Daddy Business

Chapter 3: Children Everywhere

Chapter 3: Children Everywhere

Pittsburgh offered a beautiful day comprised of blue skies, summertime wind, and a heat index of seventy-nine. May just happened to be one of my favorite months of the year because of yard sales, fruit stands, and the many flowers in bloom. Bicyclers were in full motion, as well as city runners, and there were dozens of dog walkers, power-walking with their leashed pooches. I didn’t mind making the drive for Faye from the south side of the city to the north, crossing the Monongahela River. Traffic zigzagged slowly through the downtown area, which I avoided, going around the skyscrapers and inner city bridges. Instead, I took Route 5 out of the city and drove north. The warm air felt soothing against my face because the front windows on my 2016 Nissan Quest were all the way down.

On the opposite side of the city, at the corners of Belton and Lively, I stopped at a red light. To my right sat Crompton Field. Little kids were playing soccer in the well-groomed grass, kicking a ball back and forth and giggling. Other children were jumping in sandboxes and screaming in excitement as they rode down the swirling, silver slide. The teeter-totter and jungle gym were polluted with kids. Small, tall, and some with runny noses, they all laughed, cried, and circled their mothers, fathers, or nannies. I couldn’t help myself and counted the strollers: seven. Nor could I keep my eyes off a handsome father and how delicate he emotionally handled his daughter, skipping with her next to one of the occupied swing sets.

Eventually, the woman behind me in a Saab slapped her horn three times and started yelling out her driver’s side window for me to move. I snapped out of my park-watching and drove forward, crossing into a neighborhood of Colonial homes, which circled four small, commercially-used skyscrapers, one of which was shaped like a diamond. I drove toward them, passing the gated houses. Yappy dogs in front years acted up, and children played on the sidewalks, enjoying hopscotch, jump rope, wireless remote control cars, and their cellphones.

Many tourists who frequented the city thought of Pittsburgh as a small city but not easy to travel around. I had to agree with them. All of the hills, tunnels, bridges, and rivers were difficult to navigate through and looked all the same. Had I not lived in the city for as long as I did, approximately thirteen years, I would have thought it a mind-wrecking adventure. But, after residing in the city for many moons, I knew all its ins and outs, hills, bridges, valleys, and rivers, including where the Diamond just happened to be located.

Approximately twenty-four blocks from downtown Pittsburgh, next to the Ohio River, I pulled into the parking lot at the Diamond. I removed the keys out of the ignition, snagged Faye’s cardboard tube, and headed for the miniature skyscraper and Stone & Brae Incorporated.