Pullman Plaza & supper

Back in Huntington, on that Saturday after my High School reunion I wandered the streets taking late afternoon photos of places I could still recognize - many of them empty buildings where some 30 or 40 years ago existed a thriving community. I walked in an absent loop northward toward the Ohio River - toward the flood wall - and finally reached 3rd Avenue and the area known as Pullman Plaza.

Pullman seems the surviving heart of downtown Huntington, thumping away amid a surrounding mass of dying flesh….

It’s a couple of blocks long and a busy block thick. When I arrived, about 6 PM, young people still lined the small green space on the outer 3rd Avenue side. I watched as groups of kids boarded the free bus shuttle that took them between the Marshall University campus and Pullman Square. And I wondered about that free shuttle.

A nice idea… but who footed the bill? And why?

The idea that it might not be safe to walk the 6 or 7 blocks from the campus to Pullman Square kept coming to mind.

I remembered the Marshals at the Courthouse mentioning the 4 or so murders in downtown Huntington so far this summer and the drunk I had passed on 4th Avenue about 7 PM the night before. I recalled the solid row of clubs with darkened windows lining the south side of 4th Avenue between 8th and 9th Streets. And the flashing light show that I could see from the north side of that same block visible as I returned to my car a bit after 11 that same night. The lights sparked and lit the top floor where I could only imagine a club raved. I guessed the darkened entrances did not necessarily lead to ground level bars but perhaps to stairs or elevators that would zip one up to the real activity.

Not that there’s a thing wrong with having a good time. Clubs and parties are fine. But amid the otherwise empty buildings and general absence of any security presence (more about that in a bit…) and the fact that TPTB felt a free shuttle necessary to move kids from an area about a block from the ‘club zone’ (my name, not Huntington’s); amid all these facts… I wondered.

But I could not resolve my questions and walked up 9th toward the area where in my memory all the places I had once held dear still clustered: Post Office, Nick’s News, Library, 5th Avenue Hotel (never a ‘nice’ place, never glamorous, but always an intriguing building about which I made stories when I was a kid - creating a fictional set of residents who lived there - still do in my imagination).

The Library is now a College of some sort, the Post Office may still be a Post Office - it seemed a bit unclear what was going on in there…, Nick’s News is now the site of the new Library (not a bad exchange) and the 5th Avenue Hotel is now a training facility and residence for… well, I’m not sure, actually, although I suppose the generic term ‘underprivileged’ might apply.

I walked past the Hotel and continued along 9th Street past empty ground floor shops that had clearly been empty for a long time. Some had woodworking materials inside suggesting use as part of the training programs, but many were simply empty. I had parked my car near the only business still functioning on the entire block, another bar with blacked windows. And since I had not bothered to feed the meter in about 7 hours I more or less anticipated a parking ticket, but no, nothing.

Which made me think of the absence of any sign of police/ security. Decades ago the police department was a part of the city building across from the county courthouse, but in the last decade it had moved into what had back in the day been a dress factory along 10th Street flush against 7th Avenue. A huge building covering more than half a city block, it suggested a massive police force… but I had not seen one officer during my stay.

In the little village where I live I see police on 24 hour patrol looping around the place - a presence even when they are not visible. During fair days and special events (John McCane passed through in 2008) one of the younger officers zips around 8 or 9 feet off the ground on a Segway scooter. Even when I can’t see them, I know they are there if I need them.

But in Huntington… I don’t know…. The place had a odd ‘vibe.’

I just hope things turn around for the place. But as I left I traveled a street I had not visited on this trip, a block of boarded up buildings leading to the 8th Street viaduct. And sadly, that’s what I remember right now, rows of empty buildings, both commercial and residential, some with foreclosure signs, some with for sale signs, but many just empty. The apartment my Aunt Dorothy lived for 30 years was still occupied but the houses on each side showed boarded windows and foreclosure signs.

So I left Huntington.

