DEFENESTRATING THE HOMETOWN

For the baffled, the big word at the beginning means, "the act of throwing something out of a window".

     After all, it's what we've done. It took over forty years, but now Lorain is as soulless as that morning fish-wrap some of you still pay for the dubious privilege of reading.

     Thank Jehovah I'm not there-I'd probably be dropping quarters into a slot at the Nord Center.

I'm not blameless....I could' ve stayed, and fought the rot, at least dropped a few dimes on the crack dealers, but my head was unraveling like a cheap sweater at the time, so I left, and became just another Cleveland Cadaver.

     Now, the sub-human purveyors of poison both pharmaceutical  and auditory have taken over the streets I used to lovingly wander, while much of the populace lock-skips to work, chanting the mantra,

     "BEDROOM COMMUNITY OF CLEVELAND, YAY! BEDROOM COMMUNITY OF CLEVELAND, YAY!"

     Would that our town were haunted, that her ghosts might rise in a congregational scream of outrage, and frighten away all the pimps of so-called "progress".

     That's all, move on....nothing to see here.

THE GLIDER

     "Have a seat", said Miss Rose, as we stood on the porch, before the glider

"right here is where I saw it."

"It was sitting on the glider?" "No, silly", she said, a laugh in her voice, "it was out there, on the front lawn; that's the only time I ever saw it."

Miss Rose was a retired teacher, having spent thirty-four years teaching First Grade at Alsase Elementary. I'd been one of her students, back in those long-ago days when a man named John told all of us that we could be anything we wished to be, a message she'd echoed in her class. When I was free, I sometimes dropped by to see how she was, and drink her lemonade, which I first tasted in her class. Now, twenty years after retiring, she spent her hours with her cat, her memories, and it seemed....a ghost.

"I first noticed it about three weeks after I moved in here", she said, "when the house was left to me, about thirty years ago- a strange feeling of being watched, if I sat out here around dusk. It got stronger as it got darker, until I cauld almost tell exactly where "it" was.

    "Did it ever show up in the house?" I asked.

"Never....just out here. Not indoors, or in the back, just around the front yard. 

     "Sometimes, I  hear the sound of footsteps coming up the walk, mixed with a tapping sound, like a cane or walking-stick.If  Zander (her tomcat) is outside, he'll walk alongside "it", looking up periodically, as if wanting to  be picked up."

     Tell me about when you saw it".

     "It  was about a month ago, the first really warm night we'd had this year. As I was looking toward the street, I caught something to my right....as I turned, I could see a shadow, darker than the lawn, right where I showed you. It was as tall as a man, standing very still, just gazing at me, neither moving or speaking.

     "I wasn't afraid, although there was a strange sense of....longing, as if it wanted to come up, and join me on the glider, but was prevented somehow. After a few moments, it faded away."

     "Have you seen it since", I enquired. "No," said Miss Rose, no sound or presence, either. "Thing is," she said, "I've got the feeling it's not gone, nor is this over-just a feeling", said she as she reached for the pitcher, "that it's waiting for something."

     The next time I saw Miss Rose was in the Viewing Room at Garbold and Sons, made up, her hair neatly done, lying very still in a satin-lined box.

     Make of it what you will.                  j

RUMINATIONS, ETC.

     I was wandering past the site, and I realized I hadn't posted anything in a bit....so,

I decided to toss in a few things, maunderings, ruminations, if you will.

I want a mile-high corned beef sandwich, and I want it NOW. Unfortunately, the library doesn't sell them, I'm broke anyhow, and by the time I scraped together the dough, I'd want something else. Besides, I dunno if they sell them here in Whitney.

Why izzit that most women who find you cute wait 'til AFTER you're married to notice?

I want a bike, which I can't ride anymore.

Are people in Government really that stupid?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E50unP9RvFM

One of my favorite pieces....just wanted to share it again.

I love being married; it's a much bigger adventure than I would've thought.

There are no ugly women, only ugly personalities.

From everything I've seen, homosexuals can get every right they're complaining they want, so why alter the institution of marriage?

Thank God for dogs.

The AARP is really COBRA-call in G.I.JOE!

Music died around 1989; it began to choke on its own vomit about 1975.

     The picture of Carla Ossa was purely gratuitous.

STUFF YOU CAN'T FIND ANYMORE

     This may be seen as lazy, but this IS primarily

 

about nostalgia, so here'tis....

     Cute, braless girls
Dollar movie night
The milkman (Lorain Creamery!)
The breadman (Home Pride!)
Drag racing on West Erie
Al and his daughters at Lakeview Park
Record stores, with loudspeakers out front
Vonda
L&K Restaurants
WNCR, WLYT, WGCL, CKLW
The Fox Inn
Lunch counters
Teddy
Lincoln Park
Johnny Dixon's
Friar Tuck's
Alan Funwell

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

       Happy New Year to all.
I guess you could call this a rant, if you must call it anything.

     I just got back in circuation again, after being stuck in my apartment for almost a week, confined to a wheel chair. If this sounds familiar, it's because this isn't the first time I've put myself into this mess.

     I still can't walk, although I got down the stairs by hanging onto the railing, with the wheel chair waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

     I never changed my diet; if anything, it got WORSE.
It's up to me to change, so I guess what I'm passing along is if you're gonna do something like a lifestyle change, be serious about it.  
    
