For a few years around the turn of the millennium, the main clock at my father’s office was one of those clocks that broadcast a different bird’s call from its speaker for each of the twelve hours. The idea behind getting that clock for the office was to help us all be more aware of time, since it’s easy to tune out the same chiming sound , no matter how many (or few) times it’s made at the top of each hour. Maybe our brains…
NBA Playoffs 2019: Bucks make a statement to the rest of the Eastern Conference with Game 1 destruction of Pistons (CBSSports.com) Growing up in Toledo has a way of making you painfully aware of whatever Ohio State-University of Michigan sports rivalry is dominant at any particular moment. There used to be a whole chain of stores in Toledo devoted solely to clothing and other merchandise from the two colleges; it’s down to one location now, but it’s still a testament to how Northwest Ohio and…
It wasn’t exactly like coffeehouses were invented in the nineties, but that might have been their modern heyday. The fictional coffeehouse that was central to a certain NBC sitcom may be the most iconic of its era, but in the middle part of the decade, back when independent stores and media were thriving, the coffeehouses that popped up around the Toledo area were lovely, and even though my hopes of becoming more social by sitting around drinking coffee there never really materialized, I still have…
Recently, I loaded up the busiest intersection near my old house on Google Maps and went into street-level view so I could have a first-person Google Street View of it. As much as I recognize how every corner of that intersection has changed over time — although the Internet has been failing me in my attempts to photographically prove that some Toledo staples of my time, like Centre supermarkets and Gastown gas stations, existed before they were driven out by bigger competitors — part of…
Eight days from today will mark the first anniversary of my departure from Toledo. Very early that morning, before the sun was even close to rising, a friend drove me from her house, where I’d been staying for a few months, to Detroit Metropolitan Airport. It wasn’t the first time I’d been to that airport — I’d gone there before with family members who were flying, and even to help pick up a traditional Japanese music ensemble that was hired to perform in the greater…