Valentine’s Day in the Steel City
The stories of a love for Pittsburgh and a love made in Pittsburgh
“I love you more than ever and I haven’t yet begun…”
— Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate
Though it doesn’t sound as sweet as when Tony Bennett croons it, Jordan Biscardo left his heart in Pittsburgh when his family moved to suburban Virginia while he was in high school. The kid was devastated.
Born at Magee-Womens Hospital in 1965 — the year Roberto Clemente won the National League batting title with a .329 average — Mr. Biscardo grew up on Clarence Street (and later Meridan Street) in Duquesne Heights on the Ohio River. He learned his letters and the Catholic catechism at St. Mary of the Mount grade school.
“The first time I had a knife pulled on me was in an alley when I sold The Pittsburgh Press after school. My stand was at Forbes and Wood,” said Mr. Biscardo, who, when so moved, can still bellow “GET YER PRESS HERE!”
The beloved afternoon paper — which went under in 1992 after a run of 108 years — cost 20 cents a copy back then. His assailant got spooked and fled; the young newsboy held fast to the cylindrical metal change counter — given to him by his bus driver father — that hung on his belt.
So thoroughly immersed from birth was Mr. Biscardo in his hometown — the river at his front door, the neighborhood church on the hill above, the ink of local headlines staining his adolescent hands — that he bleeds black and gold some 40 years after the move to Virginia broke his heart.
Here, on this day of love and longing, affection and ardor — established as a feast day in 496 by Pope Gelasius I to honor the martyr St. Valentine of Rome — is a native son’s short list of what true citizens of the ‘Burgh hold dear.
(You will notice that purple Heinz ketchup and Iron City beer are not on the list.)
The view of Downtown from Grandview Avenue; chipped ham; Roberto Clemente; the Duquesne and Monongahela inclines; Mister Rogers; and, of course, “the Stillers,” with whom Mr. Biscardo holds season tickets.
“And don’t forget kindness,” he said. “Don’t forget sacrifice and our love of the work ethic.”
What about the love an authentic Yinzer carries for another?
“This is Pittsburgh,” said Phyllis Martoni Friend, married for 51 years to John K. “Jake” Friend. “We grew up in the same working-class, blue-collar town of Swissvale.”
Their families knew each other long before Phyllis warmed to the idea of going steady with the guy a friend had set her up with on a double-date at a drive-in movie.
“Jake’s mother lived across the street from my family’s church,” said Mrs. Friend. “She remembered watching my mother walk in on her wedding day.”
A strong sense of community inextricable from family has long anchored the Friend marriage. Mr. Friend said the song that most reminds him of Phyllis is “Swingin’ Little Chicky (from a Swingin’ Little Town),” a regional hit in 1965 for Pittsburgh’s Belltones.
But even though they share a passion for old cars — including a cherished ‘68 Pontiac Firebird — neither was very “swingin’,” just a couple of working-class kids married at the height of ‘60s madness on a rainy Saturday in August 1968.
It was so long ago (Bobby and Martin gunned down, the Beatles unveiling the White Album) that the bank would not factor Phyllis’ Bell Telephone salary into a mortgage when the couple bought their first house — where else? — in Swissvale.
“The times were changing, but we didn’t know it yet,” said Mrs. Friend, a retired school principal who, like Mr. Friend (who owned his own appliance repair business), pursued her education after marriage.
“Our mothers babysat for us one or two nights a week while we attended night classes,” said Mrs. Friend, who earned a masters in education while Mr. Friend was certified in refrigeration.
Their wedding at Madonna del Castello church and the old Prima Vera Lodge hall there was so provincial it could have doubled for the wedding in “The Deer
Hunter.”
It was catered by aunts and cousins. The couple used Mrs. Friend’s brother’s white Lincoln for their carriage. Her godmother rented the hall, her mother knew the band, and her father and uncle made the ice punch bowls at Federal Cold Storage in the Strip District where they worked.
And reality — life on life’s terms — barged into the fairy tale before they said “I do.”
Mrs. Friend’s wedding dress needed last-minute repairs, forcing her to cancel her hair appointment. “And after the rehearsal the night before, Jake’s dad had a heart attack and spent days in the hospital,” she said.
Though they left the wedding cake in the hands of professionals, the truck driving it to the reception crashed on the way.
“It wasn’t demolished,” said Mrs. Friend. “Just enough damage to upset a bride.”
The solution: The bakery iced a cosmetic layer onto the cake and made it presentable. “No one knew but us,” said Mrs. Friend.
And isn’t that the way with many successful relationships?
The hardships tend to be personal and, unless some pesky reporter decides to spill your secrets with half of the state of Pennsylvania, you soldier on with a smile and a good word.
Said Mrs. Friend: “Our wedding day proved you don’t need a perfect day for a wonderful marriage.”
Of the more than 15,000 photographs that W. Eugene Smith took in his mammoth “Pittsburgh Project,” an especially poignant candid from 1955 shows newlyweds — their backs to the camera — crossing a street.
The man carries a cardboard box in his left arm, his right around the waist of his bride. The photo is titled “Couple Returning Wedding Gifts.”
Who hasn’t returned something that was given in good faith, whether their heart or a platter shaped like one?
Of the gifts the Friends received, the couple still uses several in their home, located in Murrysville since their three children — “Katie, Brian and Johnny — our greatest accomplishments,” said Mrs. Friend — are on their own.
“I use a tray with our wedding invitation decoupaged on it, a crystal candy dish and a crystal vase,” said Mrs. Friend. “And we still have all of our wedding cards.”
The Friends will not exchange Valentine’s Day cards today and there will be no gifts. “If I want jewelry, I just go out and buy what I want,” said Mrs. Friend.
Instead, they’ll visit their grandchildren at school, slip them a few dollars in a red envelope and maybe go out to dinner this evening.
“I used to give Jake the same card every year, just put it in the drawer and take it out the next year,” laughed Mrs. Friend. “He never noticed.”
But he’s certainly aware of the stuff that matters, all of that “in sickness and in health, in good times and bad” lingo they repeated a half-century ago.
“I couldn’t live without her,” said Mr. Friend, who had a heart attack in 2013 and a stroke three years later. “And that’s a fact.”