Anne E.'s Journal Mar 12, 2008

ANNE E.'S JOURNAL -March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008
Hello to you all from snowy snowy Cleveland. More snow than the blizzard of 1978 but much less wind. People are actually voting to see which storm was worse. Anyway it was a lot of snow. I had to reschedule my show at Jimmys which was originally set for last Friday. I didnt think it was a good idea to travel to Cuyahoga Falls with the snow coming down like it was and no plans for it to stop. Also, I heard that Route 8 was closed. When I woke up on Saturday I knew I had made the right choice. So my last show at Jimmys is this Wednesday, March 12 @ 7:30p.m. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Pete and I will be there to entertain and to say thank you and farewell to Jimmys. Call for reservations. 330.923.3660
Heres what happened on Saturday night. I came home from an evening of visiting my sister and her kids, thats Tony, Hannah, Isabella and George We played their new game Rock Star which I must say I sort of stink at. Nonetheless, I argued that I still had another turn coming several times that evening. So anyway after that embarrassment I drove home. I drove up to my drive and took a look at the snow in the apron. It was obvious that the citys plow had once again plowed; clearing the streets and making it impossible to get out to the street without an hour or two of shoveling. It was pretty d*** high. But you know, Ive always considered myself pretty great at getting out of snow while driving. I use the forward, reverse technique and let momentum do its thing. It has always worked for me. So heres what the little genius did....I approached my driveway from across the street so I could get a straight line into the very narrow entrance. I counted it down then I gunned it. Well, it could have been a crash test for Ford because I hit that snow harder than heck and came to a halt. Lets just say Im glad I wear my seatbelt. I thought Alright, start the rocking (not on the CD player). So forward reverse I went. Forward, reverse, forward, reverse, forward, reverse. There was hope in the air the whole time. Then I smelled burning rubber and was no longer moving...anywhere. It smelled like a NASCAR track. So I got out to take a look. I was stuck.

Guess who does not own a shovel. I live in a world of one-bedroom apartments where a magic guy otherwise known as a landlord takes care of things like snow. And if I happen to run into a situation like this, Im convinced that surely my landlord has left a shovel on the front porch or in the basement. But each time Ive looked Ive not found one. Have I bought a shovel? I walked to the neighbors house to find a shovel. There was just one light on in their front room so I knew they were asleep. I thought about ways around this but I guess the fact that there isnt a way around it is why they invented the shovel. So I called Colleen and said, Can you bring me a shovel? We shoveled for the next hour. We shoveled behind the wheels, in front of the wheels on the sides of the wheels. I tried again, forward, reverse, forward, reverse, forward, the smell of burning rubber, reverse. Then I heard a clicking sound. I saw no outline around the F (forward) or the R ( reverse). Oh no there goes the transmission. Ive dropped the transmission. Now I was upset. But I hoped that I was wrong. I saw that we needed to get the snow out from under the car. So we shoveled some more. All the while I kept commenting how lucky we were that this was the cream wheat looking light fluffy snow. Its fun to lift snow over a five foot wall isnt it? We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled some more. Finally it looked good. The transmission was not gone and I got out. What a relief. So maybe I wont try drag racing anymore when it comes to getting up my drive....And maybe Ill buy a shovel.

All of this got me to thinking about the many adventures I have had in the snow. Most of them occurred when I was a kid.

Of course there was mine and my friend Kyles (the friend I mentioned in a prior story who used to swear and spit a lot and call me a name that sort of rhymes with LaRouche) snow shoveling business. We had flyers that his mom copied for us at her job and we distributed them up and down the street. We made quite a fine living the two of us. We used to compete with a kid named Pete who was about 3 years older than us. We worked our cans off just so at the end of the day we could report a greater earning than Pete. I think we both would add couple of bucks to our tally. Pete also had a dog named Tippy. He was competitive about Tippy too. He would pit Tippy against our dogs or any dog in the neighborhood claiming that she could take any other dog in a fight. It was ridiculous Anyway, back to my first business...When my brother began to drive and had access to a snowplow, we competed with him. I used to yell at him coming up the street screaming, Get out. We were here first Rob He infuriated me. That was one of my first experience as an entrepreneur, the competition, the annoying personalities/quirks of your competitors and lots of hard work.

