My first Kevin and Lynn encounter of this trip is something of a Shanghai attack, unexpectedly encountering them down in the continental breakfast area of our West Virginia hotel. I’ve met them before, of course, and they are roughly the same age as Erin’s parents. She’s a sweet older lady, who in typical fashion can’t stop plying you with endless offerings of food should you find yourself at her house. While he is more the somewhat boastful, somewhat crotchety, though always highly entertaining type endemic to that generation.
They’re telling me that Tom already drifted through and left mere moments ago, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’ve talked to my mom and informed her with a laugh that I seriously think my father-in-law got at most an hour of sleep last night - and was out of the room before me anyway. Kevin here, meanwhile, is quite proud of this route he’s concocted to Bucyrus, using exclusively paper maps (Route 35 up to 7 followed by an end run around there to 33, up to 13, et cetera, then whipping back around west somehow, all done in an effort to circumvent Columbus). Then scoffs and gives me a dismissive, get-out-of-here wave, when I explain my planned path. This despite the fact that a) I lived in Columbus for ten years, and b) he’s never been to Ohio.
What is it with guys this age and their steadfast adherence to planned driving routes? They are totally willing to die on these hills, clutching paper maps if need be the entire way down. Well, even so, I'm thinking, at least Kevin is not Archie Bunker, I have to admit, somewhat in his defense - yet I am also totally thinking, even in this moment, discussing this with him, that he is absolutely one of Archie Bunker’s friends.
With Elaine again at the wheel, the four of us in our vehicle nonetheless somehow manage to mobilize before those two, however. Or at any rate, are by some mysterious means ahead of them time-wise the entire journey up to Bucyrus, ahem. Go figure. And as it turns out are thankful not to have agreed to any kind of caravan shenanigans, for a couple different reasons.
Following an hour of the most unbelievably pure nothingness imaginable, as Route 35 bleeds from northern West Virginia into southern Ohio, we finally make a pit stop at this podunk gas station for refreshments and comedic relief. Climbing out before her, I turn and ask Erin innocently enough, “you want a pop?”
She shoots me a look like I am completely insane and bellows, “don’t start with that shit!”
By this she means the whole pop thing, which is apparently a Midwest phenomenon. By whatever circuitous means she arrived at that point, she is a soda person, through and through. To the extent it almost seems like she doesn’t believe any of us ever truly referred to soft drinks as pop, that we are only pretending to do so to mess with her. Or something like that.
After loading up on snacks, drinks, and gasoline, though, it turns out we have not yet experienced the greatest belly laugh this respite will provide. Instead, this shall occur as we’ve just barely gotten moving again, creeping along the lot, and Tom asks Elaine to stop and drop him off, right here. Then to drive over and meet him at this distant trash can, pick him up there. Reason being that he needs to throw something out. And so we do just that. She lets him out and we continue crawling at a leisurely pace in this SUV.
With strong suspicions that Tom must have already had a puff or two of the ol’ wacky tobacky this fine morning, I’m laughing so hard there are tears streaming down my face. All the more so as a thoroughly befuddled Elaine tells us, seriously enough, “explain to me what kind of sense this makes?” She adds that she’s dealing with this kind of zaniness “all the time,” especially when he’s smoking pot.
We continue in mostly uneventful fashion up 35, to where it merges into Route 23 and that eventually flows into Columbus. Jog slightly over to 315, scoot up to the OSU campus area, where we stop for lunch at this Raising Cane's that Erin badly wishes to hit. Erin's parents have never eaten here before, but are soon raving that it's the best chicken they've ever had. Then we jump back onto 315, stick with this all the way through the admittedly beautiful, winding countryside, until it dead ends into Route 23 well north of the city.
At some point, Erin realizes she doesn't have her cell phone. Is then forced to call Raising Cane's using one of ours, relieved to learn that they've already found it there and safely stowed it away. She then reaches out to Kevin and Lynn, who are thankfully well behind us, asking them to pretty please swing over that way to grab it. I'm kind of smirking over in my seat, picturing him with his awesome, perfectly calibrated paper route blown to smithereens, knowing that he's surely going on at great length about how this diversion has ruined his master plan.
Route 23 will carry us for most of the remainder, until we wind up on 4 and reach our next destination: the hotel room we've booked, on the other side of Bucyrus. Such as there is an “other side” to Bucyrus. Any time we drift through these busted up Ohio towns, particularly those in the devil's triangle of Crawford, Morrow, or Richland County, it's always amazing to observe that while there was absolutely nothing going on back when we lived here...there's even less now, somehow! And county seat or not, that's certainly true of Bucyrus.
We pass this long since closed two screen movie theater, where Dad M brought me for a matinee showing of Time Bandits back in 1982. On the square, the Mad Bull is long since gone, but there is at least another bar open in its place. The Mad Bull where my stepdad, Dad K, found himself in a wee spot of trouble back in the early 90s, a night where he and a few of his fellow car salesman buddies inadvertently got mixed up with some cops during happy hour. Elaine laughs when I relate this story and says she's going to tell him we stopped in there, and that there was a newspaper article hanging on the wall which recounts this incident.
