The Split

It took about a week, but I found an apartment in Ohio City, right across the river from Cleveland’s downtown, within walking distance of the RTA and the West Side Market. Guy helped me move in. It was the third floor of an old house that the owner was renovating for sale. My entrance was in the back, up a long two-story flight of wooden stairs. It was nice. One large room with a nice skylight and an attached bathroom. Kitchen was at one end of the room… a finished attic, basically, or servants quarters from an earlier time. I lived there from late February of 96 to around Halloween of 97.

My kids visited me there when I would go pick them up. They frequently stayed overnight or for the weekend. Both Kristen and Ian also came to visit from time to time.

Aside: I was driving a second-hand, silver-gray ‘93 Buick Century at the time. It would be out of the picture before I moved again. It just died… What can I say? I replaced it with a second-hand, ‘Midnight-Rose’ (basically purple, but midnight rose sounds so much better… I didn’t make it up; that’s what Chevy called it) ‘93 Chevy Beretta. That was a great car. It had 180,000 miles on it when I traded it in. And it was still running pretty well. I just knew that it was nearing the end of its usable life. So, I got something else before it left me in a lerch somewhere by the side of the road (I had already replaced the timing belt in it twice. Guy and I did it the first time. Then I had it done the second time and knew it was time to let it go).

To be Continued

–LE