« May 2007 | Main | July 2007 »
Darth Vader walked through Madison Square Park last evening while I was waiting for my Shake Shack 'Shroom burger. Everyone kept a respectful distance after the Dark Lord of the Sith waved his light saber around a few times. Then he headed off in the direction of Tabla.
The Romanesque Wood County Courthouse is the most recognizable building in Bowling Green. The Wood County Auditor has a dryly humorous history of the building. I never had occasion to go inside when I lived there.
Unlike a lot of midwestern and southern county buildings, this courthouse doesn't sit at the middle of town surrounded by downtown businesses. The courthouse is located one block north and east of Bowling Green's central intersection and is mostly surrounded by houses. At one time or another my friends Colleen, Karie, Romy and Steve all lived across the street.
If you're a fan of midwestern county courthouses, Cheryl has been visiting many in western Kansas.
One more set from Iowa before getting back to Ohio. This Friday and Saturday is Trek Fest in Riverside, the festival in which Riverside celebrates itself as the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. The USS Riverside sits in the town park. Trek Fest features a demolition derby, a costume contest (two categories: "Federation and Klingon" and "Supporting Cast"), bands, a BBQ sandwich meal, Federation games (including Tribble Whack and Horta Egg Toss), a greased pig contest, lawn mower tractor pulls, and a Sci Fi swap meet among other activities.
The 2007 tour of many-vowelled, four-lettered Midwestern states has concluded. Iowa was fun! The wedding was very nice. I took many bad pictures, a few good ones and several that could be used for extortion purposes. It was good to spend some time with my extended family, and I got some Iowa City and Cedar Rapids sightseeing in as well.
This was the sunset last Thursday as seen from the Quality Inn of Iowa City parking lot. It rained really intensely while we were having dinner that evening. Just before sunset the skies cleared up and turned spectacular. The clear skies didn't last. It thundered and rained the entire night.
I got back yesterday afternoon. It was too hot to cook this evening so I ordered dinner from Amy Ruth's. On the way over to Amy Ruth's I realized I had locked myself out of my apartment. Argh! It took a while but I finally managed to get my spare key.
On a more positive note, the Not For Tourists guide is using an old photo of mine on their site.
Depending on the weather I might be gathering scientific data on Thursday or Friday afternoon in the southeastern corner of Madison Square Park. If you are hungry, have the patience to wait in a long line, and can count to at least 100, you are welcome to join me in the endeavor.
Let's reach into the grab bag and pull out a completely random photo from my San Francisco trip. I'm attending a wedding in Iowa this weekend. I'll be back online Monday or Tuesday.
I actually had two offices at BGSU. One summer day I was riding my bike from Hanna Hall to the Center for Environmental Programs, which was temporarily in the College Park Office Building. To avoid a couple of pedestrians I had to swerve off the sidewalk in front of the planetarium (where my friend Karie used to put on excellent planetarium shows). See that little cliff between the sidewalk and the sand? My wheel hit that space and I went flying. The bike was okay and I scraped my forearm and bumped my knee, but it wasn't anything serious. Several hours later there was a lot of pain in my knee and it was getting pretty swollen. I decided a visit to the emergency room was in order.
The emergency room doctor asked me what happened and I said "I fell off my bike." I should have said "I was in a bicycling accident". As soon as I said "I fell off my bike" I could tell she took it as "I fell off my bike and made a boo boo". The switch from concern to complete lack of interest was instantaneous. I was given an x-ray, and told to go home, take an aspirin, and put ice on my knee.
In the summer the steps of Hanna Hall made for a good lunch spot. I'd bring some work or the paper, eat my lunch, and watch Bowling Green go by. Most days the campus mail courier would go up the steps on her delivery rounds. We'd normally exchange greetings. One day I brought way too many grapes with me so I offered her some. Instead of eating a couple she scarfed them all down in about two seconds. Slyly asking some questions over the next few days I was able to piece together that she was a near-destitute student semi-estranged from her family who was skipping meals to save money for the fall semester. I had to get inventive with my excuses for why I always brought too much to eat for lunch, but I don't think she ever caught on that I more or less fed her for a couple of months.
Anyway, it was nice to see that the university finally repaired the steps, even if they did a crappy job in doing so.
Hanna Hall, Bowling Green State University
My office window and weather instruments
201 Hanna
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater, Hanna Hall
When I was at Bowling Green State University Hanna Hall housed the Geography and Creative Writing departments. It was originally a laboratory school, where education students could perform experiments on little kids. Or something like that. It was named after Myrna Reese Hanna, the first woman to represent Wood County in the state assembly. She sponsored the legislation to make Bowling Green and Kent Normal Schools universities. I don't know if she was related to Mark Hanna, Cleveland industrialist, campaign manager to William McKinley, and U.S. Senator.
Hanna Hall also houses the Gish Film Theater, named after the sisters and actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish. The sisters were born in southwestern Ohio and Lillian made her acting debut in Risingsun, a little town about 20 miles from Bowling Green. It is not clear to me why the theater was named after Dorothy and Lillian as there connection to the town and university is pretty tenuous. Nonetheless, it bears their name and there is a small gallery of Gish memorabilia. If you've been reading this site for a few months you may recall my rushing back to Bowling Green after a job interview to see a double feature of Mania and Glen or Glenda at the Gish.
