On the move

Gal about town, photo by Bob Perkoski

Dear readership,

Your humble hostess has been doing a whole lot of what is depicted in today's photo: walking around with a cup of coffee, trying not to be late and be engaged and animated when I get to where I'm going. All of it has been ahead on an announcement that is long in coming: I am now the managing editor of Fresh Water Cleveland.

If I could summarize the last couple of weeks, it was as if a distant sound grew louder and louder. As the source neared, it revealed itself to be a great clamoring throng with limbs thrashing and voices roaring. Then it scooped me up and put me atop its bucking self, where I have been barely hanging on ever since.

So it remains until I gain better control of it all.

As you may have heard, we here in Cleveland are expecting a large number of elephants later this year and it is a thrilling time indeed to be in the writing scene in this town. Obviously, I will likely be even more scarce amid these pages than I have been in the past year. You'll find I'm most active over here and to a lesser extent over here.

Lastly, to those of you who have followed me over the years, I offer my profound thanks. You were all part of making me what I am today.

Yours in letters and all sweet magical things,

Erin

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#Trump

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Magical Cleveland ...

... is filling me with sighs.

This Kurent didn't scare the Goat and me away.

Part of this

Bocce in the basement of the Slovenian National Home? OLD SCHOOL

Can't say it but can eat it

I should have been a gogo dancer

Smile, Goat

Slivo!

Creature love

Have a seat

Hola, Lake Erie, the view from here is spectacular

Oh, Cleveland, how you do me ...

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Prepare for the hangover, Mr. Trump

Sleeping with the enemy

On January 21 in the year of our Lord 2012, after having concluded that our mattress had reached the lowest dip in the biorythm of its life, the Goat and I concluded a harrowing shopping excursion with the purchase of the unit pictured above (more here).

This was the first new mattress purchase I ever made. Hence, when the set I wanted clocked in at nearly $1,800, I did not care.

"I do not care," I told the Goat as we lay upon the Trumpster's mattress in our winter coats staring at the ceiling in the predictable showroom.

That the mattress we liked best was under the Trump brand was more or less a joke. Who cared? We liked the unit, which was, after all, a Serta - one of those brands we more or less trust.

Here in the year of our Lord 2016, however, a few things have changed. We are no longer in the market for a new bed, but if we were, I daresay the Trump name would deter the purchase. Four years ago, the Donald was a loud-mouthed boor. Today, he's an egomaniac dangerously stoking the flames of fear and bigotry in order to prolong his perverse intoxication. I offered this observation to the Goat during our constitutional yesterday morning.

"No way I would shell out $1,800 for anything with a Trump label on it now," I said.

"So what?" countered the Goat. "His supporters will."

I begged to differ, saying that the average Trump supporter does not look one hell of a lot like the people who have historically supported the luxe Trump brand. Try a swank $420 per night hotel room or a $600,000 NYC one-bedroom condo.

Who knows? Maybe the rich people won't care if their $380 Aquanox Signature Spa Experience is associated with the Trumpster. That said, there's always someone happy to take your $380 who does not publicly call women fat and ugly and does not believe you should be barred from entering the country based on your religion.

But if that same rich person opts to purchase a mattress much like my own, she or he will discover that Serta has since stopped selling mattresses under the Trump name on account of his "disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants."

That's just one. Earlier this month, Politico offered up a telling article on how the Trumpster's luxury brand is nosediving amid the Donald's atrocious rhetoric.

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."

While I suppose that may indeed depend on the demographics of the victim, Mr. Trump, it may nonetheless be true. The question is, in the event you wake on January 20, 2017 and find you are not preparing for the inaugural pomp and circumstance, who will be bellying up to support the Trump brand? Your post-political life may no longer include the well-heeled. You'll be left with the angry white middle class to whom you've pandered, which may or may not be able to afford your diamond-encrusted lifestyle.

As my dearly beloved pointed out to me, Trump has reinvented himself time and time again. Perhaps he will do so in the aftermath of his political career as the Politico article points out:

"Then again, (Trump) could move into the part of the consumer market where no real damage has been done. Perhaps a Trump brand of smokes, or maybe canned meat?"

So who's up for a Trumped Potted Meat sammie and a nice cold can of The Donald's Pink Catawba?

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An appropriate memory to share today

Lil' OB, Sept. 27, 2014

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My little chickadee

Frank-n-Goat

Just stick with me on this.

Yes, that is the Goat standing next to a life-size stick figure with a Frank Sinatra head. That wood thingie you see is a would-be palm that folds down. During the month of November, Ol' Blue Eyes gets installed on the exterior walkway of the Cleveland Metroparks' Brecksville Nature Center. The staff then removes the resident bird feeders and fills his wooden palm with sunflower seeds. Eventually, the chickadees, titmice and woodpeckers find Frankie's hand and start feeding from it.

Y'all see where this is going?

Over winter break, Frank gets retired and for scheduled hours, the birdfeeders come down and anyone can mosey into the nature center for a handful of seeds and feed the birds (I wrote about this last week for Freshwater). Despite having lived just a few miles from the Brecksville Reservation for more than 20 years, I did not know about this program until I penned that story. Hence, the Goat, Lil' OB and I went and fed the chickadees earlier this week.

