Last spring, I was lucky to attend the Mideast Honor’s Association conference in Cleveland, alongside a few other honor’s students from my school. It was a weekend of thought-provoking conversations and presentations. I myself presented a few of my own poems to a small group of people, and then I participated in a small panel discussion afterwards. When we weren’t busy presenting or watching others, my honor’s group got to explore the city of Cleveland. I quickly fell in love with the city’s charming aura. Each new cool thing I saw, I had one thought, “I wish Josh was here to see this!”
Well, a few weekends ago, my wish finally came true. A band that Josh loves is on tour, but they keep skipping Indianapolis. That leaves Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland as our options. Cleveland was the only date that didn’t conflict with my school schedule, so we bought the tickets, and I began to plan our weekend getaway.
I booked our hotel about a month in advance. I found one only a seven minute walk from the concert venue. I began making a list of all the places we should see. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a no-brainer. Then, a few art museums that are free to attend. It just so happened that at the end of September, I attended a writing workshop, and there was a girl attending from the Cleveland area. I racked her brain for ideas for food, coffee, etc. She suggested that Ohio City is the place to be for the best food. As the date approached, I got more and more excited to spend the weekend exploring the city with my love.
I had a dentist appointment on Friday, but as soon as my teeth were clean, we were packing up my car to leave. The drive wasn’t bad- five or so hours. We arrived in Cleveland just as the sun sank behind the city’s horizon. The hotel’s valet greeted us, taking my keys and helping with our luggage. Our room was on the sixth floor. It was easily the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. That night was pretty low-key. We visited the hotel’s hot tub, and shared some Sam’s Club gyros for dinner back in the room. I told Josh that Cleveland is home to the house that A Christmas Story was filmed in. I told him we could go visit it and the museum.
As we settled in, got ourselves cleaned up from the chlorine on our skin, I turned the TV on to the Food Network. Guy Fieri’s friendly face greeted us, and imagine my surprise when the A Christmas Story house did, too. I had literally just finished telling Josh about it, when Guy Fieri was recommending the diner across the street from the house/museum. It immediately excited me, like it was meant to be. We let Guy’s show play on in the background. A bit later, he was in Cleveland again, this time at an ice cream shop that doubled as a ramen place.
The next day was Saturday. We planned to spend the morning walking through the city, then head to the Rock and Roll HOF. Afterwards, we’d get a late lunch at the creamery, before our concert began at 5:30. Unfortunately, the ice cream/ramen place had not yet began serving ramen for the season. We settled for the amazing bubble waffle panan ice cream for our lunch instead.
The R&R HOF was a lot of fun. I had seen it in the spring, but to be quite honest, I hadn’t seen a whole lot of it. I was alone at the time, so I kind of zoomed through the exhibits. This time around, with Josh by my side, we took our time through each section of the museum. We saw a lot that we expected, but I think Josh was surprised to see some artifacts from his own musical heroes, such as Metallica.
The rock concert we attended got a bit wild. There were four bands playing, but Josh and I were really only there for the band that played second to last. As such, we kind of hung back in the crowd for most of the show. The venue was cool- House of Blues Cleveland. It seemed a bit too small for the amount of people piling in, but there was an electric energy in the air that comes with most rock concerts. When Between the Buried and Me were set to play, Josh and I pushed ourselves towards the front. The crowd’s cheers was deafening as the band entered the stage. Then, the moment they began playing their first song, a large group of people in the middle began to mosh. This created a chasm in the crowd, and I quickly dragged Josh with me so we could get even closer to the stage. From that point on, we were one with the crowd. Packed in like sardines, there was no autonomous movement; we simply were jostled from side to side as the rest of the audience did too. One part of my brain was partitioned off for self-preservation. I kept my right arm up as a blockade for any straying moshers.
At one point, I don’t know how it happened, perhaps I was too lost in the music, but suddenly I was being launched 15 feet backwards. The whole crowd surged, each taken as much by surprise as I was. I ended up stumbling upon a man who spilled his two drinks on me. As I looked up, he had a look of incredulity. He could not fathom what had just happened. I apologized, despite knowing it was beyond my control, and Josh and I returned to our place in the crowd. It was the most fun I’d had in quite some time. An entire hour or more, spent totally in the moment.
After the concert, I was delighted to feel the fresh air on my face as we left the venue. I relished the walk back to our hotel, and relished the shower even more. Dinner was some food I’d had the forethought to pack in a cooler for us. Then, thoroughly worn out, we fell asleep and slept soundly through the night.
Waking up the next day was a bit difficult, but we managed. We had hotel breakfast before returning to our room to pack up our belongings. We had to check out by 11 a.m., so we loaded up my car and headed to the A Christmas Story house. It was quite charming. We bought tickets for the next tour, and met a group of probably thirty people waiting to make their way through the house. Our tour guide was interesting, adding humor to the facts she was instructed to tell us about the house. It was really very interesting to learn about aspects of the movie I had never considered. More interesting though, was that leg lamp. We got to see it close up, and even pose with it. Everything in that house was from the 40’s or 50’s, like a little snapshot in time.
Our last leg (no pun intended) of the trip completed, we were ready to head back home to our waiting cats. The drive was smooth yet again, and we got home by dinner time.
The weekend was enchanting. It was jam packed with fun and love. All of the places I once saw with Josh in mind, I now can say I’ve seen with his hand in mine.
