The Other Mutant Beach
This first time submission was received on November 27, 2007 via our Mutant Mail Express Courier (using recycled e-paper of course):
As all postmodernists know, The Other is important.
In this case, The Other is the Mutant Beach on the main branch of Tuna Creek, upstream of the Elm Street bridge crossing. One might argue that this is the TRUE Mutant Beach.
It is a site much like the spillway on the West Branch near the U Pitt campus. Sadly, The Other Mutant Beach does not get the elite college-student/intellectual crowds that bless W Branch Mutant Beach. But The Other is even more notorious. It was a popular swimming hole in the 1960s for kids from The Bloody Fifth, aka the Fifth Ward school district of the city of Bradford. One or two drowned there, and their ghosts forever haunt the preterit neighborhoods of Rochester and High Streets. The Fifth was a tough neighborhood, thanks to the Mafia families on the one hand and the Scot-Irish welfare hillbillies on the other (mostly up on Cottage Row etc). Throw in a few Indian families from the reservation at Salamanca, and it was quite a mix. Anyway, a bunch of kids came down with hepatitis (remember that, Jimmy John?), probably from swimming at The Other. Then all of us kids at Fifth Ward school had to line up in the gym, step behind a curtain, pull down our pants, and get a shot in the ass.
I recently visited Bradford, my old home town. See my blog entry about it at http://ecorover.blogspot.com/2007/09/bradford-pennsylvania-going-home-again.html .
Pat Munday
Butte, MT
[MBPS NOTE: Thanks for this story. When the weather gets a little nicer we will be doing some photo documentation of The Other. Please keep the stories coming from that side of town].
We also encourage our readers to take the time to peruse Dr. Munday's blog. There is some fascinating information on there about a variety of topics.
©2007 MBPS