I still love the place, but it’s the city I knew years ago that holds my heart, not what it has become. But it can renew. It doesn’t have to remain a desolate empty place. I’ll visit over the next few years. I’ll be interested to see how things improve.

* * * * *

On the way home I stopped at a Chinese place I had favored during my last visit (10 years ago, I suppose…) and had supper as a massive downpour passed through.

Awful. Overcooked and flyspecked.

But it filled the belly. I even had some of the chocolate pudding which, I suppose, is equivalent to eating plastic and raw sugar. But any fly feces in the pudding didn’t seem to affect the flavor - chocolatish and sweet.

The chicken, although overcooked (and probably nutritionally dead), had a slight chickeny flavor, so I ate a good bit of that. And the green beans, looking sad, soggy and faintly angry, had a salty greenish flavor that reminded me of food. So I did OK.

But the music…! What I had taken upon entering as a kind of generic elevator pop, revealed itself over my visit as christian pop, a nonstop drone of noise celebrating generic non-heathen…. Well, let’s just say it got old fast….

Eventually the rain stopped - at least enough for me to trundle to my car without being soaked. I paid and left. And as I left a small truck pulled up in front of the place and the entire clan from the restaurant came out and gathered around peering inside…. At what, I wondered? I have an odd sense of peace knowing I will never know. Some things are best left as mysteries….

Jim FitzPatrick, 2010 09-07

Freddy and his human

For reasons that elude me I have found myself drifting through one of my MST3000 cycles - where I watch awful movies just to hear a guy and a couple of robots cracking wise. The latest epic, Racket Girls, concerns professional women’s wrestling in the days before silicone implants. Hard to image such times….

But that’s not what I want to discuss today. To clear my pallet (still jaded from the Racket Girls of the previous night…) I went for a walk across the Little Miami River into Terrace Park. I ambled across the bridge snapping pictures as fast as I could (of dogs driving cars, plants growing out of concrete, hundreds of electric cars all parked in a cluster - the sort of thing one always sees around here) and after a time came upon two more pedestrians, a large dog and his human.

I asked permission to snap a pic (using low tech real film, naturally) to which the dog agreed with a woofing shrug. By that time I had gotten close enough for my eyes to slip into a semblance of focus (I’m still not wearing my glasses most of the time - and the world looks better for it…) and noticed that his human had copper colored hair with slight fluorescent overtones. Interesting….

The dog introduced himself as Theodore (‘but you can call me Teddy’) of the Bernese Mountain family. And his human he named as Brianna.

“Brianna,” I asked. “Is that a real name or a taken name?”

Real, of course.

Nifty.

By this time Teddy already seemed a bit restless, but he seemed willing to let the humans interact. He settled in the shade as we humans chatted.

I snapped another picture. This one of his human’s tattoo - one of his human’s tattoos, she had several - of a cat in a stained glass window setting (it turns out that her father makes stained glass creations).

Teddy made a grumbling sound at the mention of a cat - or rather of a cat tattoo - but being a Bernese Mountain dog and thus a creature of enormous good nature, he made no other complaint.

And it turned out that Teddy’s human was not his permanent companion, but a person who’s day job it is to assist doggies when their everyday companions are not available. Which may explain Teddy’s willingness to tolerate such oddness as a CAT tattoo.

Other tattoos included a dragon on the left shoulder and an unidentified flower like object in the upper mid back - all of which the human had designed herself and had a friend inscribe upon the canvas of her skin.

Quite nice, actually.

No visible piercings however - not even a dangle from an ear lobe. Odd….

After a few minutes conversation, Teddy rose and suggested he must be on with his constitutional. Polite but insistent.

With a nod to the two of them, I moved along and began my loop back to Milford.

Not a bad walk, actually….

Jim FitzPatrick, 2010 09-06

Postscript: As I reread this little blog, I realized that it seems a bit… well, ‘odd’ seems the right word. I wrote it after a 90 minute walk in the late morning as the temperature pushed upwards of 85 and I proceeded to leak a quart or three of water from the pores of my skin.

