, Buddy, jump in.

That ritual is oh so familiar.

Ours were the only RVs in a giant mall complex in Steubenville, Ohio.

His was pulling a trailer and looked more beat up than Rocinante. Buddy has about two dozen dog years on Armani.

"Uh oh, that's us in a few years," I jokingly told her.

Like truckers, RVers have an unspoken community.

Dwayne saw me and came over to say hi.

We traded stories of life on the road. He no longer has a water holding tank after blowing a tire. A bad generator fried his house battery.

I joked about the constant water spills I deal with carrying around jugs and bottles for my dog and I, and how Armani jumped on my toilet seat and broke it.

Dwayne is in his fifth year living on the road. This is his third RV.

He sometimes "waves cardboard," or holds a sign asking for money, to get by.

I didn't ask his age or how many times he's been married or if he has a criminal record.

I asked for tips and he gave me some decent ones: get a gym membership so you can work out and shower; bring other stores' advertisements to Wal-Mart for the lowest price; stay legal.

Dwayne used to oversee and train a sales force. He had a business five years and a lifetime ago.

When I met him he was headed to Las Vegas to pursue an opportunity that may lead him back into the fixed world.

Maybe he'll wake up in the same place every morning while my foot is on the gas pedal.

Our brief interaction made me wonder what separates us on the proverbial road. Am I a journeyer? Is he a wanderer? Is that a distinction worth making?

A hitching post at the Wal-Mart

Posted on September 5, 2009 by Sharon

Amish don't use electricity or the Internet, but they do shop at Wal-Mart! I sneaked a peak in a couple shopping carts and saw regular things like Pepsi and breakfast cereal.

At the store in Millersburg, there is a hitching post, which almost filled to capacity Friday evening.

Who needs Mr. Rogers? Now, I bring you an ice cream story :)

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Sharon

Lebanese immigrant Joseph Dager started Velvet Ice Creams in 1914, after immigrating to the United States and working for a short while in a steel mill in Cleveland. Four generations later, the Utica-based business is still in the family.

Great granddaughter André Dager is co-vice president along with her two sisters. Her father runs things.

"Ice cream sales are good but they (consumers) are buying down a little bit because of the economy," she tells me. "But it is a comfort food and as a food it is recession proof."

André says the part of the business that is growing fastest is co-labeling, or producing ice cream for other companies, using requested ingredients and labeling.

Each year, 160,000 curious visitors make their way to the factory to visit the cafe and take a brief tour.

"In today's day and age that's very interesting to people. They like to know all the nitty gritty," says André. The family has been offering the tours for 15 years.

Inside the factory (top), 12 workers help produce an annual six million gallons of ice cream. Their daylong work environment is just above freezing. The freezer room, which workers go in and out of, also, is negative 110 degrees! The company claims its ability to freeze its product so quickly after mixing helps create its creamy formula.

There have been more than 500 different flavors since 1914, with 60 in circulation at any given time.
Buckeye Classic, a peanut butter and fudge flavor is the company's best seller.

My favorite part of the tour were the displays of ice cream containers from different years. Joseph Dager used to peddle ice cream on his bicycle in the tiny Chinese-takeout shaped container you see from 1920.

‘I wanted to be a good boxer and a heavyweight’

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Sharon

In Louisville, Ky. I got to pay tribute to one of my heroes, Muhammad Ali. I visited his center and walked around the grounds. I love him because he was confident and beautiful when society wanted him to blend in and shut up. He was a boxer, but he was eloquent.

"I wanted to be a good boxer and a heavyweight — a beautiful scientific, artistic and creative boxer," he once said.

Here is another quote from the noted humanitarian and Louisville native:

A mishmash of culture and history in Lexington, Ky.

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Sharon

Lexington contains a weird mix of cultures and history. There are two large universities in town, but it doesn't feel especially young or urban. There are blatantly poor neighborhoods within walking distance of glass skyscrapers and cemeteries with gravestones from the Revolutionary War era.

There's a new courthouse complex, with a fountain, where this 5-year-old boy escaped the heat one August day and an old courthouse near a district called Cheapside, where his ancestors may have been sold as slaves.

"It's a very conservative culture," says Janet Scott, a theater producer who moved to the city in 2001 from Manhattan.
"It's the last place I'd ever thought I'd be," she tells me.
"But slowing down I found to be a healthy problem. It takes a long time not to get pissed off at the grocery store in line."

Horses are a big deal here, too, of course, and this life size sculpture at Thoroughbred Park was probably the highlight of the city for me:

Couchsurfing – my first experience

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Sharon

Before I left for my trip I joined an online travelers' community called Couchsurfing, where members can look for places to stay or offer to host others in their homes.

My first 'hookup' so-to-speak was at Noah Porch's home in Nashville.

Porch, 29, drives around this cool 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. He works as a program analyst and has been "doing the couch surfing thing" since 2005. During that time, he's graciously played host to a large number of travelers, but has yet to be a surfer, himself.

"I backpacked through the UK when I was 18. I wish I'd have had it
then. I'm sure I'll use it (as a surfer, not a host) at one point," he
says.

He lives in a house about three miles from downtown with two of his brothers, also in their late twenties. The guys all have girlfriends and the girlfriends have dogs. Noah and his girlfriend, Mary Beth, recently rescued a 2-week-old Rottweiler puppy they found on their doorstep, in fact.

The night I arrived, they hosted a dinner with fresh fruit and Indian food. They let me bring Armani in and offered lots of great 'backdoor' Nashville suggestions.

It seems counterintuitive that professional people with busy lives would open their worlds to strangers, but that is the beauty of the Couchsurfing philosophy.

Says Noah: "Everyone is totally different, but everyone has the thing where they love to travel and love to see new things."

"The Nashville community is really cool," he adds. "They'll get together and have potlucks every second Sunday of the month."

He says those who crash with him are "usually people that are not very materialistic. Really, anyone who is a traveler isn't very materialistic because you can't be. You can't have a bunch of crap holding you down."

"I haven't had a bad experience," he adds. "Everyone is on their way somewhere, so no one's really imposing."

I loved meeting him and his friends and learning from them. It was also a much needed oasis for Armani and I to recoup and catch up on cleaning and posting, as we'd been feeling pretty ravaged by the unabated heat.

‘Always call your parents’

Posted on August 16, 2009 by Sharon

Anthony Gales joined the U.S. Army 20 years to the day before I met him in Parkin, Ark., Aug. 8.

Had he stayed in, he'd probably be retired now, instead of helping his uncle get a run down gas station back in business.

"My intention was to be a lifer," he says.
"We went to Panama and Saudi Arabia and then we went to Haiti, and I absolutely hated what we had to do over there. It was a 'keep the peace' mission, but basically we were just letting people starve to death… One of our directives was to not assist in any way. And there were all these children begging for food and dying around us."

He de-enlisted shortly after and embarked on a journey like mine through the U.S. and Mexico.

His advice for me: "Always call your parents when you're doing something like that." My mom put out a missing persons report on me. I found out when I was pulled over in Kansas.

Back from the big city

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Sharon

15-year-old Rita Aronstein (my cousin) hugs younger brother Jesse at the Kansas City airport, after returning from a month-long ballet camp in New York City. Rita says she got used to the faster pace but is glad to be home. Friends she met at camp called her Dorothy.

"I can breathe again. I feel like I've been holding my breath for four weeks," says Mom, Laura (right).

American Road

A laid-off reporter and her dog set off in an RV…

Category Archives: Everyday Americans