Monday, Aug.9, 2010, More of Larimer

At 12:50pm we knocked on the office trailer that is parked in front of the old school building in Larimer. Carlos had sent us this way. He thought it would be interesting to talk to Mr. Emmett Miles who had bought the school building in 2005, developed plans for it and since then uses the trailer to make it happen. When we entered, a woman was in the process of explaining a job application to a young men. We waited in the front part of the trailer that was used as a kitchen and appreciated the air conditioning. A copy of this article was in a frame on the wall. After the potential job applicant had left, we introduced ourselves to April. She told us a little bit about the job training program that Mr. Miles is running. Since it sounded like a great opportunity for people from Larimer, we asked why there wasn’t a long line out the door? “Because people know, that Mrs. April is closing up at 1pm, that’s why”, she said with a big smile.

She gave us Mr. Mile’s phone number so we could make an appointment with him. We asked her, if she knew of any artists in Larimer, and with another big smile she said. “Artists? You are the first artists that knocked on the door, let’s leave it at that.” When we left she handed us a job application, just in case.

We then followed one of Mrs. Jones’ advices and visited Mama Rose. Mrs. Jones had talked about a Gazebo in the backyard and that Mama Rose was close to the community gardens on Larimer Ave., so we drove towards this area and looked for the gazebo. When we came down Auburn street a big, dust cloud emerged from the left side in the middle of the block. A bulldozer was demolishing a two story house. We drove around into Mayflower street. The first building on the left in the middle of the block was a well kept blue house. A woman was sitting on the porch. We stopped and asked for Mama Rose’s and she said, it was right here. While we parked two young men came up from behind the house carrying white styrofoam food containers in a plastic bag. We followed the little path leading towards the back, and felt less obtrusive, once we spotted the official “We are open” sign that hang on the back door. We entered and faced a wooden counter, behind that was a kitchen with lots of big pots on the stove. It was hot in there. Mama Rose welcomed us and told us the choices of the day. Five dishes were meat based, (and since we are vegetarians we can not recount them here) and then there was grilled Tilapia, the whole fish, with head and tail for $14, with cabbage and rice. We ordered the fish and Mama Rose said we could sit down at the glass table under the big umbrella in the garden and eat there if we wanted to, even though she was technically speaking only a take out restaurant. When she brought us our food, she told us that she came from Jamaica to Pittsburgh in the 80’s and “didn’t like it”. Since she had six children, she needed a flexible job, so at one point she came up with the idea of cooking Jamaican Food from home, which she is doing now since 35 years. People love her food. Once, she said, a guy went to jail and when he got out after 14 years, he came to her and told her, how he had been thinking every day of Mama Rose’s food and that he prayed that once he would get out, that she would still be there! Mama Rose and the woman who helps her and who also maintains the vegetable garden cook about 30 meals a day, a little more at the beginning of the month, when people have more money than towards the end. Her customers are residents from Larimer, people who work in Larimer and people from other neighborhoods, including a judge and some white lawyers.

The one with the stomach flu ate the rice, the other one the fish and the cabbage, the third one picked out the beans of the rice and made a big mess. For dessert, we went to the back of the garden and looked at the vegetable garden and the BBQ drum.

Then Jade and Treasure, two of Mama Rose’s granddaughters appeared, equipped with water guns and towels. They were the best behaved girls we had met in a long time, and we had a nice conversation until… one of the water guns went off:)

At 4pm we had made an appointment with Mr.Miles at his office trailer. We arrived two minutes late and were greeted by a man who let us in and informed us that Mr.Miles was on his way. The man turned out to be The Pittsburgh Poparazzi, a professional photographer who makes his money with what he loves doing, which is documenting events like weddings, birthdays, etc. He told us how he got into the business and how woman are usually much more concerned about how they look in the pictures, while men are more concerned about the whole composition of the image. Then we flipped through the TV channels. There was a show on called “Dirty Jobs” and somehow we got on the subject of poop and The Poparazzi couldn’t get over it, that we insisted that cow poop smells better than human poop, or dog poop for example. Anyway, we had some good laughs and after that, Louis took the stage. The Poparazzi turned out to be the most technically advanced play mate Louis ever had and he let him use all the gadgets Louis always wanted: remote controls that blink, a cell phone Louis was allowed to make calls with, two big cameras that flashed….

Around 5pm Mr. Miles entered the trailer. He slowly walked around the table, sat down, opened his mail, smiled at a check. Then we talked about his plans for converting the big old beautiful school building, into a mixed use facility (Hydrogenic garden, senior citizen home, fishery, day care center, solar panel manufacturing site). He told us about the 15 lots he owned and that he plans to build a zero net home (that operates completely off the grid) in Larimer, construction starting in September. In comparison to other people who had described Larimer to us as a dangerous place, Mr. Miles said, that it was actually safe, at least in comparison to other neighborhoods and that the only thing that ever happened to him here had happened last week, when some kids smashed the front window of his truck. We asked about artists again and he said he was sure there were some around and he would think of some and let us know. And, then he inquired about Louis weight, which he suspected was less than that of his three month old son. He was right. Louis, almost a year weighs less. “But”, he said while he was scooping up little Louis with his big hand to rock him on his knee, “no worries, little guys get things done too.”

We left around 6:15pm and when we drove up Auburn St. to see if Mrs. Jones was home (we still wanted to see her rain garden), we passed by the site where a few hours earlier the bulldozer had been taking down the house. Nothing was left of it now, not even some dust in the air. The ground was covered with straw. Somehow we felt sad about it.