Lil' OB meets a new friend while we warm up by the fire inside
the Brecksville Nature Center

Aw, readership ... it was just about the best thing ever. Those tiny birds check you out a few times, and then land right on your fingers and pluck a seed from your palm.

If you're in the area, get your person over to Brecksville and do this one. It's a short, sweet activity that will be long on memories. Sorry I did not get photos of the feeding, but sometimes your ol' humble hostess likes to simply enjoy the moment instead of recording it.

~tweet tweet~

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The shortest day of the year

INCOMING

Got pickle?

Yo, Rocky, which one's for me?

Sing it, Bing

Dream in blue

Hola dudes

Gimme hooka pipe ... gimme hooka pipe now

Razzle dazzle

Photo for which there is no caption

Polar vortex?

Don't shoot the one with the red nose, Santa!

Why, yes, I'd love a cuppa

Merry merry to all!

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Happy birthday Gram

This photo was taken on my wedding day, Nov. 28, 1992. Gram Soos was Mom's mom. She was a big part of my life up until her death in 1999. She was born on December 8, 1916 and would have been 99 years old today.

Gram never ate mushrooms. "I've always said that if you ate mouse, it would taste exactly like a mushroom."

On drinking: "After one or two, who's counting?"

Gram called the couch the "davenport."

Instead of humming or singing to herself, Gram used to lilt, "dooo do doodoodoo dooo doo doo doo" in an unrecognizable off-key way.

Gram made the best homemade mac and cheese you ever ate.

On getting her hair done: "I'm going down to Eva's to get my hair cranked up."

More on drinking: "Jude," she'd say to my mom, "are you going to the booze emporium? Pick me up a bottle of gin if you go to the booze emporium."

When making clothes for me: "Kid!" she'd say, shaking a straight pin at me. "I'm not going to make it so tight that you can't eat an olive!"

Gram used to make tapioca pudding from scratch. "I had to use up the milk," she'd say. She always sprinkled cinnamon on top.

Gram maintained that football players had the cutest little buns and that it was "a well-known fact" that body builders were not well-endowed.

Gram had an elaborate charm bracelet that fascinated me as a kid. There was a tiny working one-armed bandit slot machine, a itty-bitty leaning tower of Pisa, a little cuckoo clock ... the list goes on and on. She gave it to me before she died and now, ironically, my favorite charm is a plain tile that says, "Junior Golfers 1961."

I miss Gram Soos. Hug your gram today.

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Phone cam round-up

Lunch with buffalo at Fresh

Soul men and friend at Norton's

Come mister tally man, tally me banana

New friend encountered during this endeavor

Cleveland is Gotham, encountered during this endeavor

YING GF YOU ENTION

Yes, they were full; no I did not pick them up

Cries for help are sometimes very quiet

REMOVE encountered during this endeavor

Stairway to heaven encountered during this endeavor

Okay, I won't

Hola! from humble hostess and Goat

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CANOES MUST PORTAGE

Dear readership,

The Goat and your humble hostess are endeavoring to walk the entire 85 miles of navigable Ohio and Erie Towpath, which is a subtle wonder of the Buckeye state considering the massive amount of hoop-jumping one must do in order to gain right-of-way for such things. Add the fact that the accessible portion of the Towpath traverses four counties and requires the collaboration of god-only-knows how many public and private entities, and this accomplishment really astonishes me. That the Towpath team is nearing its goal of reaching all the way to Lake Erie fills me with unprecedented joy.

Just wow.

Hi Lillian

Every section of the Towpath has something to offer and while I probably should have been documenting our travels upon it, dear readership, I have not. All I do is document and write and document and write and document and write. Hence when I'm walking the Towpath, I don't want to worry about documentation. I just want to walk the Towpath and think about the guys who dug the entire canal with shovels.

SHOVELS.

DANGER SPILLWAY 500 YARDS CANOES MUST PORTAGE

Yesterday, we did more than three and a half miles of the trail that took us south of Massillon. I'm not sure what I expected of this section, but *man* did it deliver. My favorite parts of the Towpath are not necessarily the lovely pastoral stretches (although I do enjoy those), but instead those that say something about who we were, who we are and who we're going to be. In other words, those spans that have content.

Rancheros or El Caminos?

The miles traversing Massillon had it in nines and then some. Of particular interest was the on-street section, which is one of the few left on the Towpath (where the powers-that-be haven't yet been able to wrangle a dedicated trail). It went through a neighborhood that's clearly changed over the decades, but still has so much heart and hometown pride that it filled me with sighs: signs in windows cheer on the Massillon Tigers, American flags wave in the breeze, plastic jack-o-lanterns linger.

Don't listen to the sonsabitches. You're still standing.

*sighs*

We traversed a bridge lined with plaques dedicated to those we lost in Vietnam. Readership, you don't see stuff like this unless you're walking.

Thank you for your service, Private First Class Hill.

When we do these walks, they are a round trip to the car and back, so yesterday's stroll was more than seven miles. Afterwards, we were famished and went in search of an eatery.

Time for lunch

Downtown

I do.

A Friday night lights kind of town

As evidenced by the photos, we found a burger and then some. I never tire of these beleaguered Ohio towns.

Yeah, yeah.

We've got about 25 miles to the trail's end in New Philadelphia in Tuscarawas County. Can we finish it up in 2016? Dunno.

Stay tuned ...

Bye for now, Massillon. I think you're beautiful.

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