As I recorded Pat LaFond’s memories in Oakdale, Pennsylvania I’d take and afternoon break and walk the streets of this roughly 1,000-home settlement, an old river town with late 19th Century buildings on the two creeks which each have the volume of one of Utah’s four major rivers. I discovered a place that was now inhabited by folks like her who had left Pittsburgh as its industry died in the 1970s. Banners of military veterans from World War II through the ongoing forever wars proudly hung on telephone poles. Visiting with Pat for the past few days, while she spoke to me of being “Patsy,” and then coming of age, has been an educating pleasure.