But not all is lost here. There are of course some gorgeous old houses and buildings, some empty and I imagine available for a relative pittance. Also, my cousin Tabatha works at the town's only McDonald's – never would some of us guess we'd be meeting up a month from now, down in Florida, to mourn her brother's death. She's doing great, though, and has really turned her life around. The most impressive aspect, actually, is the manner in which she looks after our Uncle Gene, is in fact the person most involved with his life at this point. He's getting up there in years, has always lived alone, but the two of them have developed this cool little symbiotic existence in recent years – he drives her to and from work, she takes care of him, attending to details he was never great at handling even in his younger days. Like for example when some con artist recently scammed Gene out of a bunch of money, and she assisted him with sorting out that mess.
There's also one other Bucyrus related detail I'm attempting to sort out, with help from another first cousin, Ashlee. She and I are texting extensively because it was just outside town here where her dad, my Uncle Lyle, was killed four years ago in a car crash. I know it happened on Route 19, between Bucyrus and Galion, and am trying to pin down the exact spot. But she can't find any photo of the specific location, is therefore stuck distantly describing it to me.
Passing through the square, actually, reminds me of one other specific memory, this one relating to Lyle. We were living on Brandt Road in Galion, which means it also had to have been 1982. One gorgeously sunny morning, Mom and Daniel and I had to drive over here to the Bucyrus square to pick up Lyle from the jail (which actually come to think of it must have been the same clink Dad K later found himself in, following the Mad Bull incident). Lyle was in extremely chipper spirits that morning, though, probably mostly in relief at having been sprung from jail. And so as we'd parked somewhere near or on this square, we dipped into a tiny convenience store while walking back to the car. He bought me this pack of baseball stickers to go in an album I had at the time, during that whole brief era where those things were popular. They came out every year and you had to find the specific spot in the album where each sticker was supposed to go.
Back to the present, though, which is occasionally a jarring exercise. In the little hotel room the four of us are once again sharing, we have plenty of time to chill out and start getting ready for the rehearsal and its attendant dinner. After showering, Tom's thumping around and muttering to himself, rasping, out of breath. Elaine asks him if he's alright and he whisperbreathes, “no.”
But we make it down the road to meet the others just the same. Up first is a dry run for tomorrow's ceremony, a rehearsal at First Alliance Church on Route 19. The arrival at which presents merely the latest odd coincidence. I am already aware that Lyle died on 19, somewhere near where 100 dead ends into it. Yet this knowledge takes a stranger turn when we realize, via my continued back and forth texts with Ashlee, that as best we can determine...the crash occurred at the next bend in the road, i.e. within eyeshot of this church.
As for the building itself, it's a beautiful space. The main room looks like an inverted ark, gorgeous wooden beams ascending to an apex. Although this wouldn't be the only church I've ever attended – you could even go as far to say this trait is a hallmark – whereby the lobby and/or the hallways shooting off of it feature some truly baffling, hilarious, borderline demented artwork. I don't mean to be disrespectful, and in fact actually love a lot of it – just maybe not in the way the artists intended. There's this one framed masterpiece here featuring a couple ascending this bright yellow cross, leading through a purple mountain range up to what must be the crystal palace of heaven, which I find completely remarkable.
It somewhat reminds me for whatever reason of those preachy little Jack Chick books that Dad M and Faith used to give me and Daniel back in the day, even though the style is completely different. But in the here and now, it would make for a really sweet album cover. On one hand I'm cackling, but on the other, it's not as though I could do any better myself. So what room do I have to talk?
You could apply this concept to most of my endeavors, perhaps. Maybe my writing, one of the few things I've taken semi-seriously in life, has somewhat progressed beyond pure hackwork...other artistic pursuits, not so much, and yet I insist upon screwing around with them anyway. While we're waiting for this rehearsal to start, the DJ here employs all four limbs to play along with the drum beat in whatever song he's cranking. Erin cackles and asks me, “why doesn't it ever sound that good when you do that?” Even our disc jockey here finds this hilarious enough to issue a hearty laugh himself, despite never hearing my air drumming.
As for the stars of this pageant, Kati is a diminutive, brown eyed brunette with lustrous, curly black hair. Looking at her and Erin together, I feel like you can tell that they are cousins. Although I also am thinking that when she's dolled up in fancier attire, such as for a wedding, Kati is somewhat visually reminiscent of Snooki clear back in her distant, early fame heyday – though way more classy and intelligent than that Jersey Shore bimbo ever thought about being. And I don't see the resemblance at all when Kati isn't dressed up. Meanwhile, regarding the man who will be her husband in less than 24 hours, Josh, he's a tall, bearded, somewhat burly gent, laidback and affable and clearly the wisecracker of this bunch. He has a particular fondness for example in teasing his nephews, and the other accompanying youngsters, fully embracing the role I like to think of as Full Of Shit Uncle. The little ones are therefore continually caught in this vortex where they are never quite sure how to take much of what he says, yet mostly believing it anyway, in part because he is an adult and they seemingly have no choice.
