A STRANGER would be hard put to locate Vespucious Street on the Gulfguide map of Greater Pittsburgh. The entire route could be covered in a short stroll from the streetcar stop at Second Avenue to the white-on-black SAFETY FIRST sign that guarded the entrance to the Glen-wood roundhouse, shops, and yard of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Though the thoroughfare belied its impressive name, Vespucious held a unique magnetism to me in those years before I entered my teens. There was adventure in the sounds of banging freight cars, sharp blasts of escaping steam, clanging bells, or the short warning toots of locomo­tives as they eased to a spot beneath the coal tipple. I ex­tracted a peculiar satisfaction from the sweet smell of soft coal smoke that shifted with the winds off the Monongahela River.

“Oughta call it VESUVIOUS Street,” my father used to grin.

The black-faced men with the white goggle marks about their eyes that poured out of the shops when the big whistle blew created a carnival atmosphere, streaming in every di­rection. Surely, I was off my turf in this company. These men and their trains were the big attraction for me, but the reason for my sojourns into their world was a little shop just outside the gates.

Stick-on letters decorated the front window: NATE NEWMAN—WORK CLOTHES. The structure was like countless oth­ers in the Pittsburgh of those days: two-story wooden construction with the store on the street floor and living quarters above. Regardless of the color it might have been painted years before, I will always remember it in the gray tones that were so characteristic of the place and the time.

While my parents called the proprietor “Nate,” I was enjoined to address him as “Mr. Newman.” He was a dimin­utive, balding man who always wore one of those white shirts to which you attached a stiff collar, but I never recall him wearing the collar. Instead, a cloth tape measure was draped around his neck, dangling down over his dark vest and trousers. His size and personal tidiness contrasted with his clientele.

Stacks of overalls and shirts and work gloves with the big red star on the gauntlet crowded the narrow aisles of the dim interior. There were neat rows of mammoth black work shoes, stacks of blue-and-white striped engineer’s caps, piles of thick white socks. The aroma was pure denim with a slight flavoring of oil rising from the well-worn wooden floor.

To my mind, the array of garments in the children’s cor­ner was not exactly the epitome of grade-school fashion in those days. Like it or not, it was Mr. Newman who provided the basis of my sturdy, no-frills wardrobe. No designer jeans here. We wore trade names like Lee and Oshkosh B’Gosh that proudly displayed their Union Made labels.

And shoes! When I asked about those snappy High Tops that came with a little pen knife in the pocket on the right side and were all the vogue in my class, he just smiled and explained that they were a little too expensive for most of his customers. And once more, his surprisingly strong fin­gers would squeeze around my toes through the soft leather of another pair of black ankle-support models that looked as if they’d been scaled down from the heavy adult version in the front window.

After the purchase had been wrapped in heavy brown paper and tied with string, it was time for another ritual. I was dismissed to hang on the fence and watch the engines while my father joined Nate by the front counter. The little man removed the ledger book from its slot and thumbed through its dog-eared pages. When he came to the right spot, a few dollars were counted out and duly noted in the columns next to our family name. Of course, the cash never equaled the amount of the purchase. The rest was “on tick.” Mr. Newman would close the book and nod gravely to my father, “Don’t you worry, Pete. I know how it is.”

Once or twice when I lingered in the store to try on one of the giant engineer’s gloves or goggles, I could hear them speaking softly and with great concern about something called “The Depression” or roundhouse rumors that the B&O might “go under”—whatever that meant.

The grown-up talk meant little to one to whom all things adult seemed to project an indestructible perma­nence. I felt no meaning in the long lines of cold locomotives on the far side of the yards, each with a rectangle of wood on top of the smokestack keep the elements out of its innards. “Stored serviceable” was the official designation; “a crying shame” was my dad’s appraisal.

For some reason, Mr. Newman’s expression conveyed the gravity of the situation more than the others. Maybe it was because he was not really a railroadman that his words carried extra weight, implying a privileged source of in­formation. There was the respect accorded him by the other B&O men who would add to the conversation around the cash register. It felt good to hear him say that he felt in his bones that there would be no more furloughs in the shops this month. In some mysterious way, he reassured them.

The railroad paid its workers on the 13th and 25th of the month, and that is when the little store bustled and the ledger book got the real workout. A pause at Nate’s to put “a little something on the account” came first—even before the visit to lift Depression spirits at the corner tavern (“Tables for Ladies”). If things were really bad and a fireman near the bottom of the extra board showed only for a few trips for the pay period, the stop was made nonetheless. Some mumbled words with Nate in the corner. A handshake and a comforting, “Thank you for thinking of me. Things will be better next month. You’ll see.” “I won’t forget you, Nate.” No money changed hands.

It should also be noted that Vespucious was never a one-way street. There was the day a roundhouse boiler­maker discovered the bucket beneath the leaky pipe on the old water heater in the back of the store. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Nate? Why didn’t ya say something about this?”

In no time, a runner was dispatched to the shops with specific instructions as to the size and length of pipe to be cut. Wrenches and fittings appeared. Amidst much unsolic­ited advice, the offending section was soon replaced and sto­gies lit to celebrate the triumph.

Other unspoken rituals grew as part of the relationship between Nate and his railroaders. When the payday depos­its “on account” permitted a change of scenery to the bright lights of downtown’s Loew’s Penn or Stanley Theatre, Mr. and Mrs. Newman planned their evening around a schedule of the McKeesport commuter train, known locally as the “Versailles Jerkwater.” As they settled on the green mohair seats in the dusty coach, family talk would be exchanged with the crew. Before the stop at the Haziewood Avenue crossing, Nate would extract the 30-cent fare from his pocket. No sale. There was not a conductor on the line who would think of accepting it.

I have not been back to Vespucious Street for a long time. The roundhouse is gone, as are the men who gave it life. Nate’s tattered ledger book, the hissing steam engines, and the quiet desperation are of another time. But it will not leave my memory. Like a scene from an old black-and-white movie played over and over in my mind, the lined faces reappear around the brass cash register with the han­dle on the side. Randle Skinner, Charlie Emhoff, John Colhane. Enginemen, trainmen, shopmen.

Most clearly of all, I see the soft eyes, the comforting hand on the shoulder, and the little man with the tape mea­sure around his neck. His presence seemed to hold it all to­gether. His giving made it possible for them to give back. The others were my heroes—big men making big machines do their bidding. Nate Newman was their soul. - REGE CORDIC