Sketching After Squirrel Hill

I probably know the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill and the surrounding East End (Shadyside, Oakland, Point Breeze, Polish Hill, Friendship, Wilkinsburg, et al) better than any place I've never actually resided. For many years, I taught cartooning workshops at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, bought art supplies at Artists and Craftsmen and other places, footwear at Little's Shoes, and on and on.

I must have walked by and certainly driven by the Tree of Life Congregation countless times between the main drag on Murray and Forbes and PCA - although I didn't know what it was called. I almost walked out there last Friday, before the awful events of last Saturday.

Clarissa James (Ms. Megaton Man) with Deirdre Denton, flanked by Simon Phloog, Preston Percy, and Kozmik Kat. Stella Starlight and Trent Phloog (Megaton Man) are in the background. Rough sketch; I'll pencil something tighter soon.

I keep thinking about how close it is to Halloween, and how awful it must be especially for kids in that surrounding neighborhood. I drew this with that in mind - a quickie before class. I seldom get much time to draw during the school year, as I teach college for two schools. But the thought came to me of my characters walking their children through the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, past the Tree of Life.

This is a very rough sketch and on every level a completely inadequate response, but what I have in mind is a time in America that now seems quaintly nostalgic in so many ways - when Rob and Laura Petrie had Jewish neighbors - Millie and Jerry Helper - and I grew up with at least four Jewish families on my block - the Freemans, the Tolchins, the Bornsteins, and the Sandubraes.

That ecumenical mid-century America seems almost a lost utopia now, but it doesn't have to be. Every time I pick up my pencil, I want to make it real again.