Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Newburg Landing

Newburg Landing

Last updated on: July 25, 2021 at 3:03 pm by Mary Pezzulo

Newburg Landing 2021-07-25T15:03:48-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We went to Toronto. Not the one in Canada, but the one in Ohio.

I had driven through Toronto a couple of times, on my drives through the Ohio Valley. I’ve taken Rosie to the pool there quite a lot the past few weeks because it’s not very expensive. But this was the first time Michael had been. It was the first time we’d gone there just to go exploring.

It wasn’t a good weekend. The Menacing Neighbor continues her free fall into madness. Her workmen never finished the house and haven’t been back in weeks– something to do with a contract violation, if what she yells into the phone is true. I suspect it might be more to do with the fact that she can’t afford repairs, or that she yelled at them and insulted them the last time she had a paranoid spell. There’s still a big ugly patch of peeled paint on the front of her house which I suppose will stay there forever. She is taking this out on us. On Friday she stood on the lawn screaming insults and obscenities for an hour. She stepped over the property line to yell under windows. She committed assault once. She keeps babbling that she used to “feed” us as if she’s Mother Teresa, because she once badgered me into taking a few cans of mushy vegetables a cancer charity had given her off of her hands– she didn’t want them, and I threw the cans out because they weren’t fit to donate. And she’s recruited the neighbor who lives across the street into her madness as well. She goes over and sits on the gullible woman’s porch every morning, whining to her about her hallucinations, so now the gullible woman yells obscenities at us too. And the police have already told me they refuse to do anything about it. I have nowhere to turn. I just have to wait until she tires herself out.

The panic and anxiety are so bad, they’re causing flare-ups of my old fibromyalgia pain. I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been beaten up. We’d planned to go to a vigil Mass but my arms were so sore I felt like I couldn’t hold a steering wheel, so I stayed on the sofa in my pajamas. The flare wore off at about six in the afternoon, when it was too late.

I was desperate to get out of the house. What I wanted to do was abandon the house entirely and move back to Columbus, but of course that wasn’t possible. I also wished we could get a hotel room for the week until the neighbor tired herself out, but we can’t afford that either. But there was already gas in the tank. It wouldn’t cost any money to go for a drive.

I changed out of my pajamas. Rosie got her tablet and headphones. Michael got a mask. I peeked out the front door, glanced around the yard for the neighbor or her dog, and ran to the car clutching my keys. And then we were off.

Route Seven from Steubenville to Toronto is actually pretty. It doesn’t look like Steubenville. It looks like mountains and trees. You can see the river almost the whole way– dotted with coal barges and dark, Satanic mills, but also dotted with marinas and pleasure boats. By the time you get to Toronto, around a few bends of the river, it looks like a totally different body of water.

Toronto is a much smaller town than Steubenville, and noticeably cleaner. There are poor streets but not a reeking slum like two thirds of LaBelle are. There are tired, sarcastic Appalachian people, but I haven’t seen any publicly abusive monsters like my neighbor and her gullible friend. There is a tiny library the size of a McDonald’s with helpful, smiling librarians and a bright copper roof. There are plenty of Sears and Roebuck pre-cut foursquare houses from the 1920s, just like there are in LaBelle, but they’re quaintly painted and have colorful gardens. There is a church that looks inviting, though we got there after it was closed for the night and could only admire the outside of it. There is a “business district” consisting of about two blocks of old fashioned brick buildings with a bakery and an antique shop. There are several well-kept little playgrounds, but Rosie wanted to stay in the car with her tablet.

It’s not exciting or exotic. It’s not a vacation spot. It was just somewhere to go to get a breath of fresh air.

We drove up and down the hills, people watching.

Eventually we got to Newburg Landing.

Newburg Landing is a tiny park on the shore of the Ohio. There’s a picnic bench, and a place to park your boat trailer, and a pier shaped like the letter Z that goes out onto the river.

I parked the car. We got out to watch the water. Even Rosie got out– at first, staring down at her tablet, but then she put the tablet away and went out to play on the pier. I don’t know anything about piers in general, but this one was a series of floating wooden platforms chained in place, so they rocked when Rosie ran back and forth on them and when a speedboat drove by too close. She rocked on the pier for a long time, and then she made tracks on the patch of muddy sand by the shore. She threw sticks into the water to watch them float away toward Wheeling.

I got down close to the water as well. It was hard to believe this was really the Ohio. I’m sure it’s still horribly polluted in Toronto, but it’s upriver from Steubenville so it doesn’t reek like sulfur and decay. It’s brown instead of red or quicksilver. And it has living things in it. I saw a forest of flat grass waving back and forth in the Ohio’s current, just like kelp in the ocean.

A boat hummed up to the pier just then. I don’t know anything about boats so I don’t know what to call it: just a small boat with three happy people in it, a steering wheel at one end and an outboard motor at the other. We watched as the boating party got out. One of them got in their pickup truck and somehow backed the boat trailer down a ramp into the water, and then another person drove the boat up onto it. I’ve never lived near water that had boats like that in it, so I’d never seen a performance like this. It looked like magic.

Maybe it was.

I felt happy and relaxed sitting on the bank of the Ohio river, after all. That’s got to be a kind of magic.

The sky went orange and periwinkle gray as the sun set behind us, and the river went from brown to charcoal to black.

We got in the car and went home.

I parked in front of our house, glanced around for the neighbor or her dog, and sprinted inside my house again. The panic settled back in. It was a hard night, and today isn’t so good either. But we got an evening out.

It’s not a very good story, but it’s what I did this weekend.

Image via Pixabay

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.
Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Previous Post

July 25, 2021

Miracle of the Loaves

Next Post

July 26, 2021 The Late Summer Tin Cup Rattle

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which mountain is traditionally believed to be where Noah's Ark came to rest?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mount Sinai Mount Carmel Mount Ararat Mount Hermon