On Butler, Pennsylvania

A Town’s True Heart: Values & Reflections from Butler, Pennsylvania

Butler, Pennsylvania, is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of small American towns that are slowly dying.

For nearly 20 years, Butler was our most common destination. It was where we saw movies in the theater or shopped in a mall and bought outfits for proms, homecoming, and rare trips to the outer world. We bought childhood shoes at Miller’s, visited our first toy store, and ate ladyfingers at a bakery as a reward for good behavior. There was one good restaurant, Natili’s, where generations celebrated their special occasions.

If we called 911, the State Police usually came in an hour or two. Doors were kept unlocked, and every stranger was offered water or a telephone. Crime was non-existent. And every boy, if not girl, was taught firearm safety when they qualified for a hunting license in the sixth grade. There must have been some families that didn’t keep hunting rifles, but I never met one.

When I left Parker, a little town 25 miles north of Butler, a few days after my 18th birthday, I thought I was escaping, that it could capture me. I felt relieved that hard work, a bit of scholarship, a hefty dose of audacity, and luck had secured a scholarship to a national university. I had “made it out.”

When I left, I often felt embarrassed by the rudimentary people who seemed everywhere. The ‘Yinzers,’ nicknamed for their chronically poor grammar, using made up words like ‘youns’ or ‘Stillers.’ I was eager to find sophisticated and educated people to learn from and be amongst, those who had accomplished greatness and wealth, and were world citizens, all the things I aspired to be.

I was wrong. Over the next decades, I met hundreds of the people I esteemed to be like: senators, governors, ambassadors, many high net-worth business leaders — and three presidents. What I learned is that what is truly scarce in the world are the values I knew from the simple, down-to-earth, often uneducated descendants of Scotch, Irish, Italian, and Polish immigrants in the small and dying towns of western Pennsylvania, like Butler. They are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of coal miners and steelworkers. They believed that all work that enabled you to raise a family was honorable. For decades, many only left to fight in the wars they were called to serve, and then went home, put their medals of valor in drawers, and rarely spoke of it again.

They have big hearts. They are generous to a fault — they will give you the shirt off their back if you need it — even to strangers. They are brave — few would hesitate to throw their bodies into the line of fire. They have an extraordinary work ethic. They are tough, and stoic, and stubborn. And, in a world where genuineness and truth are scant, they are real. That authenticity and old world-values are invaluable.

In hindsight, it seems painfully apparent that candidates competing to lead our nation should never vilify each other or suggest violence, literally or figuratively. But the tragedy that unfolded in Butler three days ago in the shooting of presidential candidate Donald Trump doesn’t reflect on a place or its people, any more than it reflects on the Pittsburgh community of Bethel Park.

Tragedy, by definition, is a sad and senseless act for everyone involved — the targets, the bystanders, and all the families. No family raises their child, clothes and loves them, celebrates their birthdays, houses and feeds them with the anticipation they will take their lives while trying to take others’ a couple years after their eighteenth birthday.

So, rather than remember Butler, Pennsylvania infamously, as a place where a tragedy for everyone occurred, perhaps we can use it to strike a nerve. We are better served by allowing the incident to prompt a broader reflection on our social values and political rhetoric, and how we are treating our fellow humans. Let us be reminded of the importance of the values I learned there. It made me nostalgic for Butler, especially if it’s dying.