Kyle picks me up and we take a short ride over to Sean’s place. He actually lives extremely close to me, which was wild to discover – just on the other side of Cemetery, off of Leap himself. And the detritus of a recent incident is still evident in these parts: the gas pedal of his car somehow got stuck when he was in reverse, attempting to back out from the parking slot. It kept sailing – he was unable to stop – as he first knocked over the dumpster here in his apartment complex. Then the car kept going backwards down a steep hill, where it crashed into a tree and finally stopped. Wild stuff. But he managed to emerge from this episode unscathed.
The three of us chill out and have one beer in his kitchen. “Is it any cooler outside?” Sean wonders – we tell him not really. It’s shocking hot outside, as we disembark – bound for Lisa’s 35th birthday party, which I’ve roped them into attending. They don’t know that crew, and vice versa, but I was able to convince them it should be a swell time. If nothing else, at least a few decent ladies to attempt plying their wares with.
It started around 5, so we’re obviously a bit late to this scene. Lisa has bought a house on a quiet residential street in the Hilltop area, and everyone’s gathered behind it, at or around a pair of picnic tables. And Nicole is here! She’s tanned and blonde, I actually didn’t recognize her at first. Most unexpected indeed. This is the first I’ve seen of her since that night years ago where we started to make out, right before she puked. Tonight as soon as I show up she’s all smiles and calling my name with a little wave and a hiiiiiiieeeeee! from the picnic table in the back yard.
Since about early March or thereabouts, though declaring my social/dating life DOA at that time, I’ve actually rebounded in pretty solid fashion. It turns out I was maybe not completely toast in this town after all. After Jill moved out, understandably I suppose, yet again it was another months long cold snap where I couldn’t seem to get it together with the ladies around here, leading to the doom n’ gloom pronouncements from earlier this year. In fact even in a mindset where I’m telling myself I’m over that stuff, and don’t care if I hook up ever again.
But these matters have always been extremely streaky. Which is easy to forget – during every down period, I pretty much tend to think, well, looks like my antics have finally hit the inevitable brick wall, it was bound to happen sooner or later, chicks are finally hip to this game. But no! And in fact the way I have things set up now might be the most improbably hilarious era ever, because I’m even more aloof than before. Legions more aloof, it feels like, as absolutely nobody has any sort of even remotely accurate picture of my life. And it’s like these girls know they are getting nothing else out of me whatsoever. An ideal scenario, in other words.
I’ve had plenty of time to ponder this aloofness, and why it seems to work so well with the women, when you rationally wouldn’t think there’s any reason that it ever should. I think the reason it succeeds – when it does, that it is – is because there are 2 different levels where you have a shot at connecting with them. Plus one obvious tactical reason it works from what you might say is a strategic standpoint.
So yeah, two different avenues for connecting with them, with this extreme aloofness approach:
They are hoping to remain incredibly aloof themselves, i.e. keep it on the “friends with benefits” level, and so they appreciate the same from you
Hoping for something more, but consider your aloofness a challenge, one that they are determined to break
Either of these might work, then. And as far as the tactical – practical – explanation for why this is successful, I think it’s somewhat obvious, at least to me, in that you’re far more likely to get away with this crap if you’re just kind of floating around (like at a party, sure), not really saying much, not focusing on anybody in particular above anyone else, making your stupid jokes and nothing resembling a real conversation, then leaving – or crashing here, or whatever. Point being if you’re ever in a small setting where you’ve slept with more than one person and are wondering how on earth to pull this off without it turning into drama central, this is pretty much the only route that I’m aware of. Beyond that, though, there are 3 other extremely easy points to forget, to the extent that even I tend to. The real boiled down essence of why any of this works, at least for me:
This is my basic nature anyhow. Being aloof is the preferred default mode that I would just unconsciously gravitate to anyway. “Normal” dating strategies feel incredibly weird and cheesy to me, which is why I always struggled with them.
I am typically bored in short order if spending tons of time with some girl, without lengthy breaks in between. This I have admitted on occasion, although it typically doesn’t go over so well, even when I explain it’s nothing personal. Or should I say it doesn’t seem to go over well on the surface, though I suspect they secretly dig it and this actually works to your advantage. Even so, that too really obscures the biggest point, which deep down I’m aware of, yet haven’t actually spelled out to anyone that I can recall:
They would become extremely bored with me, in short order, if we were spending a ton of time together. They just don’t know it. This zany existence I think might look interesting from a distant, bird’s eye view, and it’s definitely interesting to live it. However anyone caught in the middle of those two extremes would probably consider it tedious.
Well, so anyway, regarding this party, Lisa has two picnic tables set up here in her back yard, floodlit/firelit but still half dark. When we arrive, she and some other family members are playing poker at one of them, and for once I’m curiously uninterested in participating – I think there’s legitimately too much else going on. Plus, Kyle and Sean don’t really know anyone, and I have to keep them entertained. Meanwhile, plenty of others are either seated at the second picnic table or standing around. Among the attendees are Maria, her cousin Michael who briefly lived in their basement, his girlfriend Stacy, Michelle, Tara, Bridgette, Roy, Pat. Tara and Bridgette leave early. Then, lo and behold, an unlikely figure comes breezing into the back yard all the way from Louisville, KY: Maria’s old boyfriend Jason. Semi bearded and heavier, I don’t think I’ve seen this dude since about 2002.
“I’m sure I’ve said some negative things about you, but it’s still good to see you,” I admit. “You’ve put on some weight,” Michelle tells him. “You look better,” I add. “Yeah,” she agrees.
They’ve got a wild assortment of cheap beers in an ice bucket, “sullied” only by my Heineken. Roy’s telling us how he was sleeping with his boss at the carpet cleaning place back in the day, and she gave him 5 accounts. That’s how he got started running his own operation.
Roy’s all gung ho for barhopping, actually, hence some of us take off for Fairweathers Cafe on Trabue. He keeps assuring everyone that this place is “very Mansfield” even though I’m the only other person who would even know what he’s talking about. And I’m down for this concept. Kyle says of the party, “definitely ain’t no bitches here,” an assessment I would actually disagree with – but at any rate, he’s also game to join us. As do Maria, Michelle, Sean, and Jason. Everyone else remains behind at the house.
At Fairweathers we stay for exactly one beer, unless you’re talking about Roy, who buys and does a shot with these two hillbilly chicks at the bar, teeth missing. This is a hodgepodge bar with tacked on pool room, one or two tables, but admittedly tons of people everywhere. Jason’s asking me what it is I do these days.
It’s soon agreed that we will leave this place in favor of Polo’s. Which is now, it seems, somehow…a black bar. Or at least that’s the vibe tonight. I ride with Maria and Jason; Kyle and Sean in another; Roy and Michelle in a third. Walking into Polo’s, I dance my way across the mostly empty back dance floor – Roy bumped into us near door, told us where they were: Michelle, Sean, and Kyle standing looking a little lost at floor’s edge. Bar darker now, lighting-wise, and the back half’s been remodeled: a horseshoe shaped bar, pool tables gone, dance floor now in their place, and yeah this overwhelmingly black clientele. I find this stuff extremely interesting from a sociological or historical standpoint, these changes over time, and how they come about.
But then there are other developments, closer to home so to speak, which are not so lighthearted and philosophical. Kind of like with various workplace predicaments, where you’re unsure even how to proceed, what should be done, if anything even should be done, sometimes who to believe, all of which ties you in knots, often leading to doing nothing. Which also opens up a second philosophical dilemma of its own, separate from the first one.
“Roy was all over me the whole way here,” Michelle complains, in an aside to me, shaking her head, “it was awful.”
“You should’ve smacked him around a little bit,” I joke, playing this off with a laugh.
“I tried,” she assures me.
This instantly reminds me of another night just a year or two ago, a somewhat similar situation. Although in that instance, I personally witnessed some of the borderline questionable behavior. An occasion where a handful of us were out barhopping from place to place, and one of my guy friends was continually hitting on this other female friend, laying it on really thick, although to my eyes it didn’t really seem like she was very much into it. Until we reach what winds up being the last stop on this crawl, and she vents to me out of the blue about the situation.
“He thinks there’s something here and there is nothing here!”
“I was wondering about that,” I admit, “and if I should intervene.”
“Yes! By all means! Please do! Intervene!”
Well, to be honest, I actually did not confront the friend in question. Maybe this is a convenient escape hatch, but by this point he was quite hammered anyway and seemed to have given up on the cause at last. Except then – whoa, what do you know – the two of them, months down the road, did in fact wind up sleeping together quite a bit, consensually, and it was pretty plain after a while that she was the aggressor. The upshot here is that this and other analogous episodes just tend to make you think after a while that, eh, I don’t really know what the hell’s going on here, I’m not entirely sure who to believe, I didn’t see anything all that objectionable myself and therefore I’m just going to stay out of it.
Maria and Jason leave almost immediately. Michelle acts completely different with them (and Tommy of course) not around. I’ve always suspected she secretly dug me, but it always sounds like delusional nonsense when you think that way about a chick, until maybe something happens. Now, with her complaint about Roy, I feel like there’s an easy way to find out and enact a little bit of strategy at the same time: do nothing. Amazing how well this always works. She yanks me out onto the dance floor, it’s just the two of us, and she’s bent over, grinding her ass against my crotch, et cetera, and this goes on for quite a while. So yeah, you might say a picture begins to emerge. That which was formerly fuzzy begins to take shape.
Meanwhile, back at Lisa’s house, apparently Pat is completely pissed off that I showed up. Is throwing stuff around the house and yelling at Lisa about the situation. But then also apparently tells Nicole and her new man that he’s actually cheating on Lisa himself. Before he disappears for the night, crashing elsewhere.
Elsewhere around Columbus and its suburbs, Midwest Biker Rally continues with another performance from Terry Davidson and Co., followed this time by the all-star lineup of Kenny Wayne Shephered, Dickey Betts, and Blackberry Smoke
Across town, the OSU Marching Band takes to the lawn at Chemical Abstracts for the final Picnic With The Pops performance of the season.
An unidentified gunshot victim is found dead in the middle of the afternoon, on a lawn at 664 Rhoads Avenue. Witnesses report hearing a gun go off and then a green car speeding away from the scene.
In Grove City, at Park Street Elementary, there’s an event called Balloons Off Broadway. A bunch of hot air balloons take off from the school grounds and return at nightfall. In between, there’s music and food to keep the masses entertained.
A group of Mormon youngsters, in town for a conference, take to the streets in the Vassor Village neighborhood and begin cleaning it up, as their latest community outreach project.
So, yeah, not a ton that I could drudge up going on around these parts. It’s definitely possible that hanging out with these fine folks today might have been the best use of my time.
