1 November, 6:00 PM, Greyhound, I-70 south: We pulled out of Columbus a half hour late with a stressed driver, twin to the Bus Nazi we had somewhere in the south the past winter. We have been ordered to make no sound. Fine with me.
Columbus, we decided, is a fine, friendly, and culturally rich city that has some hard times. The downtown shows a lot of empty spaces, but there is construction and activity - not as much as Indianapolis which looked in much better overall shape.
Our Comfort Inn was in the German Village neighborhood of Columbus. Settled by German immigrants in the 1860s to early 1900s, it is a large area of red brick streets, walks, and houses, looking much like those of numerous villages in Germany. Some houses have been converted to restaurants and shops and include some of the city’s better eateries.
The Columbus volkswalk started at our hotel, wound through the old brewery district (a focus of redevelopment), up along the Scioto River, past the Statehouse, and then took a winding path through German Village. It was a lovely, delightful walk on a cool, mostly clear day.
Pat was feeling unwell and at the end of the walk, returned to the room to rest. She was experiencing an upset stomach, headache, and extreme tiredness. This was much of what I had been doing earlier. And, at 2:00 AM, I woke with shooting pains in my left foot. It was probably the cured deli meats in my sandwich and a day’s walking on uneven bricks.
Sunday, we mostly laid around, slowly recovering. Monday, I needed to finish and send two submissions for the Salal Review and Pat, now almost back to 100%, wandered the streets and shops of German Village.
We ate last evening at the Columbus Brewing Company restaurant, located near the river less than a kilometer from our hotel. It is a newer building with the brewing tanks behind a glass wall at the back of the restaurant. Pat ate an Asian Chicken Salad and I Jambalaya, both excellent. We started with a beer sampler of the brewery’s menu, including a sort of Oktoberfest and a heavily hopped autumn brew.
As our bus continues down the road, the sun sits on the horizon and the yellow evening light illuminates the dry harvested fields. Houses and barns are turning dark except for a west corner reflecting a glowing red gold. Much of the fields are the dull grey tan of autumn except for green patches of weeds and strips of grass between fields and along stream and drainage beds.
Before leaving today, we wandered downtown Columbus and enjoyed, along with a couple from the UK and a woman from Pennsylvania, a tour of the Ohio Statehouse led by a retired history teacher.
At the corner of Broad and Front, the 555.5 foot LeVeque Tower, built in 1924, has no public-friendly observation deck as Smith Tower in Seattle does, but we did see a gallery of old photographs of the tower and neighboring area on the second floor, a window behind a huge arch with many ladybugs, and spiffy art-deco murals in a corner of the first floor. It is a beautiful building and I have taken way too many photographs of it.
Just across from the Tower, the 1928 City Hall is fronted by an immense sculpture of Christopher Columbus. To continue that theme, we walked briefly along the river to view a replica of Columbus’ Santa Maria and a statue commemorating the city’s Italian immigrants.
2 November, 02:00 AM, Union Station, Cincinnati. The Cardinal hit someone out of Chicago, we are told, and is running about three hours late. The later we arrive in Charleston, the less time we have to spend wandering around in a zombie state waiting for our room.
3 November, 06:30 AM, Rm 327, Holiday Inn Express, Charleston, WV: The following two news items have relevance:
Officers were called to the (Cincinnati Greyhound) terminal around 11 a.m. Monday after a man on a bus flashed a gun at several employees of Greyhound. When the workers saw the gun, they ran. The man then reportedly locked himself in the bathroom of a vacant bus. Officers tried negotiating with him, but the man shot himself and died.
(from website of WKRC, Local 12, Cincinnati)
An Amtrak train hit and killed a teenage boy in south suburban Lansing on Tuesday evening, officials said. The victim was identified this morning by the Cook County medical examiner's office as David Kivo, 16, of the 2600 block of Ridge Road in Lansing. It was not known why he was on the tracks. Amtrak's Cardinal, headed for New York City, was about four miles north of Dyer, Ind., about 7:10 p.m. when the boy was struck, said Vernae Graham, a spokeswoman for Amtrak ... The train, which left downtown (Chicago) at 5:25 p.m., was heading southeast, traveling about 60 mph when the boy was struck, Graham said. The train was stopped for several hours for the investigation, Graham said. (from the Chicago Tribune website)
We were waiting for our bus at Columbus when Pat heard rumor of the first story.
Awareness of the second story came to us at the Cincinnati Greyhound Station when I checked the status of the Cardinal. We were scheduled to leave on the Cardinal (Amtrak train 50) at 03:27 AM. Julie, the Amtrak robotified 800 lady, said, “I’ll get you an agent,” always a bad sign when dealing with schedules. The final story was revealed by an announcement on the train in the morning which said the man walked out onto the track directly in front of the train and was hit and killed. It was likely a suicide.
Whether we remain at home, at work, or we travel, we all are in contact with a few whose lives have lost all bearing and meaning, whose integrity and dignity has been stripped from them, who are angry, in intense pain, and desperate. You know I could go on. For the rest of us, the smug “normals,” we can only rely on Frank Zappa’s assessment that our saving grace is that we don’t know how lame we really are. There. You’ve had your dose of cynicism for the day.
Dawn appeared in fog as we rolled past farms and through small towns and forested lanes. The beauty of morning light and autumn woods is not to be neglected, so I awoke from my restless sleep and watched. I had only slept about three hours in small snatches and uncomfortable naps, but this was not to be missed. And as we traveled on, the fog lifted into a beautiful golden sunshine as only autumn can give.
Rather than the scheduled 09:20 AM arrival, we arrived in Charleston at noon and, looking over the downtown across the river, decided to walk to our hotel. After taking a short lunch stop and finishing our walk, the Holiday Inn Express kindly checked us in early. We went to our room, dropped our packs, showered, and slept to sunset.
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