Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 19

I vC oil. 1 J-WMWrt sir'' J- By Susan Puskar Magazine Fxitor, Post-Gazette BEAR RUN NATURE RESERVE ust 20 minutes into the woods, a quiet hike on a snoW'tamped trail hete turns rocky, in more ways than one. Two of the seven 10-year-oids along on the outing, talking under 20-pound backpacks and moods that seem almost as heavy, are ready to quit what they have barely begun. One slows down, lets her pack slip to the ground and pouts to an adult that she dieb't sleep well the night before and is too tired to go on. The second, sullen and silent, stops moving altogether, turning his back on the gentle coaxing oi a nearby instructor, and then on the group itself- "You need to rest, buddy? Well, let's rest," says instructor Sarah Martin to the bo; "I'll ftay here with you." She does, for five, eight, almost a dozen long minutes.

Finally, still silent, still solemn trie big little boy picks up his pack and rejoins his more eager companions, who have been waiting patiently up trail for him. It will continue this way for nearly three hours, 2', i miles ot forward progress inched out in the fits and starts of short attention spans and, in some cases, even shorter expectations of success at the end of this and other trails And this late-January hike is just the beginning, the first step in a24-hour mission that includes an overnight stay at a primitive campsite. The kids pitch tents on brittle winter turf, hunt for kindling, stake out latrines, purify spring water for drinking, then, finally, relax around a comforting campfire.The next morning, stiff and grouchy in the near-zero cold, they re-pack and if trace their steps, their attitudes lifting and finally, by the very end of the journey, radiating confidence and success. It's that payoff, so long in the coming, that defines the experiment. SEE STUDENTS, PAGE 20 Crescent Elementary School student as part of Pittsburgh Public Schools' Neoshe Jenkins, 10, cairies her Wilderness Program.

pack on a 2ta-mile trek to a campsite' Brahms to lead way in symphony season i tX i Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra music director Lorin Maazel PSO seeks harmony amid change By Mark Kanny I he Pittsburgh Symphony's schedule of programs for next season, besides attracting audiences, will function as its working agenda. Changes in orchestra personnel create an ongoing need to blend new players into the ensemble. This is accomplished most thoroughly at subscription concerts, for which there is significant rehearsal time, and on tours, when repertoire is repeated many times. Current openings to be filled for next season include three violins, one viola and one cello. In addition, the orchestra has advertised in "International Musician" for a principal trombone for the 1992-93 season, although no press release has been issued by symphony management.

The orchestra has already announced that George Vosburgh will be its new principal trumpet, effective in the fall. SEE SYMPHONY, PAGE 21 MOVIE RViYJ 'Prophet' allegorizes Malcolm slaying wcntv-seion vcars black liberation leader Malcolm was assassinated the Au-dobon Ballroom sn.Nuw York City. The CjI eumslfinces of his death, his feud with the Nation of IsKun and possible U.S. government involvement in the events leading up to his murder, are shrouded in enough obscurity if justify another investigation. Unlii then, directors Spike Lee and Woodie King haw it upon them 1 JJittsburl) Monday, February 24, 1992 Page 19 SIDELINES Hamming it up in Seattle Seeing as how Seattle is probably intent on staying atop the cities-rated list, it's no wonder Seattlers start celebrating Fat Tuesday March 3 this year a week early.

We've heard a day can last a week there anyway. The party starts this week. And what's this? Another coup! Seattle will unveil the first and only known SPAM Carving Museum this week. A highlight of Seattle's Fat Tuesday tradition, SPAM carvings in past years have produced SPAMzilla, Fran-kenSPAM and Venus de SPAM, among the favorites. Is that a cute city or what? More weird-food news: In the "things people do to hype their products" department: Country-Western singer John Anderson is promoting his new record with a 1 -ounce tequila-flavored sucker.

What's a reviewer to do? First of all, take a picture of it so people will believe you, then give it to someone who likes worms. That's right. The ingredients are hydrogenated starch hydro-lysate, insect larva, natural or artificial flavoring and coloring. INSIDE Drug culture of Medellin Filmmaker Victor Gaviria gives Colombia its first venture into the Cannes Film Festival with "Rodrigo No Future," a gripping tale of the desperate lives of teen-agers in the Medellin barrio. This story of violence and despair was filmed in Spanish with English subtitles, and used actual street youths in the cast.

Review, Page 22. Not all the Brahms is familiar, however. In addition to the famous symphonies, overtures and concertos, the season will include his "Alto Rhapsody," the fascinating cantata, "Rinaldo," smaller choral works and the Serenade No. 1. Concerto soloists range from the orchestra's own first-desk players (in the Double Concerto on the opening program) to violinist Shlomo Mintz (April 16-18, 1993) and pianist Yefim Bronfman (April 22-25, 1993).