Then, of course there was ski jogging. Some of you refer to it as bumper skiing but that was always too literal for me. Ski jogging was one of the highlights of my winter. Many kids were not allowed to ski jog. I have no idea why I was allowed to do this. I mean are you kidding me? Think of the myriad of ways to die my mother could come up with for this scenario. I really dont know why I was allowed to ski jog. Anyway, over half the neighborhood was out for this activity. There were about five of us. Kyle was always there. We would hide in the little ditch in front of the homes on our street and wait for a car to back out of its drive. Then wed stealthily sneak to the back of the car, grab on to the bumper and off we went. Oh heaven I absolutely loved it. We used to count how many rides we accumulated over the course of a winter. Sometimes my brother would let me grab on to the back of my dads truck (my dad would have to have been sleeping). He would rip down the street and go from side to side trying to knock me off. After a huge storm we would sometimes take the opportunity to ski jog down one of the main drags in town...bliss I tell you bliss

Im sure many of you are thinking about how dangerous this is and youre right it is. Childhood is full of danger for sure. Thats why its childhood, we do, do, do without thinking about what stands between us and a good time.

Another thing we used to do was throw snowballs at cars, creatively named bombing cars. Bombing cars is a lot like the yelling at (or judging of) people in cars that some of us do as adults. You get angry at someone because of something theyve done to you: cut you off, tailgated, driven slowly in the fast lane, stolen the pregnant ladies parking space from you at Giant Eagle etc. Then one day you find yourself doing to someone else, what youve been complaining about. They get angry at you and you think, Just settle downor Whats your problem? Yes, Im 5 months pregnant . Its like that with bombing cars. If a kid hit my car today I would be really pissed. Sometimes I just see a group of kids and I think, they better not. If youre the kid though, your just thinking how funny it is.

So my friends and I would hide in the woods behind our houses, at the end of the street where Beck Rd. meets Electric Blvd. which is a main drag in Avon Lake. Wed wait in the snow behind trees, in the dark. When a car came trucking down Electric Blvd., off the bombs went. Now this was the time of snow suits and Moon Boots my friends. Lets face it, we didnt look nearly as cool as kids today but I think we thought we did. Remember Moon Boots? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_boot They had this foamy sock-like thing that slipped into a fashionable outer shell, with stripes and the shells laced up. You couldnt tell the left from the right foot. They were super warm. I was quite fond of them and I had me self I nice blue pair..

Anyway, we'd be out in the woods in our snow suits and Moon Boots waiting. A car would come into range and wed flick out some fast ones and get ready to run. Most of the time cars would slow down and then roll on. But once in a while some crazy drunk guy coming home from The Lear Road Inn would slam on his brakes and stop completely. Thats when the mayhem commenced. Off we would run into the woods. I would laugh my head off the entire time. I think in the back of my head I thought, What are they going to do to me? They wont hurt me. Im just a kid...and Im a girl Ah the double standard does come in handy sometimes. So anyway, off wed go.

One night one such barfly was coming down Electric in white van. Well, talk about a great target. So much real estate. How could you miss? We did not miss. Suddenly the brakes sounded and that van, in spite of the snow, came to a screeching halt. A guy got out (Im not sure if beer cans fell out of the van) and screamed at us in a slurred and almost foreign tongue. We took off. This was serious. I mean a drunk guy might not even be able to figure out I was a girl. I probably had my brothers ski mask on after all. How would he know? Anyway we took off and in spite of his anger, I found the situation hysterical. I ran and ran through a foot of snow until I ran right out of my Moon Boots. All that was left were the two foam insides. I preceded then to wet my pants. This happened on more than one occasion. This was really serious (I mean the guy chasing us not me wetting my pants) but I just couldnt control myself. This guy and another guy were chasing us. Now I did not remember this part until recently. I was reminded when, a few weeks ago, I got together for the first time in many years with two of my childhood friends, Bobby and Jeffrey. They were two of four boys who lived with their mother down the street from me. I loved them and spent tons of time with them. They were younger than I so I was usually the instigator of these Ozzie and Harriet-like activities.

