Life in Ravenna Until Retirement – Memoir Continued

Shortly after my Rockwell job ended, I bought a trailer (mobile home) in Ravenna (a few miles northeast of Kent), where I lived until I retired. The lot rent and my loan payments for the trailer, combined, were quite a bit less than what I had been paying in rent for that apartment in Kent by the end of my time there.

It was an older model, something from the late ’70s, but was quite nice inside, 20×60′. It basically had 6 rooms connected by a short hallway from the main, back bedroom to the living room. First off the hallway leaving the living room was another bedroom that I made into my office, then my laundry closet with my washer and dryer, plus the furnace and water heater. After that came the bathroom with a large bathtub and a seperate shower. At the end of the hall was the master bedroom with a walk-in closet.

Off the the living room heading to the front was the kitchen, then the front room, which we used for dining and watching TV and VHS tapes. DVD players were fairly new and too expensive for me at that time. But we used to rent movies from the Blockbuster and Hollywood movie rental chains.

The trailer was in pretty good shape when I bought it, but needed a new sealant coating on the roof. So, I picked up the appropriate roof sealing paint, and with the help of my brother, Guy, resealed the whole thing. It took us most of the day, and I finished up what was left the next day. Never had any roof leaks the whole time I lived there, about 8 years.

And most times, when my young ones (now in high school) were with me, we played their favorite game, Magic the Gathering. Each of us had multiple MTG decks. We played for hours each visit for at least one of the days we spent together. I also took them with me on Sunday mornings to my Aikido and Aiki-jujitsu classes at the Silent Mind studio. Sean and Dylan enjoyed doing the workouts with us. But Caitlin preferred to draw and/or read while we were working out. Then we’d come back home, perhaps go for a walk in Towner’s Woods or the like, and watch a movie if there was time. Then, in the evening, I’d take them back to their mom’s house in Cleveland Heights.

–LE