The Old Barn

We all experience time going faster and faster, the older we get.  Scientists who have studied this phenomenon say that it has to do with the ratio of a year to our life.  For a two year old, one year is 50% of her life.  For a five year old, 20%.  For a twelve year old, 8.3%.  And for a fifty year old person, one year is a mere 2%.  So we perceive time going faster, even though it moves at the same pace.

All that time under our belt allows us to have lots of experiences, too.  As a kid, Dad took my brothers and I to many hockey games in the Civic Arena.  We watched the Pittsburgh Hornets -- yes, the American Hockey League franchise that pre-dated the creation of the Penguins in 1967.  The Civic Arena was less than ten years old.  And Dad talked to us about seeing this same team in the "old" Duquesne Gardens, which was located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, near to St. Paul Cathedral.  When the Penguins came, ticket prices went up, and it was too expensive for Dad to take five of us to a game.  But I have many memories of hockey at the Civic Arena, getting pucks when they flew up into the stands, seeing the tough goalies without masks, even bringing my skates and going out onto the ice after the games for a half hour of free skating.  Yes, can you imagine the current owners just allowing ordinary citizens onto their precious ice at the Consol Energy Center?!  But we did it.  Of course, the Hornets rarely sold out.  6,000 or 7,000 fans were a good crowd. 

I distinctly remember the last Hornet game, as they played for the Calder Cup in a Game Seven of the playoffs.  We were in a mob that rushed up to buy tickets.  I was next to Dad and my brothers, and I sort of got trampled.  My glasses were pushed off my face, and broke at my feet.  But we got in, and saw the Hornets win their last Calder Cup.  The next day I got some tape and made my eyeglasses good as new! 

Over the years I did make it to the Civic Arena (later Mellon Arena) to see Duquesne Dukes mens basketball games, the Dapper Dan High School All-Star game (when that was the only event in the country bringing the best high school players together), hockey games (several with Dad when he was in Vincentian Home), rock concerts (including two of Bruce Springsteen), and in their final season, another Penguin game. 

Now the old barn is being torn down.  These photos were taken on March 11, and I gather that by now the entire roof is down.  The Penguins organization, which has the rights to develop the land under the old arena, recently let a contract to begin the planning process for the mix of housing, shops, and street grid. 

I am just another Pittsburgher who remembers "things that aren't there anymore."