Part Visiting Colleges Part Revisiting Former Lives

We spent last night in Pittsburgh. Save many layovers at the Pittsburgh airport back in the nineties when US Air used to have a big hub there I have not spent much time there since my summer of 1982. I went west from Carlisle for the summer to take advantage of the introduction of cable television into the city of seven hills, or as we cable sales people liked to call it, “the land of bad television reception.” 
It was a paradise to sell cable television to people who lived in a city of four TV channels, but depending on where you lived you could only get one or two since they all emanated from different towers on different hills. Although it was my summer job, it was my first big time sales job and I was the only “summer employee” amongst a group of young people for whom this was a real career.
I quickly learned the various neighborhoods that make Pittsburgh a patchwork quilt of many ethnicities who were not necessarily aware who else lived in adjoining neighborhoods and definitely not who lived across town. This made my job interesting in a time of Rand McNalley atlas’ and city street maps.  
Everyday I would go into my office where I would wait in a bull pen type arena of desks waiting to be given the cards of my prospects for the day. If I was lucky they were homes where the newly built cable was just being dropped to their street and I had first crack at selling them cable TV. If there were no new streets ready for sales I got “resale” cards where the cable had been available for a while, but some people had resisted purchasing it so far.
I will never forget the first house I went to sell. It was a nice neighborhood and I rang the door bell and a middle aged woman answered the door. She was quite excited to see me and invited me into her mid-century modern all-white living room. Remember, mid-century modern was not so hot in 1982.  
The woman had a giant plate glass window that looked out on her front yard and on the opposite wall from the window was a twelve foot curved white leather sofa and she asked me to sit in a chair facing the sofa, where she sat. I took out my promotional material to begin my first ever solo spiel and as I looked up at her sitting on the sofa, I noticed for the life sized painting above the sofa that was a nude portrait of the same woman lying stretched out on a rug. It took me a moment to compose myself, but I launched right into my sales pitch making sure I pointed out the playboy channel. She bought the “full boat” which was every channel we offered, including HBO, Showtime and the playboy channel and was a big commission for me.
I left her house after writing up the order and as I walked down her sidewalk and to her neighbor’s to try and get another sale I looked back at the front of her house and could see that portrait plain as day through the big plate glass window. I was worried that they neighbor’s had no need to buy the playboy channel since they had it for free right on their very street.
Today after visiting a college Carter and I drove out Fifth Avenue so I could find the house I lived in that summer. I recognized it immediately and got out to take a photo. It was hardly as glamorous as it as was almost 35 years ago. There was some indoor furniture on the front porch and cardboard cases of beer out back. Despite that I still looked fondly on that house. It was the first place I ever lived alone where a I had a job and supported myself. It felt like yesterday. I did not go looking for the house where I made my first sale. I was worried it would look exactly the same and I did not want to scare Carter. At least mid-century modern is in now.