Brown: Tolkien lives on in Oakland

Pittsburghers are modern-day Hobbits.

Like their Middle-earth-inhabiting relatives, they’re set in tradition, whether it’s praying to the gods of Black and Gold, speaking in strange yinzer tongues or worshipping football messiahs.

And just like Hobbits, many Pittsburghers never leave their Shire.

So when a bunch of us Orcs from out of town set up shop for school here, being obnoxiously loud on weekends, it’s easy to see why we don’t quite fit in.

Especially with the elder Hobbits.

Just a few weeks ago, when I was sitting on my friends’ front porch, an older man came by to rant about the litter strewn all over the sidewalk a few houses down. Demanding we redd up the red cups, he came off as rather abrasive and senile.

I should have just ignored him, but, like when a gumband snaps back on my finger, I became a bit jagged off. So I took the bait and backtalked.

That’s when I realized that even if this nebby-nose had been a little off-base with his misdirected anger and foul mouth, I was in the wrong.

Many of the older folk in Oakland have probably been here longer than most students have been alive, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. They’re the sort of people who’d consider it sacrilege to put non-Heinz ketchup on food. I’d call them stubborn, but the word wouldn’t do them justice.

To them, being a Pittsburgher isn’t a matter of citizenship. It’s more like a religion. That would make us Orc-students the embodiment of the Antichrist.

Pitt emerged as something more than a glorified football school in the mid-1990s, and more young blood started making its way to the neighborhoods.

Just like that, many older Oakland residents migrated out of the area, leaving a lonely few lifers in the neighborhood to face the music — mostly hip-hop and trashy pop.

Middle-class housing during the good ol’ steel mill days became college ghettos, our insurgence altering the character of the neighborhoods. Older residents became despondent at what their Oakland had become. I still get a chuckle knowing that my 90-year-old great-aunt grew up across the street from where I live when it was still housing a single-family household.

Other than the little old lady who complimented me on my parallel parking skills a few days ago, many older residents here seem to feel the same as the trash talker: bitter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of my other elderly neighbors so much as smile. It’s a little creepy.

But why should they?

While Pitt was just ranked the nation’s “Best Neighbor” public university for community impact by the compilers of the “Saviors of our Cities” list, we really didn’t deserve it. Many older residents think students are just nuisances.

And to us, they’re antiquated and out of touch, living in an evolving college community. There’s no mutual respect at all.

After my own missteps, I figured I’d try to make amends with the old peeps around here before one of them decides to take out some aggression on me ala Walt Kowalski in “Gran Torino.”

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I recently stood outside in the rain for 15 minutes on the phone with Telefact so I could get directions for a senior citizen who stopped to ask me how to find a center in the law building. He was gracious afterward, and I felt better for doing it.

The man treated me like a young adult, and I treated him with respect. It wasn’t too difficult at all. It gives me hope that older and younger Oakland residents might be able to see eye-to-eye some point before all of the older residents move to assisted-living communities or pass away.

Older residents here possess tons of knowledge about the history of the neighborhoods, the people, the steel mills and how this city grew into something more than just a hick town. I know sometimes it’s hard to remember that behind the wrinkles and sour facial expressions they are real people, but bear with me. Saying “hi” to an older neighbor won’t kill you.

Maybe the “Saviors of our Cities” people are from Mordor, and that’s why we got some brownie points there. But now that we have the honor of being known as good neighbors, it’s about time that we started acting like them.

E-mail Jacob at jebrown13@yahoo.com.