Anyway we were around the kitchen table talking about this night when Bobby asked, Remember when those two guys chased us and we had to hide under a bridge? I was like, What?. Remember, he said, They were right next to us and Jeff was breathing really hard and we had to cover his mouth? It all came back to me. Two guys?! There were small bridges behind most of the houses on our street that ran over a drainage ditch. We had to hide from these guys under one of these. By that time in the chase, it wasnt funny to me anymore. I remember crouching down under the bridge and listening to the two guys discussing where we might be. It was pretty scary. We crouched their, wide eyed, with our hands over Jeffreys mouth and nose, me shell-less and in wet pants, waiting. Guess what. They gave up They gave up. Lets face it, they had to be drunk. Who wouldnt look under the bridge? Lets hope they never joined the Army.

Anyway, Bobby and Jeff brought it all back to me. We made it out alive. The two never found us and Jeffrey managed to remain conscious.... I did go back and find the shells of my Moon Boots.

I have one more for you. It involves my brother Rob. The year was 1976, the year of the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, the year of Dorothy Hammel. The decade when we first saw The Agony of Defeat on Wide World of Sports...
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport The thrill of victory...and the agony of defeat The human drama of athletic competition This is ABC's Wide World of Sports
Slovene ski jumper (or flyer to which was sometimes referred) named Vinko Bogataj was the guy in that video. He wiped out in 1970 at the The World Ski Flying Championship.

So winter sports were huge. And so was the Dorothy Hammels haircut. My brother liked the ski jumping event...a lot. One day I went out into our back yard and saw yet another of the contraptions that he had invented over the course of our childhood. Our picnic table and its benches had become The Bergisel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergisel) .
He had managed to somehow prop them up and lead them in one smooth line from the ground up to the roof of our garage. It was a wooden ramp covered with a slick layer of snow. Then in the garage I spotted the skis. I think this was at a time before Brandywine and Boston Mills opened (I think they opened in 1979) and when flying was not common place so that we did not easily travel to places like Colorado and Utah to ski. Or maybe I was just middle class. Whatever the reason, we didnt have snow skis at our house (now that I think of it, guess who did have snow skis...Remember where I wanted to run away to? My Aunt Bonnies They had skis and they did go to Colorado ). The skis that my brother now owned, he had constructed himself. Two pieces of wood, some silver spray paint and your dads old belt (straps), and you had a pair of skis. So there it was, the jump, the skis, the year of the XII Winter Olympics.

Believe it or not I never saw him jump. I dont know where I was or how I missed it but I did. I dont think the mom block would apply here. My brother was a little more crafty than me and probably found a way to keep the information from my mother before she could go on about the Agony of Defeat and explain that the fall had almost killed Vinko Bogataj, and that meant almost certain death to my brother if he attempted the jump. Im guessing the jump took place long before she knew that the picnic table, once an innocent place for a family barbecue had become a death ramp
Thats just a few I can think of as I sit here. Im sure youve got some whoppers of your own and Ill no doubt read some of them soon. I hope you liked these.

Heres this weeks line up:

Wed., March 12 - My dads birthday and Jimmys Caf @ 7:30p.m. - Acoustic duo with Pete Cavano and Anne E. Call ahead to make reservations.

Friday, March 14 @ 7p.m. - Joseph Beth Books, @ Legacy Village, 24519 Cedar Road, Cleveland OH, 216.691.7000 - Acoustic duo with Pete Cavano. Great chance for children to catch a show.

Sat., March 15 @ 8p.m. - Thorncreek Winery - Acoustic duo with Anne E. and Pete

Sunday, March 16 @ 6:06p.m. - CrossRoads Contemporary Service at the Avon Lake United Church of Christ.

Remember, March 21st is my last show in Cleveland before moving to Nashville. It will be at The Winchester in Lakewood @ 9p.m. Lots of friends will join me that night for a very special performance. You can reserve tickets at www.anneedechant.com General Admission Tickets are available for $10.00. Reserved seating is SOLD OUT. Your tickets will be waiting for you at the door.

Well thats it from here. I hope youre all shoveled out by now and warm. I hope to see you soon

Take it easy and no bombing cars ...Unless youre 12 or under.

