20 Years of Interviews, Pt. VI

Editor’s note: The Pittsburgh Quarterly team has interviewed many of the most interesting and noteworthy people in our “city-state of Pittsburgh” as my old editor and friend John Craig used to call this area. The number of interviews that have appeared in this magazine reaches well into the hundreds (writer Jeff Sewald alone has interviewed nearly 80). As a special 20th anniversary issue treat and a tribute to the greatness of the light and lives that course through Pittsburgh, we’ve put together a compendium of thoughts from a fraction of these interviews. We’re sorry we can’t include all — space simply won’t allow it. But I hope you enjoy reading the wit and wisdom of these Pittsburghers, many no longer with us, as much as I enjoyed editing them.
– Douglas Heuck

https://pittsburghquarterly.com/articles/20-years-of-interviews-pt-v/

Martin McGuinn
Mellon Bank CEO
“I remember Tom Usher, the former head of US Steel, was giving a speech one time, and he asked me whether I thought people were natural-born leaders. At the time, I said no. I said it was something that was cultivated like most everything else. There may be certain qualities or characteristics in a person that make it easier for the person to be a leader. But I don’t think you’re born withthat ability from day one.To be a real leader, it takes work. It takes effort. It takes a lot of help, and a lot of experience. It’s an interesting question. But I don’t think it’s as much a philosophical question as it is an experiential question. You study individual people you think are effective leaders and analyze them and how they got to that stage, and then you emulate them.”

Thaddeus Mosley
Sculptor
“I think artists have a personal perspective, a vision — something they want to see. In my old age, a lot of times I don’t feel like cleaning the house or doing stuff like that, but I always, unless I’m sick, feel like going to the studio. I always believe that I’m going to do something better than I’ve done before. Maybe it doesn’t happen, but it is a challenge, and that brings personal satisfaction.”

Clint Hurdle
Baseball Player and Manager
“As the seasons wore on, I grew tired of being the ‘Golden Child,’ with people expecting the sun to rise and set in the crack of my backside every day. Long story short, my performance as a player did not meet expectations. I felt the agony of coming up short and letting people down, so I numbed myself with alcohol, trying to kill the pain of what I considered to be failure. But while I didn’t get sober during my playing days, I managed to resurrect my career a bit by becoming a utility player, i.e., learning to play different positions. Then came ‘male menopause.’ At that point, I had been married and divorced twice, and surely had a drinking problem. But on the other hand, I had a good job and was good at it. Still, I couldn’t help but ask myself, ‘Is this all there is?’ It was at that time that I started to think that I might actually have a purpose in life beyond the playing field. Just maybe, I was put here not to serve myself, but to serve others.”

Dr. Jim Withers
Doctor to the Homeless
“One winter day, I encountered a homeless man and tried to convince him to remain in the hospital because he was very ill, but I was unsuccessful. Soon thereafter, he headed out into a snowstorm and froze to death. The sadness of this got me thinking about all of those people out there, and that’s when I discovered my true calling: reaching out and providing health care services for even the most intractably homeless people in our community.

“My first thought was that the outreach work I had in mind was so outside-the-box that I best not tell anyone. My colleagues would think I was crazy. Moreover, maybe my malpractice insurance wouldn’t cover it. … But from where do you start? From within your comfort zone, your own ‘reality’? Or do you start from someone else’s? To me, that’s the whole deal, right there. Anyone can do things on their own terms. But the deep end of the pool is ‘reality’ — and reality is not for beginners. It’s important to remember that every person has their own unique story, and that the best teachers in the history of medicine have always emphasized that the person and their story hold the keys to diagnosis and healing.”

Ahmad Jamal
Jazz Pianist
“Long before you reach my age, you must cultivate an ability to examine and understand not only the history of others, but your own history as well. As the saying goes, ‘How do you know where you’re going, if you don’t know where you’ve been?’ If you can look at and honestly assess your life and work, you’ll see the good you’ve done, and the not-so-good, too. In my case, I remember my best performances, but would rather forget the heartaches I gave my mother. I miss her, even now, and pray for her every day. Long ago, she left this ‘world of illusion,’ as we all will. None of us will get out of here alive, so we must prepare for the ‘real world’ that comes next. The ups and downs of life are worthy of only a chuckle. Physical and spiritual health are your most valuable possessions. If you are blessed with good health and are left with a chuckle, you know you’ve arrived.”

John Fetterman
Mayor and U.S. Senator
“One day, I was waiting for a friend to come and pick me up to go to the gym for a workout — but he never showed. Tragically, he had been killed in a car accident on his way to my house. That event was a real wake-up call for me. Never before had I been close to someone who died so unexpectedly, in such a violent, abrupt manner. I was stunned by the idea that one could, on any given day, wake up, have breakfast, kiss one’s family good-bye, and then disappear, forever. Think about it: You could have just 20 minutes left to live and not know it. The sudden death of my friend threw me into a whirlwind of grief and soul-searching. ‘If I were to die prematurely, what kind of an account could I give of my life?’ I decided that I wanted something good to come from this tragedy, so I left business school and joined Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.”

John R. Block
Newspaperman
“When my brother and I were 5 years old, our mother died at age 43 from what is now known as Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. I was in first grade and will never forget coming home from school that day. My father was waiting at the end of the walkway and, as I approached him, he said, ‘You will now have to grow up without a mother, because your mother died this morning.’ The effect of that took years for me to understand, but I was fortunate enough to grow up under the wing of a truly brilliant person. My father was a genius, but he was also reclusive. He never went to fundraisers or social events. He belonged to no clubs. Unlike his father, he was not into hanging around with big shots. Mostly, he stayed in his chem lab, ran The Blade, and tried to raise us kids. If I had to decide who was my greatest teacher, it was, without a doubt, my father.”