Rainey Blogs on Some Days

An odd couple sat on the boardwalk behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland looking out over Lake Erie . An older white man with a white beard who looked like he could start fiddling “The Devil Went Down to Georgia ” at any moment was sitting on the top step. He was with a black woman who had a bicycle with a boom box mounted on the handlebars. The boom box was playing “Keep on a rockin’ me baby” by the Steve Miller Band. After Alyssa and I had left the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, we had walked around behind the Hall toward the boardwalk next to Lake Erie, but as we got closer to the couple I got a better look at the woman and decided she was actually a man in some kind of spandex outfit. His bicycle had been modified with Harley-like upright handlebars and a place for mounting the boom box. Charlie Daniels and spandex Harley boom-box bicycle man rode off together on their bicycles toward downtown Cleveland . I would image they will return tomorrow, and each beautiful summer...

One of the great things about living near New York is getting to see famous people when you go to the City. Our friends Billieanne and Jason saw Alec Baldwin at a deli near their hotel in Manhattan when they were visiting during this past winter. My brother-in-law saw Dennis Rodman at a bar in the City a couple of years ago. For some reason, I keep seeing Jesus. After seeing Jesus walking his dog in Greenwich Village  four years ago after we had attended a play for our anniversary, I would have never thought in a million years we would see him again. But it happened, on our anniversary, again. We’d picked no particular restaurant for dinner, so we walked around from restaurant to restaurant looking at menus. The restaurants in Chelsea were packed on this warm Thursday summer evening.  Everyone was young and beautiful and looked like they had money. I know this is not really possible, but it seemed that way. I didn’t want to be around that oppressive kind of environment—...

The door on room 310 in Good Samaritan Hospital has a faded, metal nameplate that says, “Illinois Knitting Company” that seems out of place on the freshly painted, clean door. Illinois Knitting must have donated money to the hospital back in the 1960s. I doubt if the company exists anymore. Pretty soon, this hospital will not be here either, slated for demolition when the new version of Good Sam is built on Veteran’s Memorial Drive on the west side of town. The town is sprawling that way in the name of progress (and toward Wal-Mart and Lowe’s, the new center of town) as the old downtown and surrounding neighborhoods slowly empty out. I have come to see my grandfather, but he is not in the room. The Information Desk had him still occupying this room, but it appears that he is gone. Since he is 90, I am not certain what this means, whether he is gone to be with the Lord or just gone to the nursing home. The other day when Marcia and the girls and I visited him, we finished the visit ...