Hilliard Beacon is a fascinating, still somewhat relatively new (it’s been around about 2 and 1/2 years) undertaking from a diverse, or even what you might say are unlikely trio of locals. Although I still haven’t unearthed enough about their backstory to even know how the three of them met. It’s Kevin Corvo, Jordan Smith, and Tim Hofmann, collectively involved with something called Franklin Street Creative. Apart from the Hilliard connection, what all three of these guys share is a deep concern for the demise of local reporting, here and pretty much everywhere – which they are hoping their efforts can effectively combat. Kevin is responsible for the bulk of their reporting, on a Substack newsletter called The Hilliard Beacon; meanwhile, with Jordan as the ringleader, all three of them also collaborate on regular podcast episodes, a program titled, as you might imagine, The Hilliard Beacon podcast.
I’ve actually been working on this post for approximately a year and a half. And was attempting to get somewhat caught up on the material before publishing. But much like other local efforts which I also subscribe to, these hardworking gents are cranking out their reports at a faster rate than I can possibly keep up with. Which becomes exponentially worse when you begin to stack all the irons I have extended into various fires. It just takes me forever to finish everything, not because I abandon the projects, but more due to just having too much crap in general going on. So while I’ve been kind of worried they might feel I haven’t properly appreciated their efforts on my behalf (more on that to follow), my good intentions are there, and I have chipped away at this slowly.
On one hand I will admit lamenting that I’m only getting around to writing this stuff a couple years – or more – beyond the date it was originally posted, and these events transpired. Thinking that what’s the point of summarizing someone else’s local news dispatches, on current events from two or three years ago? Except then it occurs to me, well, no, it’s an even more depressing thought to believe that nobody cares about the events of today beyond this very day. We can only hope that our efforts would be timeless, whatever they are. At any rate, I find this material fascinating, and am certain that other souls out there among our collective readership might consider it so as well. Bottom line is I am wishing it will inspire you to check out The Hilliard Beacon, in whatever form best suits you. Because it truly is an exemplary production, from a few guys who decided to take local reportage matters into their own hands.
Considering that I’ve listened to the podcast more than I’ve deeply read the articles, it makes sense to start here…
Audio Companion #1
Kevin says he graduated from Hilliard in ’88 (at the time there was just one high school!) and started covering the city in ’99. He also attended OSU and was writing for This Week and Suburban News at the same time while enrolled here. In this inaugural transmission, they are detailing their collective histories – Kevin especially – and frustrations that local based publications have pretty much ceased to exist. Not just because their own careers have been impacted, but on philosophical grounds as well, what a shame it is that this rich information source is no longer available to most communities. They also make some great points about how a local reporter covering issues close to home is going to have connections and more of a bird’s eye view of the issues than some random, outsourced corporate conglomerate ever could.
About halfway through, they switch gears and begin discussing a then current (in 2023) financial scandal, whereby a city employee fell for a phishing scam and lost the town a boatload of money. Even here, in the first episode, it’s already striking to me what’s changed between now and the bygone newspaper heyday they are lamenting: they don’t name any names. It’s hard to imagine even a small-time local paper back in “the day” would have covered a story like this without doing so. I guess we are living in much more litigious times, but still, I find this interesting.
Local references of note: Hilliard Northwest News, Jack’s Appliances.
Most comical unintentional moment: you can hear a door creaking open and someone asking, “anybody home?” in the background at one point. I’m glad they didn’t clean this up. It certainly adds to the homespun charm.
Audio Companion #2
Jordan says he is known as “the donut man,” and Tim, “the coffee guy,” although I haven’t unearthed precisely what this means yet. Kevin as “the reporter man” is more obvious, considering that Corvo is the one behind the written version of this project. Somewhere along the line I discover Mr. Smith there does own a donut shop in Hilliard, which explains at least the first portion of that mystery.
They kick off this one by discussing mysterious local phenomenon, The Turkey Gang. Tim begins to explain this saga by stating that February of ’22 is the first time he saw a pack of wild turkeys in Hilliard. He was so intrigued, driving past them, that he circled back to photograph them. Then, in discussing this with a friend, learned that there was already a Facebook group dedicated to this topic, the Hilliard turkeys of unknown origin.
Apparently things get a little heated on that page – Tim says he stopped checking in as a result. But anyway, it seems these wild turkeys liked to hang out mostly on Leap Road, in between the post office and Cemetery. Apparently someone living in an apartment complex along that stretch had a bunch of bird feeders out, which was a major draw. Then somehow a trio of them became impartial instead to hanging out in the yard of this one house at the corner of Leap and Cemetery.
The ODNR initially said they were doing nothing about these birds, because this was their natural habitat, so people would just have to deal with it. Well, these dominoes started to fall when one bird somehow injured its leg and was transported to an animal hospital or whatever. The remaining duo kept the flame alive for quite some time – and we’re talking about a year at this point, this odyssey with the turkeys – before the ODNR changed its mind and agreed to find proper homes for these fellows.
All in all, a highly entertaining saga. This episode then concludes with Kevin saying he might cover Hilliard train history in a future episode. That might seem like a jarring shift, but that’s the beauty of this podcasting format, it all flows in a manner that makes sense – it’s not a newspaper article and it’s not a news broadcast, it’s a totally unique brand of reporting specific to this medium. The closest thing might be talk radio, except there are no callers throwing hot potatoes at these guys. Anyway, Corvo mentions that Hilliard used to be formally known as Hilliard Station, in honor of John Reed Hilliard, because there was a rail stop at Main and Center. And that not so long ago, trains used to block traffic to an ungodly degree on Main and Cemetery both, sometimes all at once.
As far as modern tidbits, we learn that Hilliard voted for a city manager awhile back, which was supposed to mitigate financial scandals like the one mentioned in episode #1 – which they are still following up on as well.
Local reference of note: Darby Glen Park, where Kevin notes that he occasionally spots deer
Most unintentionally awesome moment: what sounds like an old school landline telephone ringing in the background
Audio Companion #3
As Jordan attempts calling this chaos fueled meeting to session, I’m already starting to get a feel for their basic personalities, or at least the lane they are tasked with patrolling in this podcast. As the moderator, so to speak, he’s more of the moving things along, connective tissue, staying on task guy; Kevin, in a role befitting his experience, skews towards serious, in-depth, feature length reporting; and then Tim’s balancing things out with a lighter, more comedic touch. All three are capable of firing off some zingers, though, of course, just as they are the insightful observation. Jordan for example breaks out the big guns using the word maturation early on today, impressive enough on its own to stop me in my tracks. In all seriousness, though, they’re all well-spoken and bring great personal observations to the table, none of which is easy to pull off – for example I’m not at all sure I would be up to this task.
In this one they begin by discussing an Axios piece spotlighting their brand new endeavor. And speaking of tracks, as hinted at last time around, the next topic involves the train industry and how it pertains to Hilliard. Norfolk Southern and CSX are two freight lines which move through this great town at present. And I actually think I might recognize that fence along the tracks, which they are using for this episode’s thumbnail image – if I’m not mistaken, that’s along Scioto Darby. Anyway, Kevin details some points about a couple of historical derailments here in town, which he’s also reported upon in this week’s newsletter. Back then they had to store at least one fire response truck on the south side of the tracks, because the fire station was on Norwich behind an IGA.
In this episode they begin by covering a forthcoming primary, and observe that Hilliard is one of the rare regional suburbs which holds partisan city council primaries. Jordan surprisingly relates that he once ran for city council here, but lost. Next, there’s an update on the phishing scam which cost the city over $200,000 and led to the termination of former finance director David Delande. Since resigning, Delande has sent a letter to city council outlining his case for why he believes he is due at least some sort of severance package. I don’t know all the details, but one interesting point which might potentially bolster his argument is his saying they caught wind of the scam, and called the bank, who initially told them the payment had not yet cleared and so everything appeared to have been properly sewn up in the nick of time. Therefore Delande didn’t sound off a ton of panic alarms. However, it soon emerged that the bank representative was wrong and the payment had already cleared. Cue up complete pandemonium.
Well, again, I don’t know anything about this guy or the job he was doing. However, I will admit that I kind of like it when people in high places occasionally lose their jobs – generally speaking, I feel like there’s not enough oversight (in politics and in the corporate realm both), that folks appointed to even relatively “small” local government posts can wield a tremendous amount of power, and scandals like this show someone was at least paying attention this time and that there are consequences. Sometimes, anyway.
On that note, the following segment essentially hews to this same theme. Jordan’s discussing this recently created Hilliard Development Corporation board of directors. He expresses considerable reservations about where this is headed, because he feels like this process has proven somewhat of a hollow victory, and the city’s residents have ended up right back where they started: voting to strip power from what they’re terming a “strong mayor,” one who maybe greenlit unchecked expansion at all costs, in favor of a “city manager” instead. Only for this resolution to pass, creating this committee which is bound to consist of…a bunch of well-connected, moneyed up, developer types who are probably going to greenlight every expansion opportunity which comes down the pike. Well, I’m with him in this regard. It’s frustrating to feel like being steamrolled by these power grabs is seemingly unavoidable and that the average citizen has no true say in these matters.
Although I must say Tim does offer an interesting counterpoint in that it would be hard to find someone for a committee like this who knew what he/she was doing, and had the experience to get things done, yet didn’t present some sort of conflict of interest. Admitting he’s right reeks of issuing people in power a free pass, however, so I’m not really sure what the answer is here. Except that maybe even city-wide power is too broad, and we should breaks things down instead by the ward. Also quite clearly that everyone needs to get much more involved.
Finally, the fellows offer a little tribute to former police chief Robert Fisher, who had recently died following a battle with cancer.
Audio Companion #5
In this one, our intrepid reporting trio delves into more detail yet concerning that theft case. Then up next on the docket is a somewhat brief mention of the city manager’s “State of the City” address at Crooked Can Brewery on 3/22/23 – she mentions that they’re breaking ground on the new community/wellness center on April 14.
There’s a reference to something colloquially known as (I think) “Blatz Lake?” I like what Jordan has to say on the topic of thoughtful land use. This relates in part to some grading in progress on the west side of Trueman, south of Davidson. A baking company on Main recently opened. My favorite moment(s) of the episode, though, are when the sounds of what I swear must be someone pecking away on an old-school typewriter occasionally bubble to the surface. If it’s not that, then it sounds close enough to it – and I’m not sure I want to hear otherwise.
Audio Companion #6
More details about the “State of the City” powwow at Crooked Can – Kevin was impressed overall. The city manager and her crew want to focus on the Cemetery Road corridor more. There’s talk about how they plan to extend Cosgray to meet Alton Darby – will need to relocate the soccer fields in order to make this happen, however.
The current community center, they are saying, was built back in the 1970s. It used to be much more difficult to get things done around here. As for the new one being constructed, that was funded in part by income tax increases which the majority of everyone (or at least those who voted – which I’m guessing was probably a sadly miniscule percentage of the residents) agreed upon.