Anne E.


	ANNE E.'S JOURNAL -March 12, 2008
		March 12, 2008 Hello to you all from snowy snowy Cleveland. More snow than the blizzard of 1978 but much less wind. People are actually voting to see which storm was worse. Anyway it was a lot of snow. I had to reschedule my show at Jimmys which was originally set for last Friday. I didnt think it was a good idea to travel to Cuyahoga Falls with the snow coming down like it was and no plans for it to stop. Also, I heard that Route 8 was closed. When I woke up on Saturday I knew I had made the right choice. So my last show at Jimmys is this Wednesday, March 12 @ 7:30p.m. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Pete and I will be there to entertain and to say thank you and farewell to Jimmys. Call for reservations. 330.923.3660 Heres what happened on Saturday night. I came home from an evening of visiting my sister and her kids, thats Tony, Hannah, Isabella and George We played their new game Rock Star which I must say I sort of stink at. Nonetheless, I argued that I still had another turn coming several times that evening. So anyway after that embarrassment I drove home. I drove up to my drive and took a look at the snow in the apron. It was obvious that the citys plow had once again plowed; clearing the streets and making it impossible to get out to the street without an hour or two of shoveling. It was pretty d*** high. But you know, Ive always considered myself pretty great at getting out of snow while driving. I use the forward, reverse technique and let momentum do its thing. It has always worked for me. So heres what the little genius did....I approached my driveway from across the street so I could get a straight line into the very narrow entrance. I counted it down then I gunned it. Well, it could have been a crash test for Ford because I hit that snow harder than heck and came to a halt. Lets just say Im glad I wear my seatbelt. I thought Alright, start the rocking (not on the CD player). So forward reverse I went. Forward, reverse, forward, reverse, forward, reverse. There was hope in the air the whole time. Then I smelled burning rubber and was no longer moving...anywhere. It smelled like a NASCAR track. So I got out to take a look. I was stuck. Guess who does not own a shovel. I live in a world of one-bedroom apartments where a magic guy otherwise known as a landlord takes care of things like snow. And if I happen to run into a situation like this, Im convinced that surely my landlord has left a shovel on the front porch or in the basement. But each time Ive looked Ive not found one. Have I bought a shovel? I walked to the neighbors house to find a shovel. There was just one light on in their front room so I knew they were asleep. I thought about ways around this but I guess the fact that there isnt a way around it is why they invented the shovel. So I called Colleen and said, Can you bring me a shovel? We shoveled for the next hour. We shoveled behind the wheels, in front of the wheels on the sides of the wheels. I tried again, forward, reverse, forward, reverse, forward, the smell of burning rubber, reverse. Then I heard a clicking sound. I saw no outline around the F (forward) or the R ( reverse). Oh no there goes the transmission. Ive dropped the transmission. Now I was upset. But I hoped that I was wrong. I saw that we needed to get the snow out from under the car. So we shoveled some more. All the while I kept commenting how lucky we were that this was the cream wheat looking light fluffy snow. Its fun to lift snow over a five foot wall isnt it? We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled some more. Finally it looked good. The transmission was not gone and I got out. What a relief. So maybe I wont try drag racing anymore when it comes to getting up my drive....And maybe Ill buy a shovel. All of this got me to thinking about the many adventures I have had in the snow. Most of them occurred when I was a kid. Of course there was mine and my friend Kyles (the friend I mentioned in a prior story who used to swear and spit a lot and call me a name that sort of rhymes with LaRouche) snow shoveling business. We had flyers that his mom copied for us at her job and we distributed them up and down the street. We made quite a fine living the two of us. We used to compete with a kid named Pete who was about 3 years older than us. We worked our cans off just so at the end of the day we could report a greater earning than Pete. I think we both would add couple of bucks to our tally. Pete also had a dog named Tippy. He was competitive about Tippy too. He would pit Tippy against our dogs or any dog in the neighborhood claiming that she could take any other dog in a fight. It was ridiculous Anyway, back to my first business...When my brother began to drive and had access to a snowplow, we competed with him. I used to yell at him coming up the street screaming, Get out. We were here first Rob He