By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Moving
It was time to downsize. Add keepsakes from my 69 years, my parents, their parents, my wife and daughter … It is daunting deciding what stays, what goes.
Each photo and handwritten note was a talisman. I dwelt on them, felt this took forever, flung fists and bags full into dumpsters bound for Mt. Neverest.
We moved into an old downtown home where train wails echo across the Grand River and off bricks down narrow, graffitied alleys. The work and world vanished without Internet yet connected, the Outer crashed in and I celebrated. It was New Year’s Eve.
With 1/1/25 came snow and more to plow through at our ex-home. Expired foods in the fridge, brooms, dustpans, shovels, kitchen and bathroom bric-a-brac … Back and forth.
Between came bouts of unpacking in our new home and boredom waiting for Xfinity. I wanted to quote Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” but I’d pitched my old college paperback and all I remembered was “Nothing happened.”
To bide time, I read the Oxford English Dictionary through the magnifying glass provided. The 1934 then-New Edition compiled by J.R.R. Tolkien, et.al. began with “A” and that’s where I ended.
I unpacked, tuned and played a guitar. My fingertip calluses had grown soft and my playing was rusty. Remembering basic chord structures was enough for now.
What was near us? “Try your cell phone, Dad,” Flannery said. Nothing was faraway in the city. To eat: Choo Choo Grill, Chicago Style Gyros, Wing Kingz, Mike’s Wings, One Stop Coney, Grand Coney, Gita Pita, Black Napkin Takeout, Ike’s Tacos, Condado Tacos, Donkey Taquiera, Taquiera Manriquez …
Also: Damascus Middle Eastern Grill, Graydon’s Crossing, Butchers’s Union, The Chop House, Chicago Beef Joint, Bowdie’s, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Mizizi by Street Chef Shaw, The Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck, Puxx Cider Taphouse ….
Don’t forget: Noodlepic Ramen, Scholar, Social Misfits, Luna, Monsoon, Zivio’s, ZEats! (formerly Zoup!) … too much. After nightshift nurse Mary left for work, Flannery and I grabbed in-transit grub from Subway.
Once I’d shed the kid, for drinks: Saugatuck Brewing Co.’s Creston Taproom, Mitten Brewing Co., River City Saloon, The Tin Can, Monarch’s Corner Bar, Meanwhile Bar, Less Traveled, Pursuit of Happiness,
Pickwick Tavern …
The animal kingdom beckoned: Blue Dog Tavern, Hopcat, Street Cat Bar, Electric Cheetah, The Old Goat, Flamingo Lounge, BrickYard Tavern, Triangle Tavern, Rezervoir Lounge, SpeakEZLounge, Garage Bar & Grill, Elbow Room Bar & Grill, Vinny’s Bar, Dukes Bar, Z’s Bar, Bob’s Sports Bar, Putt Putt’s Bar, Monarch’s Corner Bar, Big E’s Sports Bar, Mojo’s Dueling Pianos Bar …
Up next: Logan’s Alley, Joey’s Tavern, Billy’s Lounge, Charlie’s Lounge, Stella’s Lounge, Mo’s Cocktail Lounge, Bud & Stanley’s Pub & Grub, Parkway Tropics, Max’s South Seas Hideaway …
I was just getting started: O’Toole’s Public House, Dublin Hall, Mulligan’s, Flanagan’s, MeXco Tequila, Drip Drop Cocktail Room, Knoop Rooftop Cocktail Lounge, Sahara Hookah Lounge, Gin Gin’s, Pyramid Scheme, Glass House, 7 Monks Taproom, Wise Men Distillery, Last Chance, The Iron Well, Divani … All the city diversity and deviance I could ask.
Once done doing DEI duties with drinks at each and more now forgotten) New Year’s Day’s was over. The Internet couldn’t be back too soon.
It returned Jan. 2 with a boom: news of suicide bombings in New Orleans and Las Vegas, one by an ISIS militant, the other by a Green Beret suffering from PTSD. Both were U.S. veterans.
I called Xfinity back. “Can I have my service revoked? I asked.
