Dahn 'air Sahside 'n Up 'air Uptahn 'n at . . .

So tonight I met my running club in the Southside. On my way back to my car, I stopped in a little shop with cool stuff in the window, where I found a memorial (there's no other word) tee shirt for the Civic (not Mellon) Arena. I asked the charming young man if it would make me too sad to wear it . . .  He said he could see the Arena from his house (not Alaska, the Arena. I believed him) and it made him very sad too . . .

So I told him my Civic Arena stories. The year the Arena opened, it hosted a celebration of Girl Scouting's 50th anniversary, and my Brownie Troop went. The seats were so high I was terrified and spent most of the event on the more solid walkway at the top, behind all the seating, peering down the aisle to see the show.

And speaking of high: In the early 1970s - I'd guess 1973 - I saw the Greatful Dead there and they had to open the roof to blow out the smoke - and I don't mean tobacco. I can still hear that "Sugar Magnolia" in my head.

I didn't mention that I was an extra there in possibly the worst movie ever made: The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

I've been sad ever since the final decree came down. I've been sad every time I've driven by and seen parts of the Arena hanging by a thread. My ever-prescient stepdaughter said that the fact that it put up a fight, that it refused to lie down and die, should have sent a message to those who wanted to see it destroyed. So true . . .

Did the city destroy a neighborhood when the Arena was built? Yes. We all get that now. Will the Hill come back because it's gone? We all know the answer to that, too.

When I was in junior high, there was a picture of the Civic Arena in our algebra book - a beacon of hope in a city where there wasn't much to feel pride in. We may feel we have more to be proud of now, but our respect for our past doesn't seem to be any part of it. Don't be surprised when the Arena site follows in the footsteps of the site of the lamented Syra Mosque, now an ill-kept surface parking lot. We believed the big talk about development there, too . . .

And to the Penguins and their foundation - I won't be buying a Penguins commemoration made from the stainless steel. It was the Penguins who forced the new arena, such as it is, and who refused to listen to reason on plans for the old. And as fond as I am of Wendall August Forge, when I read in the paper that they had signed that deal well before any final judgments about the Arena were made, I saw red, not stainless . . . If I ever meet Mario Lemeiux again, I'm going to tell him my plan to become famous in Montreal and then insist on destroying a major landmark there.

But in more cheerful news, our young people are getting it. The Southside store is called Decade (Wait a minute, isn't that a club in Oakland? How old am I?), and it's on Carson, river side, around 14th Street. Here's the tee (I wish it didn't say Igloo, but at least it doesn't say Mellon Arena). Go get one. Wear it to all events at the entirely unappealing Consol. Tell 'em Max sent you.