But then again, who isn't a comedian, in some form or another? Some of us are attempting to convince the future bride, only approximately one fourth in jest, that she should hyphenate her name to Kati Walle-Holley, because that sounds cooler. She isn't exactly convinced, however, to put it mildly.
Today will wind up being the first day all year that I haven't managed to write at least one full page of something. But I do jot down little thoughts and quotes and details here and there, in which case these smart phones are exceedingly handy and less awkward than the days where I used to carry pocket notebooks around everywhere. People just assume you're texting someone or making a social media post, I guess, and rarely comment upon it. Whereas before I might have had to endure a bunch of questions, puzzled looks, if not significant others snatching the notebook out of your hands outright and telling you to stop being such a dork.
Yet even with a notetaking device at one's disposal, days like this fly at you with such rapidity there are bound to be endless gaps anyway. Like for example failure to document in some cases which kid belongs to who, or the names of Kati's friends, and how and why some other people are related. Jamison is the little one prone to wearing a cowboy hat around everywhere, that much I recall, and while I could surely figure out who some of these other kids are, time constraints prevent me from doing so.
The place Kati and her future husband Josh have reserved is what we might call an ideal hybrid, a New York style pizza joint that is nonetheless decorated to the gills with Ohio State Buckeye football paraphernalia. For instance there's a scarlet O, in that oh-so-familiar font, inlaid into the floor in the private party room that they have reserved for the occasion. Framed pictures of former players and highlights and so on, of course, and a static cling helmet affixed to one wall, you name it. There are about thirty of us shoehorned into this space, I would estimate, and it seems that the dinner they serve here is solid, respectable, but not quite otherworldly.
After saying our goodbyes and going separate ways for the night, the four of us (and presumably Kevin and Lynn, who are once again staying at the same hotel) have no other immediate thoughts but retreating to our room and chilling out. And in another repeat of last night, what this means for the females is them passing out in our pair of queen beds, while Tom and I are left somewhat twiddling our thumbs.
Therefore it's relatively late when Tom tells me he can't sleep, and asks if I can take him for a drive somewhere, anywhere, to see if that helps. And so passing through the lobby, we ask the troll looking guy with glasses, manning the counter, if there are any convenience stores anything like it open here in town, at this hour.
“Nope. It's a ghost town at this hour. Nothing's open,” he tells us.
Figuring we might have to drive to Galion or even Mansfield, we get in their car and take off. But then get maybe a half mile up the road, down Sandusky, before encountering a pair of gas stations across the street from one another – probably the busiest 2 in town – that are both clearly open. It will also turn out that the Kroger is still open too. Totally hilarious.
Anyway, we pull in at the gas station on the right, which is somewhat of a major hangout at this hour. Tom is jonesing for a pack of cigarettes, and insists upon buying me this tall can of beer. But then at the cash register, he only keeps one cigarette, despite purchasing the entire pack – tells the understandably mystified cashier girl that she can keep the rest for herself, which she does.
Well, the thing is, Tom's not supposed to be smoking. And Elaine would somewhat freak if she found out he was, as he more or less quit years ago. As far as anyone knows, anyway. So I can understand his not wanting to keep a full pack on his person. But then we stand around in front of the gas station, while he smokes this cigarette, at the conclusion of which he decides what he really needs right now is a slushie. Therefore dips back inside for one, which the still quite grateful and bewildered cashier tells him can just have for free.
Then he and I take off again, as I've already decided I'm driving him across 19 and into Galion. The main reason I've chosen this, apart from simple curiosity about the place where I was born, is that I want to pass that fateful curve in the road, and try to see if there's any marker in place where Lyle's crash occurred. Except that as we pass it, Tom's talking, it's extremely dark outside, and I realize I'm swerving in my efforts to rubberneck every which way at this moment, thus decide to give it a rest.
For some reason, whether inspired by this topic of fateful accidents, the similarity of Josh's last name, pure coincidence, or some combination of the above, Tom begins rhapsodizing at length about the plane crash Buddy Holly and others died in. He's still deeply embroiled in this topic when I decide to take a slight detour, whipping right onto Winchester Road, so I can show him the farm where my mom and her family spent many a year. The house she was living in when graduating from Galion in 1972, in fact. And the same people still own this property, meaning I have no reservations about pulling into and parking at the end of the drive.
But...it's pitch black out here tonight, there is truly nothing else to see. Less than a minute later, then, I'm backing out and continuing onward into town. Loop over to the hospital where Daniel and I both were born, pointing this out to him, then head north up Portland Way, attempting catalog what has changed in the few years since I've been here. He's chatting throughout, of course, which is another form of admittedly greater entertainment, although it does mean my attention is split in about three different directions.
I continue onward to Route 30, take that west to complete this lengthy circuitous lap back to our hotel. Sitting in chairs in our hotel room, in the dark, he looks at stuff on his phone, while I sip my beer and we whisper about baseball or whatever else pops into our heads. The women will tell us later that we were kind of annoying with these antics.