Then discussions veer sharply into some terrain that I would say is much more in my wheelhouse – though I’m at a loss to explain why this stuff fascinates me ever so. I’m into the history of various addresses, obviously, and also into current happenings, and yet I find the collision of these two topics most fascinating of all. As in, what is happening now versus what used to transpire in this very spot, with maybe a little commentary on the side about what it all means. Totally killer!
Well, so anyway, at this time it is breaking news that Popeye’s is going into Mill Run where Burger King (and I think something called Rapidfire) used to be. This leads to an amusing and extensive discussion about the days of yore where it was somewhat shocking when a Sheetz gas station took over where Max & Erma’s used to be.
This in turn leads to even more arcane discussion about the minutiae, finer points, hair splitting – whatever you want to call it – about what technically belongs to Hilliard, versus Columbus proper, and the zoning differences for such. Like how when Kmart was here, their store sign was technically a Hilliard concern, whilst the road sign fell under Cbus purview. Tim refers to this one section of the Mill Run area as “Wild Columbus,” which I love, and by this he means it’s often falling into these no-man’s-land zoning peculiarities. Like how there’s some guy with a table selling honey in front of the donut shop that Jordan owns, which is only permissible because this is technically Columbus, not Hilliard.
other references of note: First Responder Park, Splash Pad. Speculations about Converge Technology, which took over some of the building space formerly belonging to the Rahal/Letterman race team. Apparently Converge landed a contract at some point to make drones for the police department. I’m also doing silent (or not so silent, actually) fist pumps in the air when Kevin pronounces Fishinger Road the same way I always have – a lot of people have corrected me over the years, claiming that I should be saying “fishing-er.” But no, he is evidently of the same mind as me, that it’s more like “fish-injure” instead. Score one for the home team!
Audio Companion #8
The plot thickens! Episode #7 seems to have disappeared from the internet entirely! Or at least from all the usual places where I find podcasts. What this means of course is another rabbit hole to get myself endlessly sidetracked within, trying to maybe dig it up elsewhere.
But that can wait. Right now what concerns is episode #8. This time around their guest is Don Kloss of the Ohio Wildlife Center and Metro Parks. Although hilariously enough, he doesn’t really speak until around the 15 minute mark. This because the core trio gets into an extended discussion about some annexation plans around Hayden Run Road – Hilliard has no legal say in the matter but gets to chime in with their own opinions. A nerd like me does find these details endlessly fascinating, yet it’s still cracking me up because I feel like Mr. Kloss had to have been sitting there wondering about the nature of this invite and how exactly this pertains to him.
Well, he does enjoy his moment in the sun soon enough. He’s offering his take on an organization known as RAPID5, whose mission statement revolves around adding new parks, and trails connecting various waterways around town. Supposedly, anyhow. Kloss scoffs that it’s more about adding “urban playgrounds” and condos, i.e. purporting to be about one kind of green (nature) while in fact the entire purpose concerns another (dollar signs). According to him, and the fellas seem to agree, it’s just front for adding fancy new developments and lining the pockets of everyone involved. Tim makes my day by saying this reminds him of Campus Partners, which was the first thought leaping into my head as well.
From here discussion spins off into some related topics, like Quarry Trails. The original agreement was that the land there would be given to Metro Parks when they were done mining on that site. Or how a Hilliard resident willed a plot of land to the city under the stipulation that it had to be converted into a park. Hilliard gladly took the land, of course, except then the city manager announced they had no money for converting it into a park, therefore it was…put to commercial use! Shocking, I know. In fact the land one of the Amazon centers was built upon was supposed to be a park.
Well, this is as far as I’ve gotten in transcribing my notes thus far. Have listened to quite a bit of these podcasts, however, and read many of Kevin’s Substack pieces in the course of my travels. If even remotely interested in these topics, and/or of a mind to support these guys in their fine local reportage quest, then by all means seek them out. Future dispatches in this space will follow – as soon as I can shoehorn in the time! Keeping up with their prolific output, however, I’ve already written off as an impossible task.
This page marks somewhat of a historic new chapter for my site, as it’s the first one dedicated wholly to a specific suburb. But having lived in Hilliard for about a year and a half at one point (summer ’05 to the end of ’06), it made sense to start here – and ever so gradually, my vision for this project is starting to come together, the gaps begin to close.
One interesting tidbit you might not know about Hilliard: as of the 2000 census, it had the highest birthrate of any town in Ohio. Which probably helps explain and has also fueled the explosive growth rate around this region. Well, whatever the case, considering this is a prototype of sorts, I have no idea how to organize this page. Expect some growing pains as I attempt to figure out what works. For now we’ll start with a basic map. Most everything will be grouped into one of these colored regions, in the map above, or else along/near one of the major roads.
A snapshot of some developments I made note of in the summer of 2006: the Mill Run Big Bear was sitting empty; the old steakhouse along Cemetery, on the Hilliard side of 270 had been demolished, and there was a skeletal metal shell of something else already erected, in the process of being built; the Chili’s at Mill Run had been torn down, replaced by a pharmacy; a Staples was going up on Trueman.
So you can either keep scrolling, or click on one of these major categories to jump ahead. Here I’ll attempt confining my tales to just Hilliard, but there’s understandably a little bit of overlap in spots – otherwise the stories don’t make sense:
4798 Leap Court: apartment I called home for about a year and a half, initially with Jill (pregnant with Emma at the time) and Maddie…then alone. After we had a little falling out and she moved in with her mom…who happened to live in this same apartment complex. Awkward!
I have plenty of fond memories here, however. As I plotted my exit strategy from this area entirely. Having an end unit, to the west it was basically just open field, and it was always relatively quiet back here. Apart from whatever mayhem I might have personally been generating at the time, of course. We had windows along that wall, though, which allowed plenty of sun – or at least as much sun as you ever get in Ohio – to stream into the place, making it a cheerful one.
And it had a detached garage, another odd touch, although in our case we didn’t park a car here, rather used it for storage. Especially considering there were plenty of parking spaces even closer to our unit. So a great deal of what we stored in that garage was boxes and boxes of my weird mementos/reference artifacts, like old issues of The Other Paper and what have you. Our friend Clif Davis, his brother-in-law Stephen, and Rick from the Bethel Road Kroger helped us move in, in various configurations across a couple days. Clif kept whistling the theme song from Sanford And Son, cracking himself up while doing so, even if this was a totally fair and accurate assessment.
Jill eventually convinced me I had to do something about these endless reams of old newspaper articles. It’s one of those situations where she was probably right, but I still have regrets about conceding anyway. We barely had enough room for them here, despite my strides at actually somewhat downsizing for a couple years leading up to this, and I would soon be facing the prospect of moving it all yet again, into who knows what kind of available space.
She suggested that I should go through all of it, tear out and keep just the specific pages which actually meant something to me. Typically this would turn into a late night project, after she went upstairs to bed, while I remained down in the living room, sprawled out on the floor with the TV on. In one hilarious incident, when I first tackled this project (which of course generated a somewhat loud, repetitive ripping sound), she shouted my name and called me upstairs. Then explained that she was having this half awake/half asleep nightmare that some type of bear-like creature was scraping its claws against our bedroom door. I just chuckled and mumbled something along the lines of “hmm, that’s strange,” without mentioning it was me ripping pages downstairs.
When living together, if Jill was working and I was off that day, Maddie and I would often just hang out here. She was four years old at the time. Mostly this meant playing with toys while a cartoon or children’s show was on the tube, although occasionally I was able to just put on music videos and let them roll. One hilariously memorable afternoon the video for Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz came on, which she instantly found completely mesmerizing, as the two of us then danced around the living room. As far as her toys go, she had this huge dollhouse which was usually involved in some capacity. Also this one dog-like plastic figure, which we strapped goggles onto, that she soon named “Cliffy.”
After moving out in a huff, Jill somehow wound up leaving Maddie’s dresser behind – which I still have to this day. Once they were gone, left to my own devices, this place turned into surely my most chaotic residence ever. There’s some hilarious video footage I shot one night at just how messy and cluttered this place had become. In warmer weather I did like wheeling out my charcoal grill into the front yard (we had no back door here), firing that up along with a radio playing baseball games, while I sat in a lawn chair drinking beer and writing. A prospect my neighbors were probably none too thrilled about, though nobody ever complained. When it was cold, too broke/cheap to truly crank the heat, I preferred instead to hole up in my bedroom, with the door shut, play movies accompanied by instead a nice wine and book combo. The lady situation was not overly abundant during this era, and visitors were few.
Bob Evans (3910 Lyman Dr.): we’ve had one of these everpresent puppies here since at least 2006.
FASTSIGNS (4465 Cemetery Rd): a sign making shop. There used to be a Sport Clips here, however.
Hilliard Square: strip mall right on Cemetery, in the NW corner of the Leap Road intersection. A fondly recalled string of shops, particularly as I lived directly behind here. Their primary marquee, I guess you would call it, looks just beautiful in its current state:
As far as a rundown of the businesses within, regarding the Kroger, I did in fact interview here once, in late ’99, for a head seafood opening. But did not get the promotion (Morse Road snatched me up instead) and never worked here. Would shop here a-plenty over the years, however, especially when moving into that apartment complex directly behind it. Grand China was also here even back when I lived in this neck of the woods – Chinese and Thai, open for lunch and dinner daily, but no alcohol. Muzak in here features instrumental tunes, often involve someone going crazy on a pitch wheel, like this version of My Blue Heaven done “Asian” style that I hear one day.
Leap-N-Lizard’s Pub is a nifty little dive, in my experience usually fairly packed, and I’m happy to see it’s still around some two decades plus, if not more, into its run. Jil Holmes was the owner back then, whom I met and chatted with at length one night when she randomly happened to just be sitting there and drinking at the barstool next to mine. I’m not sure if she’s still in the picture or not, however.
Louie’s Latino American Kitchen (4453 Cemetery Rd.): A fusion restaurant fond of touting its mofongo chicken, spacious patio, and especially its Tex-Mex breakfast offerings. In that last regard this makes for a welcome secondary option to those who are maybe tired of the wait at Starliner Diner.
A previous tenant of this building was Sammie’s Italian Buffet. They were open for lunch and dinner daily, including a soft-serve ice cream station and salad bar, a family friendly destination that didn’t serve alcohol. I ate here at least once and was unimpressed.
MKJ Nails (5062 Cemetery Rd.): I don’t know anything about this nail salon, though they likely do great work and all. This building is primary of interest to me based on what else used to be located here. Among these was one of (then) four Iacono’s restaurants around town, up through at least 2006. Iacono’s held down the address of 5068, which isn’t in use at the moment. That place, whichever one you happen to visit, has always had some killer subs and I would recommend these to anyone.
Sheetz (4279 Cemetery Rd.): it’s great and all, but do we really need another Sheetz? Well, obviously, someone must think so. As of 2006, though, it was a freaking Max & Erma’s, which is way cooler. One of an impressive 12 area locations, to boot. Okay, Max & Erma’s was never exactly cool, if being honest. But it was still sad to see them go, particularly in situations like these where they tore the entire building down.
