Back to the Big Bang

July 22

Second day of our escape took us in search of bullet holes.

The shots were fired in Cleveland, so I booked us at the Comfort Inn Downtown. I thought I knew the area because it’s about a mile from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I was on a business trip to Cleveland once and remembered walking to the Hall of Fame from the hotel where I stayed then.

Turns out, the accommodations this time were nothing like those I enjoyed on that business trip. It’s not too bad, but a bit worn around the edges. There’s not much to visit within walking distance. The rail lines are all somewhere else. I see buses, but not a lot of them. Cabs can’t be had. After three phone calls, you’re still waiting.

So I have the congestion and parking fees of a city combined with the suburban requirement that I drive. I’ll probably be back, mind, because there’s more to see here, but next time will choose the hotel more carefully. 

It might have been about 10 years ago that I saw Cleveland. 

I had been here only once before, in the middle of the night, passing through on a non-stop road trip when I was 19. I don’t think that really counts.

Anyhow, the last time I was in Cleveland, SKF was holding a meeting at the site of a local company that it had bought. It was in Alan’s beat at the magazine, and they invited me to attend too.

People make fun of Cleveland. They make fun of New Jersey too. So I decided to head out a couple of days early to poke around a few spots in the city.

Wow, what a surprise. The highlight of the Hall of Fame is a wall with headphones. You put them on to hear recordings of blues and jazz forerunners of rock & roll. Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, sure. But it was the first time I heard the guitar legend Robert Johnson. 

They say he sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads to play like that. He died at 27, poisoned by a jealous husband.

Alan had decided to come out early too. I was blogging by that time, and he told John F. and Jeff that he had been reading about Harry vacations, so he wanted to try one.

But anyhow, that’s how Alan and I wound up at the Great Lakes Brewing Co.’s saloon on West 26th Street in Ohio City. It was warm weather so we sat at a table outside. 

When I got back to the office the next week, I mentioned that we had been there and it was fun. That’s when yet another John at the magazine, John K., told me he was from Cleveland, and explained why Great Lakes has a lager named for Eliot Ness.

Ness at some point in his colorful career had been director of public safety in Cleveland. Maybe that was before he became a T-Man. 

The place has been a saloon for a long time—long before there was a Great Lakes Brewing Co. Ness was involved in a shootout in the barroom. The woodwork behind the bar still has the bullet holes.

So on this trip, Joanna and I checked in and headed first thing to Market Square, a couple of miles from the hotel, across the Cuyahoga River in Ohio City.

We walked around a bit before heading to the bar. On the way we passed the Batmobile.  Who knew it was a Toyota? I didn’t.

I wanted to take Joanna into the market because, if I remember right, it has the feel of markets that we have visited in Europe. But it's closed on Thursday, so we didn’t get to see it.

But that was OK. The barroom was the main attraction today. Even more so than the beer it sold. 

We told the hostess why we were there. She called a waitress, who led us to the bar and pointed out one of the holes, which is decorated with a small rod and a red “Bang!” flag, the sort that pops out of a clown’s pop gun. Some people believe that was the shot fired at Ness.

Needless to say, it’s the photo of the day.

There are other bullet holes unmarked. I may have seen one of those, too, but by the dim light can’t be sure.

Joanna ands I sat at a back corner table eating our pierogis and wings, and sharing a disappointingly watery IPA. You can judge the trajectory of the bullet by the position of the flag rod in the hole. The shot could have been fired from somewhere close to my chair.

Imagine being one of the usual suspects and you’re shooting from the hip to bring down the top cop. Perhaps from this very seat of judgment. Take it from one who knows: it’s delicious sometimes to live in B-movie world.

Later we were driving around just to look and maybe spot a place for something other than bar food.

We followed Euclid Avenue past University Circle and Case Western Reserve, a Ronald McDonald House, several research hospitals, and came into a once-grand neighborhood that has fallen onto hard times.

We headed back to the hotel to reconsider our options, but I missed the turn and had to go around the block to get back. We stopped for a light at East 17th Street and Chester Ave. when Joanna saw a blue awning with German words on it. One of them was “Hofbrauhaus.”

What luck. Sausages, mashed potatoes with gravy, sauerkraut. We’re talking the health food of my ancestors, here.

They even had a terrific beer on tap. It was Hopfen Spezial, a strong (7.5%) brew called a “pale ale lager.” Even the bartender couldn’t explain what that meant.

I tried one, and yes, it tasted like an ale, both dry and bitter, a real treat. Joanna sampled it and ordered one of her own. Before she did, though, she made me promise that I would finish whatever she couldn’t drink. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go through the entire glass of the stuff by herself.

I agreed to give her all the backup she needed.

OK, gang. That’s enough for now.

Stay well and happy, and remember to watch your back in Cleveland. As Eliot Ness once said, “You never know what’s going to zip by and hit the woodwork.”

Love to all.

Harry