Now I’m of Celtic ancestry, pale of skin and moody of character, and I believe I wrote this essay under the influence of dehydration and borderline overheating.

Or maybe not…. Still an odd essay though….

Ken Heckler

Yesterday I began an account of my Saturday in Huntington from a few weeks ago.

By the time I left off, I had spent a couple of hours in the Library and had drifted into musings about young couples and vampires.

Perhaps the more thoughtful among you noticed that the noon hour had passed without me reporting the slightest hint of hunger or taking time for a nosh.

— And what actually happened?

I forgot to eat and by the time I felt my stomach rumble a bit it was already early afternoon. Might as well wait for dinner….

So I focused on my maps and telephone books and the next thing I noticed was a not particularly loud loudspeaker announcement that “Former congressman Ken Heckler will deliver a lecture….”

Dr. Heckler was running for the Senate to replace Robert Byrd, who had died at age 92 after 50 years as one of West Virginia’s Senators. Senator Byrd had managed to travel the long path beginning as a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s and filibustering against the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and yet somehow by 2001 he had rejected his previous views. Of course he also voted against Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court…, but I can imagine all sorts of not-racist reasons for that decision…, believing that Anita Hill told the truth being one…. And, anyway, Byrd played bluegrass fiddle, so he couldn’t be all bad…. Right?

I wandered up to the 3rd floor where I found Dr. H (PhD from Columbia University in History and Government) hosting perhaps a dozen listeners. I slipped into a seat and listened as he discussed his primary topic - the one he based his campaign upon - the removal of mountain tops to pull out coal and other minerals. His point is simple. You can’t reclaim such an insanely radical operation. As he says, (I’m paraphrasing…) ‘Once you have the ground saturated with acid, reclamation becomes impossible.’ And you get acid run off from ALL mountain top removal operations. So reclamation is a fantasy….

Since I now live in Ohio I can’t vote in West Virginia. Although when I was a lad, the motto in WV was, ‘Vote Early. Vote Often.’ And both parties enjoyed a strategy by which they voted the graveyards, an actual procedure that swayed more than one election. More sophisticated techniques included driving potential voters to a polling place and accompanying them into the booth to ‘assist’ in filling out the ballet. Afterwards, the voter would either received a pint of some liquid refreshment for his/ her efforts or move on to the next polling place and vote again. It all depended upon the contract previously arranged between the contractees.

But as I say, things have changed. There are fewer dead people still on the polls and voting more than once is frowned upon in most areas of the state. Had I tried to vote I might even have been challenged, although I suppose I might have given my address from 35 years ago - might have worked….

Anyway, I listened with awe to Dr. H’s speech and went up after to introduce myself.

Some 45 years ago I had participated in one of the good Docs Week in Washington programs, although in typical fashion I had managed not to win the essay contest and rather than an actual week I received a Day in Washington (which included a fascinating train ride from Huntington to Washington).

Toward the end of the day, irritable and tired, I was ‘rude’ to Strom Thurmond asking him about racial relations in his state (South Carolina) and making noises indicative of disbelief when he told me there were no problems. Of course, in this one case I was right and Strom was wrong… but I still should not have been rude…. I hoped Ken had not received any difficulties back from my misdemeanor. He said it hadn’t.

I really wanted to talk to Ken (I guess I’m a fan boy…) and somehow the conversation looped to history and Ken told me that during his ramblings over West Virginia during this campaign for the Senate he had met the last surviving American who had served in WWI, one Frank Buckles, now living over in Charles Town, WV in the Eastern edge of the state. Not knowing how to respond (a not untypical thing for me) but not wanting to show my ignorance I muttered something about the longevity of Civil War vets vs WWI vets and made the mistake to suggest Civil War vets had survived longer than WWI vets.

Without any rancor, Ken corrected me, explaining that the last confirmed Civil War vet had died in 1956 at about 108 or so, more or less the same age as Frank B (he’s 109 now). The point being that maximum longevity didn’t seem to have changed over the past 150 years or so.

Ken added that he figures he should manage one, maybe two, terms in the Senate before he has to retire.