Veritas Community Church (4772 Cemetery Rd.): don’t know anything about this charming looking church. However, it did used to be the Hilliard library, and its external appearance has changed little since that time. And lordy did I spend many an hour inside this place, back then. Considering it was located directly in front of my apartment building, this was about as convenient as you could get.
All the more so when considering I was once again too cheap to pay for internet at my house. So would stroll over here instead, to use theirs. The only issue was that you had a limited number of hour long blocks per day, I think three, and if there was a wait you would have to kill time until the opening. This was the place I frantically assembled cover art files for my book One Hundred Virgins, in 2006, and emailed them to the necessary parties. Also where I would play online chess, although this was particularly maddening and excruciating if I lost a game or got booted off at the end of an hour block. After one such gruesome defeat, furious about blowing a game I had been leading, as my last bit of time for the day wound down, I stormed home and kicked the bathtub. With such force that in all seriousness I think I fractured my big toe, as it hurt for months afterwards.
Just inside the doors you see here, the library commonly had items out for sale, though. So this became a good source of acquiring for example used movies on the cheap, many of which remain in my collection.
Warp Zone (4496 Cemetery Rd.): video games and beyond, indeed! This popular outpost has existed for quite some time itself. Its most high profile cultural placement surely came in the documentary Nintendo Quest,which is required viewing if you’re into gaming or for that matter even remotely into 1980s nostalgia.
Hilliard Rome Road corridor
5429 Roberts Rd.: Holy smokes this is blowing my mind right now! Somehow I never knew this but our favorite campus Chinese place, back in “the day,” was Number One Chinese. And it turns out that, circa 2006 anyway, they had a second location right here! Same owners, same name.
This address is not currently in use, however. But it would have sat basically between where Santiago Market (see below) and Halwani’s Pizza are at present.
BIBIBOP Asian Grill (1775 Hilliard Rome Rd.): fast-casual place known for customizable bowls of tasty ingredients arranged in colorful formations. That’s cool, but far more fascinating to me is that this used to be a Frisch’s!
Buffalo Wild Wings (1710 Hilliard Rome Rd.): not much needs said about this wildly popular franchise. Though a rundown of its locations seems slightly more interesting to me when considering that it all started right here, in Columbus. As far as this one I’ve only ventured inside just once, to my knowledge, back during my Target working days when Sach, Chris, and I came here for some drinks and grub after our shift.
Charleys Cheesesteaks and Wings (1777 Hilliard Rome Rd.): this one rubs shoulders with BIBIBOP and I’m pretty sure also eats up some of the space that used to belong to Frisch’s. You might be surprised to learn that Charleys also started in Columbus, on the OSU campus I think back in 1985. Extremely scrumptious offerings, in my experience, a bit under the radar in this day and age (if not always so, really) with the cheese covered fries an especially decadent recommendation. I feel like this diversion into wings is a relatively new occurrence. Also that this might be a newer location for them, too, considering this big red balloon atop their roof, broadcasting that they are NOW OPEN.
Chipotle (1835 Hilliard Rome Rd.): also going back to at least 2006. At which time I am counting 23 of these babies in the greater Columbus region. I don’t even want to know how many we “boast” at this point.
Cracker Barrel (1313 Hilliard Rome Rd. E.): yes, yes, of course, I’ve been here scads of times. Not to rip on anybody or anything, but baby mama and her crew were always way more into visiting famous chains than trying out “weird” local places. So I would end up in that undertow as well. Once again, since I’m looking back at the year 2006 at present, yes it has held down this spot for at least that long. This is not on Hilliard Rome but tucked back, as is this franchise’s general tendency, on this other access road, visible from the interstate.
El Vaquero (1780 Hilliard Rome Rd.): this area has mostly been the model of consistency, and once again “The Cowboy” has held down this outpost for a good twenty years. One of a half dozen around town, last time I checked.
Fazoli’s (1520 Hilliard Rome Rd.): fast food Italian operation that’s one of my daughter’s favorites. But it is surprisingly better than you might expect, and not available in all parts of the country. As far as this particular location is concerned, well before Emma or Maddie were born, when I was named head seafood captain at the Morse Road store, Jill’s mom took us all out to dinner here to celebrate. So it wasn’t all bad times by any means with certain individuals.
As an entirely unrelated side note, is it me or did this road used to be called Rome Hilliard Road instead? Did they flip the names around when New Rome was dismantled and fed into the woodchipper of history? I know back in the day we all used to call it Rome Hilliard Road, to the extent it still rolls off the tongue more naturally for me. But now I’m wondering if we were always wrong about that.
Fine Line Auto Body Hilliard (1451 Hilliard Rome Rd.): I suppose any region can only support so many restaurants. And an auto body shop sprinkled throughout the land is surely a good thing. Still, it’s interesting to note that this used to be a Perkins.
Kroger (2525 Hilliard Rome Rd.): Never worked at this one but have known a couple people who did. John Maul landed over in our meat department at Bethel Road, after transferring from here, and Kyle Robinson wound up working at Wild Oats with me. Prior to this, they were employees at the same time over here. I think “Dollar” Bill Flory was employed at the produce department here, too, considering he lived right behind the place, before he also landed at Bethel – but don’t quote me on that.
Lucky’s Grille & Sports Pub (5387 Roberts Rd.): sports pub which offers a nice selection of craft beer on tap. They’ve been here at least 25 years, which is always nice to see, and used to at least on occasion offer live music – not sure if that’s still the case or not. Have written about one previous visit, anyway, and it feels like I’ve ventured inside here a time or two beyond that.
Outback Steakhouse (1735 Hilliard Rome Rd.): has been here since at least 2006, an impressive enough run as far as these things go.
Red Robin (1865 Hilliard Rome Rd.): ditto this Red Robin, just down the same side of the street.
Santiago Market (5431 Roberts Rd.): a much needed change of scenery around these parts, in the form of a Latino-centric grocery store. Way more interesting than a previous occupant, Jersey Mike’s.
Supreme Buffet & Hibachi (1323 W. St. James Lutheran Ln.): old school looking brick building, within sight of I-70, may very well have been a Pizza Hut or a Shoney’s or something in its past life. What we do know is that up through at least 2006, it was Salvi’s Bistro, a popular casual eatery, open for lunch and dinner daily, brunch on Sundays. As far as the current occupant, I’m always suspicious of operations with vinyl banners for signs alongside their exterior walls. But who knows, it might be decent.
Texas Roadhouse (1770 Hilliard Rome Rd.): then again this Texas Roadhouse has also sat just an ornery boot pebble’s throw away from Outback, also since 2006, so maybe none of their runs are all that remarkable. Or does this make them doubly so?
The Olympic Diner (5454 Roberts Rd.): located in the NW corner of this intersection, this is a breakfast only place. Back in 2006, however, it was Chef’s House, an American/Greek hybrid open all day, every day. An alcohol free, family friendly joint especially proud of their baby beef liver with onions and their double-yolk eggs.
Wright-Patt Credit Union (1840 Hilliard Rome Rd.): just chilling in the middle of this chain restaurant turf war, you have a boring ol’ financial institution. But that’s only because a previous tenant, Ruby Tuesday, did not survive this carnage.
Mill Run
I don’t know off the top of my head if the shopping plazas on both sides of the road are called “Mill Run” or not. But we’re rolling with this designation anyway.
3799 Ridge Mill Dr.: appears to not be in use at the moment. But was an address slightly around the back corner, of the NE edge of the Mill Run strip mall. And belonged to Joey Chang’s, again through at least 2006, a Thai and Chinese place. They were open for lunch and dinner daily, brunch on Sundays. Served alcohol, but had no children’s menu.
Ag-Pro (3727 Park Mill Run Dr.): a tractor dealer. Which might seem like a relatively odd location, although then again even here you are not that far removed from massive stretches of flat Ohio farmland. In its former life, meanwhile, it used to a HomeTown Buffet. These certainly sound familiar…although I’m having trouble placing what one of these looked like or would have offered, even though there were 4 Columbus locations at that time.
Asian Express (3762 Fishinger Blvd.): Has called this home since at least 2006. Although in looking them up online, the current owner mentions having to “rebuild” this business in 2020, so there may have been a down period. But whatever the case, they are from Shanghai, which surely helps on the legitimacy front as far as their food is concerned. One other change is that this place used to be closed on Sundays, but is now open all the way through dinner.
At Home (3599 Park Mill Run Dr.): A home goods store which certainly seems to have all the bases covered in that regard. It’s a spacious enough building, anyway, which I know from having been inside here back when it was…Incredible Universe.
For those who don’t recall, this was an electronics superstore which didn’t last very long, probably due to its cavernous size, and the inventory required to fill it. The occasion of my lone visit occurred in the fall of ’96, which was apparently just a few months before the company announced they were closing all stores. I was working at the Mansfield Damon’s at the time, and three of us coworkers decided to take a road trip down here to visit some pet show in Hilliard. It was held at some school at what felt like a ridiculously early hour, after which we drove past the nearby Damon’s (see below) before popping into Incredible Universe.
The day’s most amusing coincidence, at least to me, occurred while inside here. I was strolling down some random aisle when a nearby phone rang. I believe these were just mounted on a pole, but at any rate, it was well within reach without any convolutions whatsoever. So I grabbed it. And then the caller, who was obviously just someone else inside the store, happened to ask, “is Jason there?”
“Yes!” I triumphantly declared.
Just then, some heavily annoyed employee stomped up and took the phone out of my hands.
When this store closed, it became a Garden Ridge. At some point, a Dave & Buster’s (see below) was built atop a large chunk of its former parking lot.
Damon’s: was located at 3799 Park Mill Run Drive. I know some former employees at this location – and could have easily worked here myself. That day of the pet store show, when driving past here, we were still somewhat early and couldn’t help but observe the place was lined halfway down the sidewalk, people waiting for it to open. We all three discussed relocating here, pronto. Of course to my knowledge I was the only one who followed through and ever moved to Columbus, a scant 2-3 months later. Though I wound up working at the Olentangy River Road location instead.
Jordan Smith of Hilliard Beacon was one such worker here, in his formative years. After my podcast interview with them, the four of us chatted awhile off the record (which might have been the most interesting part) and he related to me that this Damon’s had a problem with standing water on the kitchen floor. Which would occasionally bleed out onto the carpet of the dining area. Even so was one of the last 6 locations left here in town.
Known employees: Chris “Mill Run” McAuley, Jordan Smith
Daruma Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi (3939 Ridge Mill Rd.): I don’t know anything about this operation, beyond some truly tantalizing online photos and videos. Based upon this, the presentation and the atmosphere certainly look impressive enough, and I’m guessing the food quality would most likely match.
