Today was a trip to St. Vincent College which is where Rich went to school. Initially big-brother Ed was going to come with us, but the boys had a flareup as to who would drive. The problem is, that Ed's idea of seeing stuff is drive-by tourism, and this was to be nostalgia time for Rich, which needs to go more slowly. Eventually we went alone.
We're used to visiting back and forth with my sister, I guess. She and I check on anything special the guest wants, and sometimes the hostess has a neat idea for something to see, but often we give each other space.

Anyway. Our first stop was at Kennedy Hall, the student center. When SVC was founded, the priest (Boniface Wimmer, OSB) had a big old board place known as Sportsman's Hall because the hunters used it as a lodge. Eventually a monastery and a big ol' Basilica was built up around it, and later a college, and they kept the name for the student center. February 4, 1958, The Honorable JFK went to the Honors Convocation and was awarded a dr. of letters. They renamed Sportsman's Hall when he was assassinated.

We quickly wandered through that and discovered to our joy that the gift shop was open. The really nice thing about this was that he'd only opened for a couple of hours because it was Seminarian visiting day. He sounded stressed when we came in, but I told him I could shop in 5 minutes. I got some postcards, pens, and letter paper, and a patch for Rich, and Rich lucked out and got an "alumni" sweater on sale. He later showed me the SVC motto: "Veri Iusticque Scientia Vindex", or, as he says, "Truth, Justice and Science will clean the windows."

For something Rich would not have done on his own, and Ed certainly wouldn't have done, we went up to the gallery, where they have borrowed some pictures from the Westmoreland museum. The theme is paintings of Pittsburgh in the early years. It was first known as the "City of Smoke" in 1845.

The "sauerkraut tower".

A courtyard where a building used to be. He wasn't clear if this was the dorm in question ahead of him.

Once we'd finished walking around the campus and checking out the new buildings, we planned to go to the Basilica. I had commented how the cloister layout reminded me of Santa Clara, despite the brick-vs-adobe architecture. We were suddenly reminded of another reason. We saw a trolly, with a bride and groom leaving, and a limousine waiting to let off another bride for the next wedding. Of course! Now it's co-ed, they do lots of weddings on weekends! So we snuck into a side door for a quick look, but didn't stay.)

Rich was amused to note the small new town nearby named Wimmerton. (After, one assumes, the founder of the monastery.)

We then had lunch at the snack shack, which has gentrified up some in 35 years. The "chicken fiesta" sandwich sure looks like a burrito to me.

Then it was time to go exploring! The last time we visited St. Vincent, we attempted to see Bushy Run State Park. This commemorates the battle of Bushy Run, in 1763. Colonel Henry Bouquet raised the seige of Fort Pitt August 5-6 of that year. (We need to learn more about this, as Bushy Run is about 20 miles from Ft. Pitt.) This, and I quote, "opened the gateway to the west."

We found it this time, but unfortunately, the museum was closed till April. We walked around and tried to get some idea what had happened, but it wasn't till we visited Ft. Pitt that it became more clear. The forest has been cleared, farms built.

         

Following that, we stopped in Monroeville for a map and located child #6A. (We thought of him as that, when he was growing up across the street. He was so often over in our living room (we had the first Atari in the neighborhood) that he was like a sixth child. The first of our sixth children.) Rick is now a philosophy professor at Pitt. We checked out his apartment (he has a VCR, tv, stereo, microwave, and chair, what else does he need?) and made arrangements to visit his class on Monday. He had a LOT of complaints about Pittsburgh drivers. He claims that without dedicated left turns, the first person to turn left doesn't want to wait his turn and bulls on through, the "Pittsburgh left", also known as the "right of left." We all bemoaned the freeway mergers who come to a dead stop in the merge lane. This conversation started because we were griping about the driver who hadn't finished his left turn so blocked our intersection through a complete light cycle.

Then we went back to the inlaws' to share the day's experiences.