The Mistake by the Lake: or Happy Early Father's Day

My brother had a moment with his 4-year-old son a couple months ago in which it was revealed that a child would do well to follow his or her father's advice. In fact, following the advice of our fathers more often than not would keep us from getting into scrapes in the first place. For me it was not a hot cookie, but the lesson was learned nevertheless.

I had the immense pleasure of receiving one of my oldest and dearest friends for what felt like a 5-day weekend. We had a wonderful time. She got to shop at H&M, we ate (and cooked) great food, watched good movies, went to Amish country, saw a bald eagle sitting in its nest above the Olentangy river, and never stopped talking the entire time she was here except for brief periods of sleep in the wee hours.

On her last day, we drove to Kirtland, which is always a neat experience for me. She seemed to think I might be tired of going there -- I've been there once a year since we've lived here. But I assured her that I always enjoy being there. Unfortunately, she got to experience all types of Ohio weather but snow while she was here, from stifling humidity to cold rain and biting wind to beautiful sunny spring days. Our Kirtland day was the cold-ish and rainy day. The rain really didn't get cold and the wind didn't really start picking up until toward the end of the day, though, so it wasn't too bad. But it sets up the rest of the story.

So after going to the sites we wanted to see, it was about 5 pm, and we decided it would be a good time to see about dinner. So I drove down the main street in Kirtland to go to RJ's which was always our favorite place to eat if you're going to be there for dinner. Little did I know that the curse that has plagued me in our own city of residence had followed all the way to Kirtland. Linus can vouch that if I really like a restaurant here, it eventually goes under. It's happened now with 5 restaurants, including the only decent Mexican place, which I just found out only shut down because the owner was shot. Yep. I'm cursed, really I am. But only in this state, that I'm aware of. Anyway, RJ's was closed. Out of business. For good. So that was disappointing. But mostly to me -- my friend didn't know what she was missing, so I couldn't feel too bad.

Then I suggested that we could go eat dinner in Cleveland. My friend had seemed excited when she had learned how close Kirtland was to Cleveland, and so we decided to try Little Italy. The first mistake was that we really didn't know where we were going. I had been to Little Italy before but it had been a couple years and all I knew was that it was somewhere off of Euclid Avenue. Yeah. So I got off the freeway at the first sign of Euclid Avenue, which was the next mistake. That was interesting. Our doors were locked, so it wasn't so bad, I guess. But we definitely saw the real Cleveland in those miles it took us to get to the university area and Little Italy. By now it was really raining.

As we drove up the street that was supposed to lead us to Little Italy, we were a bit skeptical until we saw a huge mural on the wall to our right that was of all things Italian. And then my friend laughingly mentioned that at this point her dad would be saying something about Mussolini. And then we couldn't find parking. And then I got us lost trying to find parking. And by the time we got back to Little Italy, neither of us were really interested in Little Italy anymore because of the rain and the conspiratorial lack of anything more than 1-hour parking. And then when I did find a spot, it was supposedly reserved for Valet parking during those hours of the day. At which point we decided to just leave. (And as many of you can imagine, I had turned into an apologetic mess of "I'm sorry"s that were driving my friend crazy.) As we were driving away, then we saw a whole half-a-block of 2-hour parking which had somehow eluded us before, mocking us as we drove by in our disgust. As we drove past the mural, we decided that it was Mussolini who had conspired against us and not wanted us in Little Italy.

So then we spent a while trying to find the freeway again. In our search, we at least saw some of the only pretty things in Cleveland, like Severance Hall (where the orchestra plays) and the other buildings and gardens around it. When we finally did see a sign for the freeway, I almost pulled into a bus lane in my eagerness to turn that way. And then when we did turn where the sign told us to, we didn't see any more signs for several blocks. Blocks that were quickly deteriorating back into neighborhoods we did not really want to be in. Finally just when I was thinking I might need to turn around again, we saw the signs and the freeway entrance we needed to get out. Dinner was deliberately forgotten. We just wanted out of that "crap-hole" as I took to calling it. As we drove by several factories and smoke stacks and finally curved south, I told my friend that I should have listened to my dad who has always referred to Cleveland as the "Mistake by the Lake". Fortunately we had good food and a good movie back at home to end the day on a good note.

So, as an early Father's Day tribute: Here's to Dads who tell us not to burn our fingers on hot cookies, not to eat with Mussolini, and above all to stay away from the Mistake by the Lake. But hey, now at least we can say to our own kids, "Listen to your dad, because if you don't..."