It amuses me to no end, though, when a completely different business is grafted onto an exterior that remains more or less unchanged. In this instance, a Lone Star Steakhouse used to kick up its spurs in these parts, up through at least 2006.
Dave & Buster’s (3665 Park Mill Dr.): presumably you know the drill here, so there’s not much need to elaborate. As far as their food goes, it’s often listed as “American cuisine,” which means they’re at least aiming for something a little better than middle of the road pub grub. Whether they achieve this or not is open to interpretation.
Fishinger Dental (3560 Fishinger Blvd.): I guess I just realized it changes from Fishinger Road to Boulevard right here, at the lazy sideways S curve between Smiley Road and the outerbelt, before it becomes Cemetery Road instead. Anyway, though now a plain beige shed housing this dental practice, once upon a time it used to be a Fuddruckers. Erin recently ate at one somewhere else and was raving around the retro 90s charm of such a place – she then asked me about my experiences, and I was telling her I actually don’t remember ever setting foot inside one of these.
Mill Run Ale House (3641 Fishinger Blvd.): Opened not too terribly long ago, and by all reports is better than its predecessor, Hale’s Ales & Kitchen.
Regarding Hale’s Ales, I popped in here for a bite near the end of its run, because I happened to be in the area. Was actually wondering if Tropical Bistro was still here, but saw this had taken its place, and decided to give it a whirl anyway. I enter the spacious, dingy interior, halfway occupied by patrons on this early happy hour Friday. Grab a seat at the bar itself, and check out their menu. The girl serving drinks is a no-nonsense blonde, which is a trait I guess I kind of admire, so long as it doesn’t devolve into cuntishness. It’s certainly better than the overly fake-friendly, gushing that whatever you were wondering about is “greeeeeaaaat! Every single thing we have is great!” or when you ask them what they’d specifically recommend from such-and-such category of dish, they tell you they like them all. That’s not going to be a problem with her.
The food I would describe as solid but unremarkable. Considering I was pretty much expecting this and maybe even seeking that, though, this is also nothing I’m going to complain about. I know I order a local draft of some sort, but can’t find my notes about any of this at the moment (who’d have thunk it!) and therefore we’re going to have to live with vagueness for now.
As far as the decor, this has to be the most blah use of this much space I’ve ever seen. Jon Taffer would blow a gasket if ever setting foot inside this place. The coolest aspect by far is this Ohio shaped board they have hanging on one wall, covered with various beer caps. They also have a wooden barrel in the foyer stamped with the name Elevator Brewing Co., so this is something, anyway. And it does appear, if these online pictures are more recent than mine, that they’ve maybe already repainted and remodeled since my visit, eschewing this dreadful dark maroon in favor of a lighter beige-ish color.
Still, this rates as one of the more depressing bar interiors on record – and it’s even more of a downer when you consider that Tropical Bistro used to call this address home. Opened in spring 2006, Tropical Bistro earned comparisons to Kahiki at that time. Like its more famous ancestor, Tropical Bistro was a Polynesian themed restaurant with rooms divided as though they are separate houses. One of their more popular appetizers was called Rumaki, pairing scallops with bacon; as far as entrees are concerned, Islander Flaming Beef Teriyaki was served on a flaming sword – and actually, smoke and/or fire were a common accessory here, considering their specialty drinks (such as the Smoking Eruption) and desserts (Big Fat Mamasan) often employed this timeless classic of a gimmick. In addition to the Polynesian offerings, though, they also had Chinese, Japanese, and even American food on the menu, were open for lunch and dinner daily.
Panera Bread (3625 Fishinger Blvd.): Also here as far back as 2006. One of an insane 19 Columbus locations even then. Zzzzz.
Sherwin-Williams Paint Store (3873 Park Mill Run Dr.): this used to be one of three Spageddie’s Italian Kitchen restaurants located around Columbus. All three are now long gone.
Taj Palace: As of March 2006, this Indian restaurant was holding down a spot at the Market at Mill Run (3794 Fishinger Blvd.) They were open every day and had a buffet. And it is still here, too, nearly 20 years later. The saag paneer and chicken tandoori are among their signature dishes.
TGI Friday’s: was located at 3861 Park Mill Run Road. As of March ’06 one of just four remaining locations in town. Nowadays Moon Pizza, a takeout only operation, and the Mill Run Event Center share this address.
Old Hilliard
Abner’s Casual Dining (4051 Main St.): Don’t let the deceptively modest name fool you – the fare here is somewhat basic, but served with a little more flair than expected. The interior is cheerfully modern, too, all soothing cream and light green walls and a modern faux wooden floor.
According to the menu, they’ve been around since 1987. But not at this location – they were originally on South High Street in Columbus proper. But landed here in 2009 and have called this spot home ever since.
I know it was Mel’s Diner up through at least the fall of ’06, because I visited it on at least one occasion. That place too was American comfort cuisine, open for breakfast and lunch daily but only Thu-Sun for dinner (which tells you a little bit about the sleepy state of this downtown at that time.) They didn’t accept reservations, but did serve cocktails.
That place had a strange decor, if I’m being honest, in that it felt more like a bowling alley. Really really bright, though, and warm (meaning both temperature and atmosphere wise). The walls were blue at the top third, the middle a red ledge that sticks out maybe two feet, the bottom third yellow, with darker yellow diamond patterns, large, stretching from that red ledge down to a black one at table height.
The tables were black plastic, and although the carpet appears black as well, upon closer inspection it’s multihued, albeit subtly. TV news above the counter – small maroon tiles with odd yellow, black, blue ones thrown in – and black stools there. Window allows you to watch the (Latino, it appears) cooks in action. Girls all wear maroon tee shirts with the diner logo prominently displayed. Booths (faux?) leather, same near-aqua blue, chairs are maroon. Students and old timers and couples dot the surprisingly spacious room.
Crazzy Greek II (3640 Main St.): the name is pure awesomeness, and so is the decor, in particular this alluring Mediterranean mural along one wall. A funky and mighty cheerful little Greek restaurant, in case you couldn’t tell.
In a past life it was Casa Fiesta, one of 3 such Mexican establishments (circa 2006) around town.
Franklin County Fairgrounds: not to be confused with the Ohio State Fairgrounds, which are much larger and located down by OSU campus. As far as I can recall, I’ve only been here once – which was for my coworker Tim Young’s wedding. He and his bride-to-be rented out a building for the occasion, which was a Halloween wedding, to boot.
The plan is to meet everyone for some pregaming at Robert’s Bar in Hilliard. En route Marilyn Manson’s The Dope Show comes on the radio and we crank it. As we arrive, Erin and Ralph are just walking in – she’s dressed like a witch, he a vampire. I’ve never met him before but he seems pretty cool. Tammie is already sitting at the bar, with Dan Miller. He’s dressed like Batman, while she’s supposed to be a skimpily dressed cat or something.
“Of course it would have to be something slutty,” Jill whispers to me, with a knowing snicker.
Beers are consumed, and then some of those jello shots that Tammie and Erin made. During this time Jill and I are discussing logistics with Carrie, hoping she can maybe take Doug home, since I picked him up. This is the arrangement we had last time he came around, but she seems unconvinced and the entire subject is left up in the air for now.
Then we all get ready to leave. Tammie and Dan were actually supposed to wait for us, so we can follow them to the fairground, but unexpectedly take off without us. This leaves Jill to lead the way, because she thinks she can probably find it, with Erin and Ralph following us. And we do manage to locate the fairgrounds okay, without too much difficulty.
Outside the building itself, we reassemble, while still other guests roll in. First Tom shows up with his wife Tammy (pretty hot!), then Johna and her dorky boyfriend Rick and her two little girls. Considering that Carrie is here with her friend Tami, this means we have three women with the same name, in our small entourage, all spelling it slightly differently (and much, much different hotness levels, in case anyone is wondering.) Out here, we pound more jello shots, and the groom himself even swings past to say hello. Tim’s dressed like Frankenstein’s monster, which is somehow just perfect.
Then we all head inside one of the barn-type buildings, sit around on hay bales that have been arranged like proper church pews. We’re sitting around so long, though, that Doug and Jill decide to slip outside and smoke a joint real quick. Well, of course the ceremony begins basically as soon as they leave, meaning they miss the beginning. Jill’s wondering why I didn’t come get her, but I’m shrugging and basically saying I don’t know, is it really that important?
But at least they’re here. Channel 10 was actually supposed to show up and film some of this, presumably for the evening news, but never make it. Some other late breaking development must have pulled them away. As far as the ceremony itself, the lights go out to kick things off, as Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath erupts from the speakers. When the bride, Kim, appears, there’s some demented wedding march playing. And the preacher is wearing devil horns, though they are quite short and difficult to see, as though even he is somewhat uncomfortable about the angle of this wedding. But see, Tim and Kim had called Wags and Elliot from QFM 96.3, to tell them about this wedding, well in advance, and those guys flew this dude in from West Virginia somewhere to perform the honors.
After vows are exchanged, the lights are flipped on again to the tune of AC/DC’s Highway To Hell. Immediately, we all run for the beer, and grab plates of the somewhat limited food options – not that anyone’s complaining. This mostly consists of wings and meatballs, which once again totally fits the occasion. Then at some point I’m asking Doug if he’s thinking about returning to Kroger, since Tom is offering him a hefty raise to do so.
“I’ll tell you what,” Doug replies, “if Tom will smoke a joint with me, then I’ll come back.”
Well, spoiler alert, but Tom and Tim do eventually swing by our table in the name of “recruiting.” Then all three of those guys slip outside to do just that. But no, Doug never does return to our store.
“I didn’t know Tom smoked!” Jill gasps.
“Oh yeah,” I explain, “out of meat and seafood combined, the only ones that don’t are me, Donnie, Johna, and Brent. And Donnie used to, until a few months ago.”
“I wondered why I’d always see Tom and Ed riding in a car together when I was coming in for work…,” she muses.
Erin leaves early, completely trashed. Then when Doug, Jill, and I take off.
Franklin Street Creative: This deceptively nondescript building is home of the Hilliard Beacon, a wonderful publication documenting in fine detail every significant happening within your fair town. Jordan Smith, Tim Hofmann, and A. Kevin Corvo are the trio heading up this operation, all of which landed here when traditional media more or less went up in flames. I have been fortunate enough to get to know all three of them, in some capacity, and found them to be likeable, relatable fellows who also happen to know a ton and churn out some great work.
They chronicle Hilliard’s comings and goings primarily via a Substack page in both newsletter form and also frequent podcasts. In April 2024 I was even able to sit down (or pace around) for an interview with these guys! I wanted to paste a link to their actual Substack post here, but that doesn’t appear to play nice with WordPress. So we’ll go with the Spotify version, which pretty much anyone should be able to listen to without ever leaving this page
Old Bag of Nails (4065 Main St.): This wasn’t open yet at the time I actually lived in Hilliard, therefore I’ve only been here once – under this banner, that is. The occasion was a rehearsal dinner for Maria’s wedding. They rented out this room on the second floor (windows visible in this photo) and after Erin and I picked up Maddie and Emma, the four of us drove over here.
