Bob and I had strategically chosen the motel nearest to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when we stopped the night before. Located in there was the grave of Pop-artist Andy Warhol and that was our first stop the morning of Wednesday, July 30, 2008. Bob had hoped to stop at a grocery store and bring along some Campbell’s soup cans to pose with at the grave, but we never did. But never fear!…other fans and visitors had left several of them so we were able to get the shot we were looking for.
Doing the can-can at the grave of Andy Warhol
Our next place to be that morning was PNC Park. We had seen the Pittsburgh Pirates play the night before and now we were taking a tour of the field. We arrived back at the stadium a little early (plus we got to park on the street right in front of it this time, so didn’t have to walk at all), so we went into one of the little snack restaurants and had a water.
The tour began at 10am and it was another enjoyable one. We got to see most of the typical sites of the park including the batting cages, the home team dugout (seen at the top of the posting), the pressbox and press dining area, suites, and the Lexus club. The whole tour lasted about one hour.
Lone spectator
Invoking the PNC curse, which will go hand-in-hand with the upcoming Warhol curse
In the pressbox
A nice view of the ballpark and the city of Pittsburgh
The Andy Warhol Museum was within walking distance of the park so we traveled there on foot. There was a hefty charge to get into the museum and no photos were allowed, but I went through it anyway and I’m glad I did. This was a true pop-art gallery, which looked like it was built in an empty warehouse. There were four floors of exhibits, the bulk of them being Andy Warhol’s work, along with work from some other contemporary pop-artists. I enjoyed Warhol’s celebrity silkscreens the most, but always liked the famous Campbell’s soup cans as well.
We threw caution to the wind a few times and despite the no photography policy, Bob snapped photos of me with a soup can painting and browsing the soup can boxes. I got one of him in front of the Elvis silkscreen. Unfortunately I can’t show you those photos and you’ll find out why at the end of the posting.
Some of the other non-Warhol work was rather bizarre including a spinning desk chair, and a spinning gopher coming out of a golf hole, but what really took the cake was a giant ferris wheel of dentures being doused with water by a showerhead and emptied into a child’s swimming pool. Now that is art!
My pose here is every bit as odd as some of the artwork within these walls
After browsing the museum for about an hour, we walked back to the car and headed to our last stop in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny Cemetery. Here was located the grave of Stephen Foster, the father of American music – and songwriter of such well-known songs as Oh Susannah and Camptown Races. We also swung by the grave of silent screen star and singer Lillian Russell. Between the two graves, we saw a couple of deer, up close and personal, roaming the graveyard. And with that we left Pittsburgh behind and began our long trek back to Dayton, Ohio.
Met the ghost of Stephen Foster, not at the Hotel Paradise, but in the Allegheny Cemetery
Oh deer
About an hour and a half after leaving Pittsburgh, we stopped in the microscopic town of Cadiz, Ohio. They are famous (or at least aspire to be) for being the birthplace of legendary actor Clark Gable. After paying the four buck admission charge to the birth home, we learned that it was a complete reconstruction which had been erected in 1998. That was okay though, as they had a nice little museum on the upper floor with lots of memorabilia pertaining to Gable, Gone With the Wind, and Gable’s wife Carole Lombard, including some of the wreckage of the plane crash that killed her.
Also on site was Clark Gables 1954 Coupe de Ville, housed in a garage next door to the birth home. In addition, several co-stars from Gone With the Wind had visited the home throughout the years and had added their handprints to their own cement walk of fame. Among them was Rand Brooks, Stan Laurel’s son-in-law, whom you can see more about here.
Guess where I’m at here
The house was a reproduction, but frankly, we didn’t give a damn
The 1954 Coupe de Ville
The monument which has stood on the site of the birthplace since 1986
Just over an hour west was the town of New Concord, Ohio, which contained the boyhood home of astronaut John Glenn. It was after 4pm when we arrived there, so unfortunately the site, which had been restored to its 1944 appearance, was already closed for the day. We snapped photos of the house, stopped off to get Bob a milkshake, and then made the nearly-three-hour drive to my Mom’s house.
I’d say John Glenn deserves top billing, but that’s just me
The John Glenn boyhood home
We stayed at Mom and Bob’s that night because the next day I was going to have to work and Bob was going to go on a solo tour of Cincinnati using my car, while I borrowed Mom’s. My Dad came out to the house to visit with Bob, and Jackie and Grace came to see us as well. Bob grilled out burgers for us and Mom made a pretzel salad, which made its triumphant return after many years.
Bob and Mom enjoy the fruits of their labor
Dad, Grace, and Jackie come to see Bob…
…so I point the way
While I worked on Thursday, Bob went into Cincinnati and toured the Great American Ballpark, the Freedom Center, and had dinner at Skyline Chili, which he fell in love with. Consequently I will be having to bring him some cans of the chili when I visit California in October. Bob also managed to get interviewed by Channel 5 news at the ballpark in regards to Ken Griffey Jr. leaving the Cincinnati Reds. His interview made it onto the 12:00 news broadcast. It’s too bad I didn’t get to see him pop up on the TV during lunch in the cafeteria at work.
On Friday, I worked again and Bob did a tour of the Dayton area, visiting the Air Force Museum, the Patterson Homestead, the graves of the Wright Brothers, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Erma Bombeck in Woodland Cemetery, Carillion Park, the home of Virginia Karns Patterson, and browsed the used DVDs at Second Time Around. Unfortunately during his visit to the Air Force Museum, the memory card in his digital camera went bad. He lost all of the pictures after the PNC park tour on Wednesday. This included those pesky Warhol photos that we had sneakily taken. It was that blasted Warhol curse biting him in the butt, that’s what that was. So consequently, I have no photos to show inside the Warhol museum.
That evening we headed up to Columbus to stay with Denise, Aaron, and Adam. On the way - in fact before even getting on the highway – we had to stop for dinner at, you guessed it, Skyline Chili. Hey, I’m not complaining…they’ve got some good stuff! After socializing for a bit with Ockerman clan, we went fast asleep. Our road trip would resume with a day’s journey from Columbus to Mansfield.
Bob’s new addiction: Skyline chili
Denise and Adam and his Diego-Juice
As always, Stymie looks like he’s on his last paw
Adam studies the intricacies of a block
To be continued…
Hey! Glad you guys had a good time and that you made it to the Warhol museum! It was certainly one of my own memorable experiences in the city of Pittsburgh. Glad that you two enjoyed it as well! (A shame about the memory card….)
Peter
September 28th, 2008