(Regrettably, in the 28 August 2010 special election, the democratic party of West Virginia decided they wanted the present governor to run for the Senate in November ‘10 rather than Ken. However, some 17.3% voted for Dr. Heckler. Not bad for a guy who would be 96 by the time they swore him in….)

Afte Doc H finally peeled myself away from me (he had to return to the capital for an evening campaign activity), I returned refreshed to my cubby hole where I transferred from my telephone books to newspaper archives.

Interesting how little news one actually found in newspapers back then…. But actually the ads and prices grabbed my interest more than facts - except for a few curious events including a murder outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan which may (or may not) have been a serial killing. I scanned quite a few papers, but had to leave of with the police looking for ‘a young man on a motorcycle.’ Friends reported last seeing the deceased young woman boarding the young man's bike and the couple zipping off.

And then at 5 the library closed without me finding out the conclusion of the story. Luckily I don’t have to know the ending. I know enough to use the outline in my next NaNoWriMo story - although it is a bit grimmer than I like….

Jim FitzPatrick, 2010 01-29

After the renuion

I returned to my home town a couple of weeks ago for my High School reunion. I’ve written about how I might quell my anxiety - and I suppose it worked since I enjoyed the evening I spent with this group of strangers I had (more or less) known all those years ago.

The next day I spent in Huntington's old downtown. I parked on 9th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues, now a row of empty store fronts. There was a bar that might have been open, but I could not be sure given the blacked out windows.

As I dropped a quarter into the parking meter I could see the old Pritchard hotel looming against the partly clouded sky. The day was becoming hot and the morning clouds began to dissipate. As I positioned myself for a picture, I noticed way up to the 9th floor where a cluster of boarded up windows - one still with an air conditioner in the window - gave the place a desolate look.

— I must admit that at that moment I remembered the movie, Let the Right One In, and gave myself a shiver wondering who or what lived behind those darkened windows….

I spent the next hour or so wandering a few city blocks comparing the pictures in my head (from the late 1960s) to the present reality before ending up at the Court House. After taking a couple of pictures (real ones with a camera and film), I went up to the door where a little sign declared the place closed on the weekends. I peered inside and to my surprise a face loomed before me waving me to enter.

So I went in and through the security screening. I managed to make the buzzer buzz, but the guard just said, “It just your shoes. Been happening all day. Go on and vote.”

Vote? On Saturday?

It seems 'they' (The Powers That Be) had opened the Court House for early voting (as part of the process to determine who would replace the late Senator Robert Byrd).

The security guys turned out to be Marshals of the Court, not Rent-A-Cops nor even City Police. I'm sure these differences are important....

One of them turned out to have graduated from HS the same year as had I - only from Huntington East High, rather than Huntington High - nice guy despite that….

So, over the course of the next half hour or so we swapped stories - or rather they told me stories. There was one about the Huntington tradition of running disreputables out of town… but, no, I’m probably going to use it for NaNoWriMo this year (and I’m still considering that boarded window in the Pritchard hotel…), so you will have to wait.

I left after they ran the strange fellow out of the rose garden (he was picking - or perhaps just trimming? - the roses)…

“Oh, him,” one of the Marshals said, distaste grumbling his voice. “That guy's a weird duck. We see him all the time. A child molester….”

… just as the pizza arrived…

... and I spent the afternoon in the library.

In my red journal I have pages of addresses (and phone numbers…) that I gathered from the 1968 Telephone Book (which came out new each November…). Anderson-Newcomb, Nick’s News (& Card Shop), Star Book Store, Tradewell Super Markets (5 throughout the city), Bailey’s Cafeteria (410-9th Street), Long’s Parkette (across from Marshall U on 5th Avenue), the Bazaar, WT Grant, New China Restaurant, UpTowner Inn (with the Hawaiian Luau each weekend), White Panty (beside Nick’s, across from the old Public Library), the Milner Hotel (with not exactly a good rep…), Cinema Theater (previously the Orpheum), the Keith-Albee, the Palace, the Princess Shop (popular, I believe, with the Marshall co-ed), Vapo Baths & Massages (hmm…), Ward’s Doughnuts, George H. Wright (whose namesake died crashing his Corvette on Rt. 60E), VW of Huntington (on 4th Avenue - hard to believe how many car dealers were in-town back then…), Hez Ward Buick, Egnor’s Barbershop (owned by brothers of Dagmar…), Davidson’s Record Shop….