We park on the street and enter the restaurant, are told to head upstairs, where a room has been reserved. When we get up there, Jen McBride, Lisa, and about 3 other people are standing around. Lisa is jibberjabbering away without pause to one of these persons, waves half-heartedly at me, while Jen displays no initial recognition at all.
Then Tommy walks in with his woman and his daughter, and shouts, “Pockets!” This tall guy with brown hair and glasses says, “oh, so you’re Pockets! I’ve heard all these stories and I was wondering who Pockets was!” He walks over to shake my hand – turns out this is Landon, Lisa’s current boyfriend.
He seems like a nice enough guy. Jen finally realizes it’s me and says hello as well. Then I meet Maria’s fiance, Greg, who comes across as extremely cool, laid back, a little bit older with a great sense of humor. We are in fact seated at the same table as Maria and Greg, the four of us plus them, somehow. Erin and Maria of course hit it off from the word go, but as for Lisa…eh, not so much. But of course that was always completely predictable, too.
After those two exchange no-more-than-cordial hellos, Lisa extending a limp wrist in her direction, Erin jokes to me, “that was like shaking hands with a dead fish.” But then their mom, Rose, laughs and gives me a dismissive wave, in a jovial oh psshaw! type manner, explaining to Erin, “I’ve known him since he was knee high to a…”
“Short duck,” I offer.
“Yeah, really!” she agrees.
From here, the room swiftly begins filling up with guests. There’s a small buffet here, which suits us just fine, but of course Emma’s extremely picky and Maddie somewhat so. But the nice thing about having it here is that they are able to just order something off the Old Bag menu. As for us, we think the buffet is pretty decent. And they’ve also given everyone a few tickets each for adult beverages.
About halfway through the meal, a few tables over, Tommy’s getting agitated with his daughter and unexpectedly shouts out, “who wants a kid!? Thousand bucks! You can have her!” to the entire room. It’s pretty hilarious – and nice to see that basically nothing has changed with this crew. So the wedding and especially the reception should be interesting.
Heading back to our car, the girls are in giddy mood and think that the short, curbside, glowing orange streetlights are “cute.” Emma says she wishes they were boys so that she could hug them.
Prior to this Old Bag era, up through about 2008, this same building was instead an Irish pub/restaurant called County Cork Irish Pub. Circa the era of my patronizing this establishment, 2006, there’s a pair of friendly and attractive barmaids working here, coincidentally named Erin and Jill. Erin is a short, skinny, tan brunette, Jill of a similar height but pale, with spiky brown hair. The cod sandwich and fries are both only good, not exceptional, but I’m not complaining. Although there’s one day they serve me a Rolling Rock in this impossibly tall, slender, chilled flute, which is very weird. Or is this an Irish thing? A spacious dining era for what’s basically a pub. Golf reruns often on the TV, like some random tournament I catch from ’03 where Craig Stadler emerges victorious.
Otie’s Tavern & Grill (5344 Center St.): at some point they renamed themselves from the somewhat simpler Otie’s Restaurant, but either way it amounts the same thing – or thereabouts, anyway. Nowadays they refer to themselves as a throwback style American bar with American and Greek food, with live music to boot; circa 2006 their vibe was considered more country/homestyle type offerings, such as trumpeting their “baloney” sandwiches and roast beef.
Starliner Diner: this iconic restaurant is now in its second location, with no appreciable loss to the charm or the food quality. Click the name to read more.
other stuff
5011 Scioto Darby Rd.: Jill and her family lived in the right half of this charming little duplex from the fall of 1998 to March 2001. It was a split level with a basement and, I must say, somewhat roomier than you would guess from the outside. The kitchen was in the lower level, on the backside, and though there must have been a back yard of some sort, I seriously don’t remember setting foot inside it ever.
I did help them move in here, though. They got a lot of new furniture at that time, which is how we wound up with all the snazzy flower patterned stuff over at my apartment – donated gratis. I remember Jill and I put together a book shelf in her room, during which time I somehow dropped a hammer on her. Also one much more riveting occasion whereby we wound up doing it on the cement basement floor. She and I were washing laundry down there, she turned around with a mischievous chuckle and steered me down for a safe landing. Climbed on top, etc, etc.
This was the most “normal” living arrangement she apparently ever had, during her childhood and late teen/early 20s years. Her mom was actually married during this entire stretch, and her stepdad, Dan, was a beefy yet laidback guy, easy to get along with, by appearances respectable enough. Through him Jill even had a stepsister and a stepbrother, roughly the same ages as us, although they didn’t really come around a ton. Despite his hefty size Dan did kind of giggle like a girl, though, and in retrospect would seem a little daintier than I initially realized.
All of which would make much more sense down the road, when those two inevitably got divorced. One of the harbingers that first aroused their suspicions, about Dan possibly having a secret other life, was when this hilarious and very late 90s-esque figure got stuck on their computer screen, in an endless loop. It was from that whole era where they thought it was extremely cutting edge and cool to have some random image slide in sideways without warning from the edge of your screen, most likely accompanied by a little pop up bubble relating a message to you of some sort (i.e. like this animated figure I seem to remember from early Windows computers, who would often “helpfully” arrive on the scene and describe features to you, about which you had approximately negative 12% interest.) Well, in this instance it was a fully naked dude, who would slide into view and do a little dance, then scurry away again, endlessly. In other words the kind of malware you might wind up with if trolling a gay porn site.
Dan would eventually admit to being bisexual, although they didn’t get divorced until after leaving this house. And on the subject of unexpected nudity, I guess it would be remiss not to mention that Jill’s mom liked to sleep fully naked, which I initially did not know. Maybe she had an exhibitionist streak or something, who knows, but as Jill and I would always sleep in her room with the door open, and they left the hall light on, there were a couple ghastly occasions early on where I glimpsed much more than I wanted to, in other words the entire enchalada. The sound of someone moving would draw my attention and I’d reflexively glance over there, only to witness the sight of her mom shuffling past, without a stitch on. Over time I soon learned not to look.
Well, I would eventually help them move out, too, as they continued bouncing around town. That occasion was an especially grueling one somehow as it was just Dan and me stuck transporting and hauling the vast majority of their furniture out of here, into the next place. He also gave me like seven or so very nice 3-piece suits, sport jacket and all, which he hadn’t been able to wear since his much younger days. And there was also one occasion where we were taking a small amount of stuff over to my place, and he didn’t think I was going to brake for this car ahead of me in time, and squealed like – ahem – a teenaged cheerleader, then giggled nervously about that being a close call.
I only saw that dude one other time, after he and Jill’s mom split up in 2001. It was a few months maybe after I’d started working at Wild Oats, and he was in there shopping with some other woman, having already moved onto his next girlfriend. We chatted for a minute and I glanced over at her, then back at him, and we shared a little conspiratorial laugh about the situation. But of course, I couldn’t wait to tell the others about my encounter.
Fairweathers Cafe: (3747 Trabue Road) Only apparently recently closed, which means it was open for over 20 years. Not much going on here, but I’m sure like many of these unremarkable dives, they had some diehard regulars who would pretty much drink nowhere else. A little bit of a patio, and a pool room that was clearly tacked on at a later date from the original opening. It’s cracking me up though to read online reviews now and spot one that says there was a lot of riffraff in the parking lot. And yet she gave it five stars anyway! So presumably that was part of the appeal.
UPS (5101 Trabue Road): this completely unremarkable building is nonetheless where I picked up the first copy of my first book, Night Driving, back in 2001. Stood in this parking lot beside my car unwrapping the box, and turning the mythical object with considerable awe and wonder, over and over in my hand. You don’t exactly forget an experience like that.
While we’re on the subject of Hilliard, the beloved Starliner Diner recently reopened in a new spot, basically around the corner in this quaint suburb’s “old downtown” area. I haven’t had a chance to check out the latest digs just yet, though I certainly intend to. They turned this process around with admirable haste, when you consider the establishment that as Starliner closed its doors at 5240 Cemetery Road, patrons were left jonesing for their fabled huevos rancheros not even a month before the downtown spot – at 4121 Main Street, the site of Hilliard’s post office many a decade ago – was fully operational.
I’m sure they will import the menu and most of the fanbase, but its legendary charm is a dicier topic. “Is it me, or is this one of these fucked up places that only seem to exist in Columbus?” Damon once remarked, when I brought him to Starliner for the first time, and you would be hard pressed to summarize it better. Where to even begin describing this establishment, at least as it existed until May 2016? The fare is considered mostly Cuban, yet the décor is outer space themed kitsch with, like, a scoop of Elvis and then some other bizarre relics thrown into the blender. Some would call it Americana, but that’s just plain laziness – if anything, it reminds me of someone’s house you’d see in a British movie from the 60s, except with a bunch of crazy American and Mexican decorations thrown in, from the space exploration mural with the free floating astronaut painted along the top half of one wall, a paper machier (I’m guessing?) spaceship dangling from the ceiling, lime green, with a bunch of other futuristic designs painted on it in purple. Hanging elsewhere from the rafters, in a line from the front, plate glass window wall back to a small counter with a refrigerator behind it, there’s lamps, disco balls, and giant Xmas decorations of varying sizes and styles; on one wall, an enormous assortment of clocks, except not a normal looking timepiece in the bunch – we’re talking ten and twenty point stars, or branching off other weird shaped tentacles. With, quite naturally, an Elvis painting smack dab in the middle, as if to break up the monotony. One huge, thin, striped rug covers the entire floor on this half of the room, mostly a dull grey cover, and my favorite artifact of all might be this demented portrait of a dad and two kids seated at this dinner table while mom serves these ingrates with a crazed smile. Walls colored the most incongruous colors imaginable, visibly abutting and clashing with one another, weird furniture, and a window where you can watch the chefs in action further dot this landscape. These surreal touches extend even down to the presentation of your check, which is quite naturally brought to you on a Las Vegas tray depicting that city’s famous strip skyline at night, poker chips superimposed upon one of the corners.
But of course, nobody would really care about any of this if the food wasn’t awesome, and as would befit a restaurant that has been named “best breakfast in Columbus” on countless occasions, the Starliner never disappoints. Still, having been here enough times to notice a few key differences and catalog the patterns, I must say you would be slightly better off in choosing your spots wisely, attempting to drop in when this always popular landmark is maybe not quite so busy. Because it all comes down to potato crispiness.
Our last two visits, I must admit, while leaving satisfied overall with the experience – even the lengthy wait by now is an expected part and parcel of every meal here – something nagged at me after the fact, a disquiet I couldn’t initially identify. Eventually, I realized that what was slightly off about these recent Starliner excursions was that the potatoes were not quite as crispy as I’d grown to expect. And as the potatoes were a treasured centerpiece of many a breakfast on the menu, this was a central failing which might possibly serve to undermine the entire operation. Don’t get me wrong, these potatoes were not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it was only that the texture didn’t pop like it should. Furthermore, I concluded that the reason for this, most likely, was that the cooks were rushing the tickets slightly to accommodate these masses, who’d flooded the place in large part specifically for these potatoes.
