The Weekend pt1- Pittsburgh

I'm a little late in writing this but it took a little time to recover from what was probably the coolest/craziest weekend of my life.
Well it started off with a simple trip to Hornell NY where a few old college friends were hanging out, no big deal. Get up in the AM and head home. Then I get packed and head to Corning to meet the parents and head down to Pittsburgh to watch the super bowl and partake in the revelries. It was incredible. My sister lives on Carson Street, if you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh then I hope you know Carson Street, it’s on the south side and it’s where the whole strip of bars are. Ok for those of you who haven’t been to Pittsburgh lets just say that the police barricaded all of the bridges, save one, to basically quarantine the south side to contain the riots if things got out of control.
The game itself was great, although even in Pittsburgh we realized that people were going to b pissed at the referees. During the game the street was empty everyone who was from there said it was kind of eerie to see the street completely empty. Before the game it had been closed by the police because they knew everyone would pour out of the bars after the game to celebrate in the street. It began snowing during the game, not a lot of snow but just enough to make the street pretty slick. Then it happened, the clock hit zero and the game was over, the Steelers had one it. We take off downstairs into the streets and thousands of others are doing the same. I have never seen so many people simply overflowing with joy. Everything was black and gold and screaming and jumping around. You could simply run down the street and someone going the other way would run towards you and give you a huge hug usually with one of the people ending up being lifted off the ground, Ok I was usually the one doing the lifting, but not always and I'm not a little guy. I walked up and down the street just trying to take it all in. If you just walked straight up the street about every other person within arms reach would give you a high five and then maybe one in ten would just give you a hug, One girl even had the big hug and then jump up and down kinda thing going on, and she was pretty damn cute too. So for this one moment in time an entire city forgot about all of its problems and concerns and just celebrated a victory. I have never had so many hugs from random strangers in my life. The terrible towels were waving and the people were singing for hours, Pittsburgh just won the super bowl, here we go. There was a little band that showed up and just started playing the Steelers songs. All normal social barriers had broken down, it didn’t matter what race, religion, sex, sexuality, or economic status you were, if you had on black and gold then you were kin. It was truly amazing. This went on for several hours and the raw energy was only slightly below the initial exuberance of the night. Then the Police had enough and closed down the party.
I had never really seen riot police before. It was an interesting experience. I need to reiterate something here, notice that I had mentioned hugs and songs I never mentioned so much as a single fist being swung, hands were flying for high fives not in anger. Now admittedly I was only one person along probably a half-mile stretch but I did walk almost the entire length at different times without seeing a single incident. Well there was a guy getting dragged down the middle of the street but his feet and an arm but he was still yelling “Go Steelers,� Ill assume it was his friends dragging him, oh remember it had snowed and the road was slick enough that being dragged on your butt wouldn’t hurt. So back to the cops, it was around midnight I believe when we spotted the classic wall of police carrying shields and clubs walking shoulder to shoulder down the street. This was the only time I saw people start acting out, people began yelling at the
cops. The mounted police were there I nearly got stepped on by a Clydesdale while I was walking down the side walk. I couldn’t grasp how this officer could tell me that I couldn’t walk any further in that direction, what right did he have so tell me what I could do? I had broken no laws I was simply walking down the sidewalk. But when that person is brandishing a weapon and is sitting on an animal that probably weighs close to a ton, then you listen wither they are right or not. I had assumed the police were simply clearing the road to allow traffic to start back up. It had not occurred to me that they were shutting down everything. The bars were forced to close and everyone had to leave. In the police’s defense I never saw any one being injured by the police either but we didn’t hang around them for very long to see what was going to happen. So as far as I could see we had a peaceful celebration being broken up under martial law. There were arrests, they claimed only 8 I heard latter but we watched them unload people out of a patty wagon and into a city buss because they needed something larger to hold all of the people. They were probably only detaining them and not arresting them but in my book if the police put you in cuffs and put you in jail then they damn well better have a reason I don’t care if its an arrest or not. So the most amazing celebration I have ever had the privilege of taking part in was broken up by force. Thanks….