                                    -30- 

DRAGWAY ZERO

     If you head west out of Alsace, chances are you'll be doing it on Route Eight, which runs in a near straight line all the way to Sandusky, parallel to the lake shore. It's a busy six lane stretch, part of all that roadbuilding Ike did in the Fifties. There used to be dozens of stores, restaurants, and even a drive-in on either side of Eight; now, most are darkened, dusty memories.

     Just past the drive-in is an intersection,  where Eight meets Gherson Road. From the intersection, there's a mile or so of road that's so level and straight, it seems tailor- made for drag racing. Indeed, duting the Fifties and Sixties, the days of muscle cars and cheap gas, that's exactly what it was used for on warm summer nights. Some folks drove their wheels to victory, some to losing the race to the police, and some.....some lost everything, and it's said they may be out there, still trying to win.

     More than one motorist, coming in from the west, had the unnerving experience of a black car, a vintage '59 Corvette, appearing out of nowhere, whipping past them, and vanishing just before reaching the traffic lights at Gershon. Some say it's the shade of a Vermillion boy who blew a tire at high speed back in '62, and rolled his fiberglass coffin to a horrible end.

     People hitching to Sandusky or Toledo at night claim to have been knocked  flat by the wind of an invisible car, hearing the whining roar of the engine just as it passes them, then being slapped down by the slipstream; those who would know say the sound is that of a 389, known as the Bobcat, a celebrated muscle mill, generally found in the GTO.

     A group of musicians, heading home from a gig in Alsase late one night, were scared silly by the vision of a Ford Econoline van passing them, bathed in an eerie glow, and ablaze from stem to stern. It disappeared into the distance, trailing the stench of gasoline and burnt flesh.

     I rarely get out that way, and I've never personally seen anything out on Eight.

However, I know many who'd swear that some competitors just can't quit, though Hell should bar the way.

SAD SADIE

     When I drive down Gotham Avenue in Alsace today, I can't help but think about what she was, what used to be, before darkened storefronts and "FOR SALE" signs dominated the view.

     Up ahead, just before the Thirteenth Street corner, is the vacant lot where the Tiger Lounge once stood. I used to patronize the Tiger, not often, as I was never into dim cheatin' bars, but every now and then. I even met Sadie, the heroine of this story, once or twice, long ago, when I was just old enough to buy a drink legally.

     I wasn't there for what happened , and I didn't come around for what came afterward.

    Sadie was young, once, and pretty-she hadn't lost all her looks, but loneliness and alcohol had left their mark on her. She was a fixture in the bars downtown, although the Tiger was her base, of sorts. There, she'd meet men, have a laugh, a drink or two, and sometimes leave with one, though not often....no matter what else, Sadie was a lady.

     One night back in '73, Sadie met a stranger, a man who'd come in off one of the ore boats, so everyone said. He  was tall, handsome, and never out of cash. Sadie fell, and fell hard-why him, who knows? For weeks, they were to be seen in the best booth at the Tiger, huddled together like two high-school kids.

     My aunt ran into Sadie one afternoon, at Hafner's, buying groceries and beaming like a prom queen.
Leon, her guy, was going to marry her, and move her to Detroit, a nice apartment, where they'd start a life together-he'd gone back up there, to get things arranged, and would be back within a week.

     Leon was never seen again. Some said he drowned in an accident on his trip to Detroit, some said he'd had his fun, and just left her in the lurch. Some said Leon already had a wife, and kids, in Detroit....again, who knows?

     Sadie came in alone, after two weeks in seclusion. She ordered a double 151 and Coke, and sat in that booth, nursing her drink.

     The bartender, after a couple of hours, noticed that Sadie hadn't ordered another drink, but hadn't left-he could see her, sitting slumped in the corner of the booth. He called her name, and got no response.

     Another customer walked over to the booth; Poor Sadie was past help. Clutched in one hand was a small pill bottle, the bottle empty. There was no note, just the sad, mute testament of Sadie herself.

     Not long after, a change took over the Tiger Lounge. Patrons who took seats in Sadie's booth moved....when asked, they'd often say that they got "the creeps" sitting there. The jukebox would play by itself, always the same song, "You Belong To Me", by the Duprees, Sadie's favorite. The scent of Night Odyssey perfume would waft through the bar, even if no one visible was wearing it.

     An aura of sadness often swept the room, particularly around ten-thirty, the time Sadie took her own life, and some claim to have seen her, a shadowy form exiting the Ladie's room. or crossing the floor toward the booth, cloaked in a veil of sad emotion. The bartender, as he tendered his resignation one evening, claimed he saw her in the bar mirror as he tallied his receipts, recognisable, but pale and ghastly, her eyes two dark holes in her face.

     When he turned, no one was there.
Business began to drop off, and the lounge was sold, and sold again-no one seemed able to make a go at that location.

     I walked past it one night, and felt a wave of sorrow wash over me as I passed . I was tempted to look in through the diamond-shaped window in the door, but realized I was afraid of what I might  see.

     The Tiger was torn down last year, along with that whole side of the block-progress.

     Maybe Sadie's not sad anymore, but at peace....one can only hope.