History will someday document whether this shift in location proves beneficial to the Starliner or otherwise. But for now, I would like to go on record urging you to choose less busy hours for reasons that have nothing to do with wait time – and the cooks to slow down a little bit, because we’re not in that big of a hurry, and another thirty seconds for these potatoes might mean the world. In early 2024, they’ve announced a partnership with the longtime Columbus institution Nancy’s, incorporating their menu as well, so it will be interesting to see how this collaboration works out.
Bummed out as I’m sitting at the Starbucks inside this newly constructed Target, on Trueman Boulevard in Hilliard. Just watching the traffic zip up and down this fairly inconsequential street is enough to give me a bad case of the blues, thinking how it was deserted just a handful of months ago, and that the relentless march of progress cannot be stopped.
Before wrongly accused of hypocrisy – I’m guilty of biting the hand from which my food is delivered, sure, but not hypocrisy – let me state for the record that I work here. I sit at one of these tables every morning that I’m scheduled, for breaks and lunch, at these windows facing the street. And while watching interiors of cities as they are transformed and repurposed can be a thing of beauty, a marvel to hold up to the light and admire, something about plowing that which was formerly frontier will always bring out the inner treehugger, somehow, even when one wasn’t entirely sure such an inner voice existed. And I’m sure that with or without my presence, this Target would continue to exist.
Since the Target went up, they’ve built another strip mall on this road already, in between the Home Depot and Cheeseburgers In Paradise. A Radio Shack sits there, who knows what else. And of course this line of concrete shopping options will likely extend north clear up to Davidson Road, soon enough, where Trueman truly ends. In time, who knows, I can see Trueman being expanded until at least Hayden Run. As will Britton someday, too, Trueman’s vaguely parallel counterpart on the other side of the I-270 outerbelt.
Such developments are tolerable when population and lack of space demands it. But sometimes you can’t escape feeling certain acres are bulldozed specifically because they are new, because formerly occupied plots are considered passe. Such as, one other restaurant sitting across the outerbelt, one of those carbon copy “western” steakhouses (I can’t keep them straight, can’t remember which franchises I’ve frequented and which I haven’t as they all look exactly the same), sits deserted, it has been for a couple of years now. Texas Roadhouse was lined out the building when I was dating Jill in this neck of the woods eight years ago, but at present there’s nary a soul dining there. And a Chili’s just closed at this exit as well, demolished and replaced by another goddamn CVS – a development which would otherwise be deplorable, except that I happen to kind of respect that they at least used an existing retail space rather than dropping a bomb in some field on the edge of town. All of these establishments existed along a busy corridor, Cemetery Road, which is itself an exit off of I-270, yet none of those could survive. And even so, they’re still building a bunch of new restaurants along this stretch? I guess the failure of past tenants explains why movers and shakers involved with some of these newer companies declined to take over shuttered locations, but I wonder what makes them feel so confident about their own demographic studies and carefully razed coordinates.
II.
Okay, so the above was written in either 2005 or 2006, i.e. roughly 20 years ago. But what does this area look like now? A couple of these I already know off the top of my head: Cheeseburger In Paradise? Completely toast. Radio Shack? This one is toast as well. The Home Depot, however, survives. And while the Target still looks refreshingly modern on the outside, its exterior, in an opinion probably influenced by the relative emptiness of their parking lot (even at rush hour on a Friday afternoon), makes me think that this location was never of the company’s top performing outposts.
It seemed totally apparent, when this Target was built, that the Trueman Blvd corridor would immediately blow up with all manner of retail and traffic. And while it seems this is eventually coming, it’s somewhat refreshing that it still has not done so as of this writing. As it stands, this store is in a funky, out of the way spot that is almost counterintuitive now, one that you wouldn’t just stumble upon in your travels without looking it up on a map app first.
Farther north, there are some isolated businesses here and there, and of course this TruePointe development is coming. For the time being, though, a surprising lack of development marks much of the rest – which I would not have bet any money on, twenty years after I sat out that window looking at this road.
I wound up working at this Target for a little over a year, from the fall of 2005 to the very end of 2006. This was during a positively nutso era, even by my standards, that I’ll be discussing very soon on other posts here. But anyway, I took this on as a “second” job, pretty much by necessity…even though the hours were mostly 4am to 12:30pm, five days a week. It ended up being a pretty cool gig, though, and the schedule not too horrific after I got used to it.
We all worked together as a team, unloading the semi truck, then stocking the shelves in whatever section they’d assigned each of us that day. And all took our breaks from 8-8:30am, which is one of those periods that I wrote the above little poetic mini-essay about Trueman. We had a Starbucks there, so I got locked into this weird little ritual, stumbled upon by sheer happenstance. I would order a coffee, and sip at it here and there, while nodding off at the table. Occasionally awake with a start, take another sip, and lightly doze off again. Repeat. But then would come out of these half our breaks positively on fire with the energy level (and it was amusing to me, recently, to read some online piece, where the writer was saying he had this similarly accidental epiphany, after drinking coffee one day and then taking a nap, after which he was firing on all cylinders; I couldn’t help but think of this Target era, with a warm smile, and recall haphazardly making the same discovery.)
Before the nickname was ever bestowed upon Albert Pujols (I think?) they began calling me The Machine – management figures, even, not just random employees. I was usually assigned to MMB, which I think stood for multimedia & books, because I’d developed some methods for flying through that category with maximum speed and organization. But even so, every so often the odd management person would question things, and argue with a straight face that if I would just do things the same way as everybody else, I would be even faster! After overcoming my bewilderment, I typically responded by asking if they ever maybe thought that my methods were the reason I was quicker than the rest of the employees.
When I was hired, it turned I already knew exactly one employee who was part of this late night stock team – M.J., this short, slightly older lady who coincidentally enough was also an original cast member at the Bethel Road Kroger, same as me. I probably hadn’t seen her in about 7 years, though, until bumping into her here. As far as memorable occurrences, I would have to say at the forefront is something that merely occurred on the way to work one morning, and which I thankfully didn’t even see. Dozens of employees arrived and reported that day that these two dipshit guys, who looked to be maybe in their early twenties, were streaking buck naked back and forth across Cemetery Road. They were clearly timing their runs to startle oncoming motorists, at which point they’d hide on the other side of the street and wait for the next one, before crossing again.
How I was spared this sight, I’m not quite sure. If only the same were applied to everybody else on the really rad morning I was pulled over by some cop, directly in front of our store, for having expired plates and too loud of a muffler. And then had to answer a bazillion questions all day, from every employee who passed us before parking. As far as the actual work, though, I would tell anyone that Target was actually a great company to work for. For the first handful of days, in fact, I couldn’t stop laughing, before finally catching myself and pausing to analyze what was so funny, exactly. Thinking about it this way was when it first occurred to me: everything they were doing here actually made sense!It was as though my brain reflexively couldn’t believe it, that a company would so consistently behave in a manner so logical and sane. I’m sure any of you who have ever worked in retail, or for that matter maybe held a job, period, can relate.
Well, a part of my big master plan, and a major component of my working here in the first place, concerned wheels I was setting in motion for transferring to another of their locations, elsewhere. I wanted to have a job already secured upon arrival there, and succeeded on that front. But it just wasn’t the same. For starters, they had their stock crew working 10pm to 6:30am there, instead, and even an unrepentant night owl like me just couldn’t hack those hours. I lasted about 5 months before throwing in the towel. The people were also on balance not quite as hilarious, which is no small consideration. Another factor that can’t be overlooked is that the head honcho at that new location, Rodolfo, was not exactly anybody I would ever wish to sit down with dinner or for that matter even a quick donut with. And it still cracks me up to think that my manager here, at store #1969, Bridget, actually had to converse with that lunatic over the phone, while they negotiated the details of my transfer.
“Whoa!” she related to me, eyes wide, after speaking to him for the first time, telling me how insanely intense this dude sounded.
I guess I should have already smelled disaster. I didn’t know how good I already had it, here at Trueman Boulevard.
Select fiefdoms of my little MMB (music, movies, books) empire:
F1 (movies) wraps from discount section, to comedy, drama (around corner) to action and horror, to fitness, westerns, musical, classics: all still considered F1, though 2 different walls
F2 (books) 4 way – side 1 (faces aisle) best seller paperback, rest seasonal
F3 (magazines) don’t deal with
F4 paperbacks
F5 (books) 4 way: side 1 trade best seller, 2 (counterclockwise) pregnancy, 3 fitness, 4 cooking
F6 trade paperbacks
F7 teen trade/hardcover
F8 hardcover
F9 kids books
F10 (video) 4 way: side 1 kids’ new release, other 3 sides assorted kids’ movies
F11 kids coloring books
F12 Kids books (slightly older – to read themselves, as in comic books, movie tie ins, etc) and kids CDs hanging on hooks
F13 kid vid aisle
F14 CD/DVD storage cases, racks, etc
F15 TV series boxed sets 4 way
F16 TV series boxed sets aisle
F17 soundtrack & compilation CDs
2006: work notes
January 5
Guys in the backstock room have nothing better to do (see no people) than make wisecracks, hone their repartee all day, every day:
(1) Richard brings back fresh skid of backstock
Steve – what’s this? I thought you said there wasn’t any more
Richard – a gift
Steve – Christmas is over, dude!
Richard – I’m getting a head start on next year
(2) Richard brings back another skid
Steve – is that everything?
Richard – as far as I know
Steve – yeah, well, try not to know anything else
(my throat’s incredibly sore, from this cold, I’m trying not to laugh at their antics – because it hurts – but can’t help myself) (what is laughter?) (chemical reaction?) (very strange when I think about it like this, that it’s a bodily function you technically can’t control)
January 9
Work 4:30am – 1:30pm. Most of it in backroom. Learned how to do pulls today, and Steve (backroom manager) is impressed by my speed, not at this necessarily, but at everything I do, yet to me this stuff you could sleepwalk through. Literally. I mostly daydream about something else while I’m doing it, pondering lines I’m struggling over in my book, etc.
January 12
In at 4:30, spent day in back room helping Steve w/ “bounce back” – cleaning up storage aisles (nothing on top racks, everything forward & to left within rack.
February 16
Off today at 10, then (one no truck day a week is cool to work, I’ve decided today, but no more; glad I get the other two off)
March 4
I’m in on one hour of sleep. We’re getting an insane amount of spring stationary in – skids upon skids of it – like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It comes down so fast I’m shoveling it onto floor, then, when unable to move, get pallets (extra ones) over against the two unused bays and stack with a fury there. David comes over to my side, to stand at the 38/30 skid spot, and something, first, about his body language is cracking me up – almost motionless, completely expressionless, just a swat of his right hand knocking these boxes onto the floor. Ben’s helping me stack now and is wheeling the skids away as they fill.
