The Bus Brings the Steelers Home

There's really very little that needs to be said in company with these photos. The Steelers return triumphant to an adoring city, hoisting the Lombardi trophy high. The P-G reports that as many as 250,000 people showed up for today's parade and rally. If that's even remotely close to true, it's astounding; the city proper, after all, only boasts a population of 300,000 or so.

I wandered down to the festivities briefly, at Grant and Fifth. There, over the heads of people standing six and ten deep, I saw a few players, and then the gleaming silver Lombardi trophy held high by an unseen player (it turns out it was the Bus, as it should be). A few people hung out of a fifth floor window over Fifth Avenue emptying a bag of shredder detritus in a Pittsburgh update of ticker tape. This afternoon, gold and black confetti littered the whole city, floating on the icy updrafts even as high as my lofty floor, where they carried a memory of the parade -- and the Steelers' victory -- aloft.

I don't know to whom I should credit these photos. But I'm guessing he or she won't mind their reproduction here. My own photos, taken as they were on old-fashioned film, will be a few days in processing. These, in their stead, will certainly do.