After Brahms, the next most frequently-played composers will be Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Ravel, (4 works each); Beethoven and Barber (3 each). In the case of Ravel, three of those four pieces are crammed into a single evening (Nov. 19-22), highlighted by Maazel conducting the one-act opera, "L'Enfant et les Sortileges." Only two living composers are represented: Krzysztof Penderecki and Ellen Zwilich. Maazel will conduct Penderecki's complete SEE CONCERTS, PAGE 2 1 not to be strolled through in the conventional sense. The enclosure seemed too small for a dog run, even for a very small dog.

It might have been a vegetable garden at one time, but then what's that tree doing in the middle, spreading shade where the sun would be needed? Since the yard isn't huge to begin with, we figured that at some point we'd take the fence down and open up the space. Then one day I noticed something at the far corner of the enclosure. The dirt seemed to be piled up in a sloping mound. And on the mound, peeking up from under the brush and leaves, were rocks and stones set at a verticle angle. They looked, oddly enough, like headstones.

And then il hit me. Of course! It's a cemetery! A pet cemetery! Who knows what beloved animals had been laid to rest in this patch of ground by the children of owners past? Did boys and girls of 20 years ago, with red Kool-Aid moustaches on their upper lips and somber expressions on their round faces, stand with hands clasped while a dutiful mother planted Tommy the turtle in his eternal resting place? Did the kids post hand-printed notices on the telephone poles, call By Robert Croan Post-Gazette Music Critic I he unflinching conserva tism of Pittsburgh Symphony audiences is reflected in the programs of its new season. Using a programming aesthetic that recalls the 1985-86 "Top 40" season conceived by former manager Marshall Turkin, the PSO has created a season "designed from the concertgoer's point of view," according to managing director Gideon Toeplitz. Responding to recent marketing surveys, the orchestra will inaugurate a yearly series of "Romantic Retrospectives," with Brahms being the composer highlighted in 1992-93. The first event of the season, which opens Sept.

11-13, will be an all-Brahms program, to be conducted by music director Lorin Maazel in Heinz Hall. In the course of the season, the Symphony will play 15 Brahms works, with three tuneful Hungarian Dances, the curtain raiser for Maazel's opening program, setting the tone. SALLY ItALS ON Uncovering a tale from the back yard ur house came with a mystery: What was the purpose of the little fenced-in area in the backyard? The space is rectangular, surrounded by a sturdy cyclone fence and gate. The interior is overgrown, but in among its tangles are a tree, some flowering plants and a couple of berry bushes. A brick footpath runs up the middle, as if to be strolled upon, except that the area is only about 5 feet by 12 feet long enough to be paced in moments of worry, perhaps, but mtf i i fatten him up and have him for dinner," he said.

But I never believed this. The couple seemed too nice to be Waddle-eaters. Anyway, as I got caught up in renovating the inside of the house, I forgot all about the back yard. And then one day I arrived to find that the workmen, in the process of laying electrical wire to the garage, had dug a trench smack through the middle of the pet cemetery. "Oh no!" I cried.

"I didn't know you were going to dig there! I think pets are buried there!" "Well," said the worker, "something was buried there, all right. I found a lot of bones. Some of them were pretty big, too, like from a dog or something." Now I lay awake at night worrying: Who gets haunted in retaliation for desecrating the graves of an entire population of pets? The innocent owner of the property who suspected the ground was hallowed, but never mentioned it to the workmen in case they might be thinking of digging it up? Or the workmen whonad no idea the ground was hallowed, but who went ahead and excavated it without asking the owner whether any pets might, perchance, be buried there? Stephen King, will you please phone home? SnUy Kalson's column appears Mondays in the Magazine. ing for a quorum of neighborhood friends to help bury Buster, their dear departed dog? Did one of them address the assembly with bowed head and quivering voice, memorializing Buster's many fine qualities, dog-wise? Maybe Snuggles the kitten was placed gently in a shoe box lined with cotton balls and interred here with pomp, circumstance and a hymn. Or, perhaps, Zeppo the gup-py was wrapped in moist gauze to prevent dehydration and then snapped inside a Silly Putty egg which was then pushed deep into the earth and topped off with a daffodil.

I ruminated about the pet cemetery for months, remembering the animals of my own childhood and how heartbroken I was when each one died except for Waddle the duck, who I like to think is still alive today. Waddle came from G.C. Murphy's one Easter, in the days when five-and-lOs used to jam their windows with hundreds of dyed chicks and ducklings. They usually died within a few days, but not Waddle. He just kept getting bigger and fatter and eating more and more grain.

Finally my mother convinced me that the suburbs were no place for a duck. We took Waddle to a nearby farm, there to live out his natural life on a pond. My older brother comforted me as only he could. "They're gonna.