Blackie's Bedbug Inn
Another quality SML submission was received via Mutant Mail's FiOS network on August 4, 2007:
After much consultation with former vintage and pre-Mutant Beach bathers it has been finally decided who constructed the Bradford Flood Control Project that gave rise to our beautiful Mutant Beach Spillway; Pennsylvania's Eighth Wonder of the World. It seems that the project was done by the well known Ferguson and Edmonson Co., as we now have recollected some of the machines and the trucks's cab writing. This company also built some of the City of Pittsburgh's tunnels and bridges. The link is here: http://pghbridges.com/oakdale/0565-4478/montourenlow_tun.htm
Anyways, during the weekdays in the summer we used to hop the slow moving Caterpillar pans and also the very fast Euclid earthmovers and ride their rear pusher plates all the way out to Harri Emery Airport and then jump off and hide in the bushes. On the return trip we would ride them in again. We would have to run like hell from the bushes and throw ourselves up on the rig's rear ends.This was definitely NOT a sane act, but hey; we were kids and kids never die, right? We'd sometimes do this all damned day long! The drivers kind of played that they didn't know we were there and would swear at us once in a while but for the most part, they had a job to do, and tolerated our delinquency. What the hell, there was nothing else to do. The spillway hadn't been completed yet so the now fabled water olympics had not YET begun.
Well, there were two houses (shotgun shacks) in those days down on the "tracks" in which families actually lived. They were about where Pitt Field stands today at the end of Wagner Avenue. One house we called "Blackies" and the other we called the "Magueeries". Neither house had indoor plumbing and their waste was often seen heading right down to "you know where". It also seemed that after the houses fell to eminent domain the Ferguson and Edmonson crews would hang out at "Blackies" and killl time for lunch and dinner. Needless to say the place was a filthy rat and insect infested mess. We spent a night or two camping in the old joints and because the old couches and chairs and mattresses that were left behind had SO MUCH vermin, etc., the place came to be known as "THE BEDBUG INN". All the construction crews referred to it as that anyways. (They could have filmed the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "Deliverance" there for all I know, as they fitting and proper places for damned sure)
The Bedbug Inn made the Bradford Hotel seem like the damned Waldorf Astoria but the Euclid drivers loved the place because they made it their "office" and home away from home. I wonder if any of the "Euk" drivers are around today or if anybody else remembers "BLACKIES BEDBUG INN"
SML, Buffalo, NY
[MBPS NOTE: We love these kind of stories? Any Eukers still out there or any fond memories of the "Inn"?].
©2007 MBPS