infuriated me. That was one of my first experience as an entrepreneur, the competition, the annoying personalities/quirks of your competitors and lots of hard work. Then, of course there was ski jogging. Some of you refer to it as bumper skiing but that was always too literal for me. Ski jogging was one of the highlights of my winter. Many kids were not allowed to ski jog. I have no idea why I was allowed to do this. I mean are you kidding me? Think of the myriad of ways to die my mother could come up with for this scenario. I really dont know why I was allowed to ski jog. Anyway, over half the neighborhood was out for this activity. There were about five of us. Kyle was always there. We would hide in the little ditch in front of the homes on our street and wait for a car to back out of its drive. Then wed stealthily sneak to the back of the car, grab on to the bumper and off we went. Oh heaven I absolutely loved it. We used to count how many rides we accumulated over the course of a winter. Sometimes my brother would let me grab on to the back of my dads truck (my dad would have to have been sleeping). He would rip down the street and go from side to side trying to knock me off. After a huge storm we would sometimes take the opportunity to ski jog down one of the main drags in town...bliss I tell you bliss Im sure many of you are thinking about how dangerous this is and youre right it is. Childhood is full of danger for sure. Thats why its childhood, we do, do, do without thinking about what stands between us and a good time. Another thing we used to do was throw snowballs at cars, creatively named bombing cars. Bombing cars is a lot like the yelling at (or judging of) people in cars that some of us do as adults. You get angry at someone because of something theyve done to you: cut you off, tailgated, driven slowly in the fast lane, stolen the pregnant ladies parking space from you at Giant Eagle etc. Then one day you find yourself doing to someone else, what youve been complaining about. They get angry at you and you think, Just settle downor Whats your problem? Yes, Im 5 months pregnant . Its like that with bombing cars. If a kid hit my car today I would be really pissed. Sometimes I just see a group of kids and I think, they better not. If youre the kid though, your just thinking how funny it is. So my friends and I would hide in the woods behind our houses, at the end of the street where Beck Rd. meets Electric Blvd. which is a main drag in Avon Lake. Wed wait in the snow behind trees, in the dark. When a car came trucking down Electric Blvd., off the bombs went. Now this was the time of snow suits and Moon Boots my friends. Lets face it, we didnt look nearly as cool as kids today but I think we thought we did. Remember Moon Boots? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_boot They had this foamy sock-like thing that slipped into a fashionable outer shell, with stripes and the shells laced up. You couldnt tell the left from the right foot. They were super warm. I was quite fond of them and I had me self I nice blue pair.. Anyway, we'd be out in the woods in our snow suits and Moon Boots waiting. A car would come into range and wed flick out some fast ones and get ready to run. Most of the time cars would slow down and then roll on. But once in a while some crazy drunk guy coming home from The Lear Road Inn would slam on his brakes and stop completely. Thats when the mayhem commenced. Off we would run into the woods. I would laugh my head off the entire time. I think in the back of my head I thought, What are they going to do to me? They wont hurt me. Im just a kid...and Im a girl Ah the double standard does come in handy sometimes. So anyway, off wed go. One night one such barfly was coming down Electric in white van. Well, talk about a great target. So much real estate. How could you miss? We did not miss. Suddenly the brakes sounded and that van, in spite of the snow, came to a screeching halt. A guy got out (Im not sure if beer cans fell out of the van) and screamed at us in a slurred and almost foreign tongue. We took off. This was serious. I mean a drunk guy might not even be able to figure out I was a girl. I probably had my brothers ski mask on after all. How would he know? Anyway we took off and in spite of his anger, I found the situation hysterical. I ran and ran through a foot of snow until I ran right out of my Moon Boots. All that was left were the two foam insides. I preceded then to wet my pants. This happened on more than one occasion. This was really serious (I mean the guy chasing us not me wetting my pants) but I just couldnt control myself. This guy and another guy were chasing us. Now I did not remember this part until recently. I was reminded when, a few weeks ago, I got together for the first time in many years with two of my childhood friends, Bobby and Jeffrey. They were two of four boys who lived with their mother down the