Fascinating one degree of separation: My office was on the floor above the Gish Theater. When I lived in Nyack it was across the street from Pretty Penny, Helen Hayes' former home. Lillian Gish and Helen Hayes were close friends, and when she died Gish left her estate to Hayes. Pretty Penny can be yours for only $6,950,000. Interesting that the ad doesn't mention that Rosie O'Donnell also lived there.
The first summer I lived in Bowling Green I resolved to ride my bike on every street in town. Riding 8-10 miles approximately every other morning the trek took about three weeks. East of Main Street went fast because there weren't many streets and the streets were on a grid. The west side of town, with its winding suburbs of houses that all looked the same took a bit longer. I kept getting lost and accidentally repeated a number of streets. Maybe I should do the same for Manhattan.
It was only natural that the first thing to do after checking in at the Best Western Falcon Plaza was get my bike out of the car and start riding. That was quite strange riding around town. Most of the places I remembered were still where they had always been and, even though most of my friends from BG had moved on, I half-expected to see them every time I approached a familiar spot.
The bike rack above is the same bike rack next to Hanna Hall I locked my bike to when I rode to campus. As I was taking this picture I remembered that I always parked in that exact spot. Different bike though. The movers lost my beloved Raleigh Grand Prix (I had gotten the black and white version in junior high) when I moved from Michigan to New York.
Summit Terrace
307 N. Grove
These are the two places at which I lived in Bowling Green.
The Summit Terrace place was an apartment complex with six buildings. A number of students lived there, but it wasn't a non-stop party zone like some of the buildings closer to campus. Most of the students would leave for the summer, which meant the inground pool was often empty. The big drawback was the noise. Not so much from the students but from the train.
You can't really tell from this picture but the train tracks are about 20 feet behind the apartment. It was loud but I actually got used to the rhythmic sound. What made more noise was the small foundry on the other side of the tracks. They mostly made concrete burial vaults. The forklift would start up very early in the morning and make such a clanging noise that it was difficult to sleep much past six or so.
A rent increase (from $400/month for a two-bedroom in 1990 to $440/month in 1993 - it's $575/month now), a need to save money, and a desire for more quiet led me to North Grove Street. I think the rent was $325/month. The house was divided into two apartments. I had the first floor.
When I moved in there was, for lack of a better word, a pathetic woman living on the second floor. Life did not treat here well. She dropped out of college because it was too expensive and had taken a job in a factory. She had a crappy old car that was always breaking down until she drove it off the road and totaled it (she was okay). Without a car she walked the couple miles to work. It was a cold winter. She came home and cried most nights. Eventually she was evicted for not paying her rent. Her replacement was a jovial, large legally-blind woman with coke bottle glasses. She played bass in a reggae band and, as far as I could tell, only owned one shirt -a paper-thin tied-dyed beauty. She called me, and I suspect everyone else, dude.
I almost didn't recognize the house because the porch had been enclosed, a side-door added, a tree removed and bushes planted. It certainly needed renovation as it was falling apart while I lived there.
Soon after moving in the doorbell, which was a buzzer, decided to not turn off. Nobody had pressed the doorbell, it just started buzzing and didn't stop until I unwired it. The door had it in for me. The key lock never worked all that well. One windy night I was awoken by a BAM! BAM! BAM! as the locked door was opening and closing in the breeze. Luckily there was an inner door with a deadbolt as the landlord wasn't too responsive to my complaints.
The North Grove place had a washer and dryer in the apartment. Sort of. The washer and dryer were in an enclosed, unheated back room. During one cold spell the washing machine drain had frozen and the tub never emptied of water. There was a tub of frozen clothes awaiting me.
On another evening I was reading a book when I heard a noise. A noise much like the washing machine filling with water. Only I hadn't put any clothes in the machine. I opened the door to see what was going on and there was a water fountain display the likes of which hadn't been seen since the Columbian Exposition in Chicago a century earlier. Steam and water were spraying everywhere. I traced the pipes backward in hopes of finding a cut-off without any luck. I did manage to wrap a towel around the burst pipe so that the flow of water was semi-manageable. The landlord did respond to this request and I was shown the location of the cut-off valve. Pulling a corner of the carpet up revealed a secret door in the floor. If only I had thought to look there!
One last story about this house,, which is really a story about me being uncoordinated. As I said the porch has been enclosed since I lived there. To get to my car what I'd normally do is hop onto the porch, step down to the lawn and then get in the car. I was going grocery shopping one afternoon when I hopped onto the porch, slipped and crashed into a porch column, and then got up and got into the car. I clearly remember sitting in the driver's seat, moving the key toward the ignition and going into dreamland. It was a fantastic dream! Although I didn't hit my head when I slipped, I somehow managed to knock myself out. It was one of my finest moments. I wasn't out but for a few seconds. After a several minutes rest in the car I drove to the grocery store. That probably wasn't too smart, but I'm here today to tell the tale so it all worked out in the end.
Recent Comments