The list goes on.

Most of these places have long since disappeared. George H. Wright’s men’s shop still exists, as do all three movie theaters, although the Keith-Albee seems to only host special concerts and events (it’s now an historic site, I believe), but the rest… all memories - well, OK, I have no memory of the Vapo Baths…, but Ward’s Doughnuts…? You betcha….

I also spent a good time while in the Library peering at maps from before the last decade (or so) of urban renewal (or whatever they call it now…) trying to visualize the layering of the city from some 40 years ago.

16th Street/ Hal Greer Boulevard is unrecognizable - I will have more to say about THAT later - except for that row of low income housing TPTB somehow allowed to survive. As I drove up and down that main drive (my motel was down that-away) I realized I couldn’t visualize how I used to loop around the area on my bicycle….

No, that’s not quite right. I could visualize it, but I couldn’t find it.

Back in the day (c 1969 or so), 16th Street/ Hal Greer butted up against Rte 10. The minute I passed the boundaries of the city, the road would narrow and, amid the rural greenery, become the wandering way to Logan, WV. And just before its southern terminus 16th Street branched left and east into a series of twisting residential streets which led, incidentally, up to the small, almost European, plaza (or should I say, piazza) with a tiny movie theatre that (back then) was the city’s only hope to see an art film…. I also remember the 5 or 6 cornered intersection with a European pharmacy that, in my memory, had a clean European feel.

As a kid, I loved the odd times we would drive past that area. I have no idea why…. Later, I might bike up there, still a kid, but now more or less post pubescent, usually just poking around and more or less by mistake I would surprise myself. Then I would stop and walk around the place. I’m sure something will happen in that area in my next book…. Probably nothing mysterious, maybe just a couple walking arm in arm along the street - when suddenly a piece of space debris crashes into the steeple of the corner church… or a vampire [one of those guys from that room in the Pritchard hotel!] comes gliding from the darkness to the shadowy pavement.

Or maybe not….

Jim FitzPatrick, 2010 08-28

Active vs passive

Yesterday I discussed the Passive Voice and even defined it… kinda.

“A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.”

Which is about as clear as mud, to quote my Nana.

But our friends from Chapel Hill, North Carolina (from whom I stole this definition) didn’t stop there. They actually gave an example:

“Why was the road crossed by the chicken?”

A logical question perhaps, yet expressed in the passive voice. And we know it’s PV because it’s the chicken who did the work - who crossed the road. And yet the road is the subject of the sentence.

OK, so now we have something to work with. A passive construction MUST have that ‘to be’ verb as I was told a while back, but it must also have a past participle.

And a past participle is pretty much any verb that ends in ‘-ed’ (or equivalent = ‘paid’ is the example UNC uses).

So in the example from a few sentences above we have the ‘to be’ verb ‘was’ followed (eventually) by the past participle ‘crossed’ which equals the dreaded Passive Voice.

But UNC goes on to point out a few other things.

First, using the Passive Voice is NOT a grammatical error. It just tends to reduce the clarity and ‘power’ of your writing.

Second, using a ‘to be’ verb does NOT automatically create the Passive Voice.

And third, sometimes the passive voice is OK.

They (the folks at UNC) go on to give examples and further details and if you are interested here is their website:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html

They go on for a good bit pondering how to change the PV to the AV and when it might be OK to use the PV and even give you a list of further reading if you’re really interested, a list that includes the ubiquitous book by Strunk and White (of course) and a book with the intriguing title of Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.

Well, enough of that….

Jim FitzPatrick 2010 08-27