street from me. I loved them and spent tons of time with them. They were younger than I so I was usually the instigator of these Ozzie and Harriet-like activities. Anyway we were around the kitchen table talking about this night when Bobby asked, Remember when those two guys chased us and we had to hide under a bridge? I was like, What?. Remember, he said, They were right next to us and Jeff was breathing really hard and we had to cover his mouth? It all came back to me. Two guys?! There were small bridges behind most of the houses on our street that ran over a drainage ditch. We had to hide from these guys under one of these. By that time in the chase, it wasnt funny to me anymore. I remember crouching down under the bridge and listening to the two guys discussing where we might be. It was pretty scary. We crouched their, wide eyed, with our hands over Jeffreys mouth and nose, me shell-less and in wet pants, waiting. Guess what. They gave up They gave up. Lets face it, they had to be drunk. Who wouldnt look under the bridge? Lets hope they never joined the Army. Anyway, Bobby and Jeff brought it all back to me. We made it out alive. The two never found us and Jeffrey managed to remain conscious.... I did go back and find the shells of my Moon Boots. I have one more for you. It involves my brother Rob. The year was 1976, the year of the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, the year of Dorothy Hammel. The decade when we first saw The Agony of Defeat on Wide World of Sports... Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport The thrill of victory...and the agony of defeat The human drama of athletic competition This is ABC's Wide World of Sports Slovene ski jumper (or flyer to which was sometimes referred) named Vinko Bogataj was the guy in that video. He wiped out in 1970 at the The World Ski Flying Championship. So winter sports were huge. And so was the Dorothy Hammels haircut. My brother liked the ski jumping event...a lot. One day I went out into our back yard and saw yet another of the contraptions that he had invented over the course of our childhood. Our picnic table and its benches had become The Bergisel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergisel) . He had managed to somehow prop them up and lead them in one smooth line from the ground up to the roof of our garage. It was a wooden ramp covered with a slick layer of snow. Then in the garage I spotted the skis. I think this was at a time before Brandywine and Boston Mills opened (I think they opened in 1979) and when flying was not common place so that we did not easily travel to places like Colorado and Utah to ski. Or maybe I was just middle class. Whatever the reason, we didnt have snow skis at our house (now that I think of it, guess who did have snow skis...Remember where I wanted to run away to? My Aunt Bonnies They had skis and they did go to Colorado ). The skis that my brother now owned, he had constructed himself. Two pieces of wood, some silver spray paint and your dads old belt (straps), and you had a pair of skis. So there it was, the jump, the skis, the year of the XII Winter Olympics. Believe it or not I never saw him jump. I dont know where I was or how I missed it but I did. I dont think the mom block would apply here. My brother was a little more crafty than me and probably found a way to keep the information from my mother before she could go on about the Agony of Defeat and explain that the fall had almost killed Vinko Bogataj, and that meant almost certain death to my brother if he attempted the jump. Im guessing the jump took place long before she knew that the picnic table, once an innocent place for a family barbecue had become a death ramp Thats just a few I can think of as I sit here. Im sure youve got some whoppers of your own and Ill no doubt read some of them soon. I hope you liked these. Heres this weeks line up: Wed., March 12 - My dads birthday and Jimmys Caf @ 7:30p.m. - Acoustic duo with Pete Cavano and Anne E. Call ahead to make reservations. Friday, March 14 @ 7p.m. - Joseph Beth Books, @ Legacy Village, 24519 Cedar Road, Cleveland OH, 216.691.7000 - Acoustic duo with Pete Cavano. Great chance for children to catch a show. Sat., March 15 @ 8p.m. - Thorncreek Winery - Acoustic duo with Anne E. and Pete Sunday, March 16 @ 6:06p.m. - CrossRoads Contemporary Service at the Avon Lake United Church of Christ. Remember, March 21st is my last show in Cleveland before moving to Nashville. It will be at The Winchester in Lakewood @ 9p.m. Lots of friends will join me that night for a very special performance. You can reserve tickets at www.anneedechant.com General Admission Tickets are available for $10.00. Reserved seating is SOLD OUT. Your tickets will be waiting for you at the door. Well thats it from here. I hope youre all shoveled out by now and warm. I hope to see you soon Take it easy and no bombing cars ...Unless youre 12 or under. Anne E.