“David, you have to stop working like this, man!” Ben says, distressed at the mess, in his thick Middle Eastern accent.
David doesn’t acknowledge, doesn’t change anything – swat swat swat, boomp, boomp, boomp, the boxes pile up on the floor. I’m so tired it’s almost painful to laugh, but I can’t stop.
March 7
Truck only 1400 pieces but seems to take forever (yet in reality only hour & a half as always) because Easter candy (2nd day in a row) and for some reason office/stationary backstock is getting bombarded, and it’s just me w/ the occasional hand from Richard at the end on this side (he’s been working Flow more often, at least 2 days/wk. Rick quit; Corey’s still here, by the way, but only works the bare minimum to keep himself “on payroll.”)
Left stocking “MMB” and electronics both this morning, though Matt at least bowls out the electronics part of it and separates repack boxes into shopping carts. The station they always play overhead in the morning of “80s, 90s, and now” is instead replaced by top 40 station no one ever puts on, except that for some outrageous reason they play Amish Paradise by Weird Al this morning, I can’t believe my ears. That dude rocks – what a career. David Gilmour’s first solo record in 22 yrs drops today, which I only just heard about last week, too bad I don’t have $ to buy. Jeff here at 4 am also because Tuesday is “street date” day and it kills me not to buy this CD.
Alarm clock going off in one of the aisles, and I finally figure out it’s coming from inside one of the boxes on the shelf. Bugging the hell out of me but don’t have time to sort through them, open it, shut it off, etc. Eventually (store manager) Chris Stoffel, cracking up, tracks down Jeff, shows him – Jeff shuts it off. “That’s funky!” Chris says – thick glasses, big 1970s moustache, and off kilter slang that doesn’t quite wash: yeah, these bigwigs are always the same.
Dan and I knock out this backstock because the AP chick is coming (asset protection) and they like to have MMB/elec backstock done by 8. In reality, it takes us till about 9, but I don’t mind because taking 1st break later seems to break up the day even better. Then “light duty” backstock – Steve throws two pallets’ worth of Easter candy up to me & I stow it, and one pallet of home furnishings. Next thing I know, it’s time to split, w/ the usual 15 min overtime I’ve been trying lately to pick up every day.
One hilarious tidbit: Toby fired for stealing wine, a camera, and apparently a CD. The wine he drank back here one night while stocking, and left the bottle, empty, over in the pets backstock aisle w/ cork stuffed back inside. When it happened last week, Cole was bemoaning what nerve someone had to not only drink it, but discard his empty in such fashion.
“Don’t they have cameras down all these aisles?” I wonder.
“Most of them are dummies,” he says.
Today, in the backstock room, Toby’s the hot topic. His girlfriend has a baby on the way, too. “That’s really dumb,” Richard says. And it wasn’t just that he drank that one bottle, but apparently smuggled another one out that got him busted.
“How do you steal a bottle of wine?” Steve marvels.
“Very carefully?” I suggest.
“That bulge in my pocket, guys…….” the other (backstock room) Jason jokes.
“…..you’re not just happy to see us?” Steve returns.
March 22
Bridget tells Don that Carrie said he looked nicest of all the people on Flow Team “because you always wear a belt and your shirt’s tucked in.” Don fiddles with his collar and beams at us. This is after lunch – Don, Bobby, Chad, and I are tearing through the backstock. Overheard conversation:
Bobby: “you need to stop ballin our bosses just to get them to talk nice about you (to Don)
Bobby: “at least I don’t wear a back brace to cover up how big my stomach is (to Chad) (has sore back this week)
March 27
Chad and I are in the truck this morning (this is only my 3rd time being inside the semi, unloading it, instead of on the line – all in the past two weeks) and he asks me, “what are you up to, now, Doctor?” As in, he means that I have now elevated beyond my original nickname of The Machine. So now he’s referring to me as The Doctor instead, although that one hasn’t quite caught on with everyone just yet.
Fucked up day. Truck late, so we’re all just standing around waiting on it.
March 28
Helene startles Chad by walking into our backstock room. “You’re lucky this is the Hilliard Target,” Chad jokes, “some of the other ones you could’ve been shot for that.” Don and I cracking up. How did I not find these guys cool at first? Chad can just clear his throat, even, and somehow that is hilarious.
Bobby cracking up (works toys) because Matt’s stressing out – Bridget revised the schedule late last week and some people don’t show up today, because trucks are coming on Wednesday instead of Thursday now. And Bridget’s off today, Jason P. went home at 8 (sick), Matt is mostly alone on the management front.
“If ever there was a day to fuck with Matt, this is it,” Bobby tells me. Chad cracking up, too – and what’s hysterical is that I never said anything to anyone, about how hilarious I think it is when Matt’s freaking out, but apparently they feel the same way. Well, a few people consider it being “harassed” by him, the rest of us think of it more as a comedy show.
March 29
More of same. I’m done with working both electronics and MMB by 7:30, so Matt asks me to help seasonal finish (Tom). I get 5 boxes done, during which time Matt sends Chad over to pitch in as well, before Matt then asks me to go help Don with toys instead. Get 4 boxes done there before Matt reappears with apologetic grin, asks me to return to seasonal instead. Brings out a very optimistic (read: delusional) skid for us to work at 7:40, before then taking it back at 8.
“I think it’s cute,” I hear Chad telling Bobby.
“Dude, that’s the word I was gonna use!” Bobby says.
You feel like telling the guy: chill, bro! Otherwise you are looking at a massive coronary by about age 37! (Real age, that is, since he’s just 24; in something like a “dog years” type concept, though, he would be about 86 by then) And Target is not going to give a fuck about you when that happens! You should enjoy, like, your final 13 years, instead of stressing over this place!
The funniest and I guess you could say most ironic thing about management types like this, though, is that there is absolutely NO WAY this is more productive than him just leaving us right where we were, doing whatever.
Well, anyway…at our 8am huddle, Kermit’s railing about someone sticking a box of picture frames with just one of them damaged in his damaged pile.
“We just wanted you to stick your hand in there,” Amy jokes.
“Well, I’ve had my hands in a lot of boxes…,” Kermit grins – he’s got an admittedly sharp and somewhat edgy sense of humor at times, for an older guy – and everyone busts out laughing. Before he concludes, “…but I don’t need to stick mine in one full of glass.”
Funny how some guys come across as dirty old men, but some, like Kermit, can pull off – they’re just funny, and harmless.
April 4
Becky has a major meltdown 5 minutes after we start unloading truck and is removed from line. Tina mysteriously disappears without a word said, returns. Yolanda starts yelling at her – Bridget has to break up fight. Hilarious. Henceforth, Becky is no longer first person on push side.
April 7
Matt, surprised I’m done with MMB so soon and have already moved onto helping Don with electronics, says, “you’re done already?”
“Yeah.”
“So this is backstock?”
“Yeah.”
All panting and half panicky and racing onto the scene like always, like skidding to a halt he’s running so fast, of course, as though the building were on fire and we were racing against the flames to knock this out for some reason before we were able to leave. Which, come to think of it, is probably exactly what would happen in that scenario.
“He annoying,” Don says to me, after Matt walks off. Headphones on, blaring rap music at a volume I can hear without them. “I didn’t even hear what he said.”
A word about my daily routines at this day job. Someday it will seem amazing to me I was actually able to wake up at 2:30 in the morning back during the holidays and report to Target at 3. But otherwise, it’s always been hit the snooze button at 3:30, wake up for good when it goes off again at 3:39. Start a pot of coffee, make a sandwich for first break, take a piece of fruit for lunch. That’s it. I fiddled w/ yogurt briefly, but got tired of dealing with taking a spoon, keeping it clean, etc. Always a sandwich and fruit, tucked into my coat pocket, carrying my thermos and a book. Finally finished The Recognitions the other day – after months and months, and losing the book twice for short periods of time – which makes life a bit easier (current books much lighter) and varied.
Don and I finish electronics by 7:15, go over to help aisles A & B. Matt makes his 7:30 announcement to start cleaning up.
“He’s such a dork,” Amy says.
“I thought that was your boy,” I joke.
“Uh…uh…uh…,” she stammers, imitating him.
Only 24 years old but essentially middle aged, I swear – he acts the part one hundred percent. Even wears his hair in the “George Jefferson crescent roll bald look,” as Miles refers to that particular hair style. A good guy, but still, wow, you feel like telling him, chill out dude. Or the odds of you living past a third heart attack by about the age of 40 are probably not so hot.
April 19
Kermit at the morning huddle: “yeah I just wanted to say I don’t think it’s Target brand for there to be yellow fluid on the toilet seat. So…if your hardware doesn’t extend past the toilet seat, might I suggest you lift up the toilet seat?”
A speech like this is funny because – well, no, I guess it would still be funny coming from a supervisor – but it’s even funnier stemming from a random coworker who is in no way anyone’s boss. So of course we’re all cracking up.
On break I’m sitting in my car listening to headphones and writing. An apple and coffee for lunch today. Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone playing. Vicki says this is the best spring ever – if rain, only at night, it’s sunny and warm every day.
April 28
Call off today, though it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Michael replaces me on the backstock side of the line and flips out – no one’s sure why. But apparently it all comes down to either Amy or Richard said something to piss him off, and he stormed out of the building, never to return. Just like that, he’s history.
May 1
Michael (AKA “New Gedroe”) shows up this morning, three days after he walked off the job. As if he’s just going to jump back into the mix like nothing ever happened. Pouring rain outside, rolls up on his bicycle, in Target shirt but oddly jeans instead of khakis. “In a monsoon,” Chad describes it. Bridget intercepts him in the lobby as we’re entering, he takes a hike.
May 3
Just before “morning huddle.” It’s funny how sometimes verbal interaction between a large number of employees can flow so seamlessly comical, it’s almost like a movie. But not often. At the time of this occurrence, half the people are baling boxes, the other half standing around waiting for huddle to begin.
Ann: (just passing through) anyone got any good jokes?
Richard: no but we got a bad joke – Matt! We got Matt!
(I alone hear this and laugh) (a short pause follows)
Richard: Jason laughed
Matt: huh?
(Richard repeats comment)
(Matt just stands there blinking at him, as though unable to process comment)
Jason: he’s gonna laugh when you get written up for insubordination
(at this, Matt laughs)
Richard: that’s not insubordinate, that’s disrespectful! You can’t write someone up for being disrespectful
Tom: we’ve already had our raises
Sach: (walking into our midst) alright, this meeting’s adjourned. (Shouting all the way down to light duty backstock room, trying to compel them to stop what they’re doing and join us) COME ON, FUCKERS!
Jim: (completely aghast – not joking) What did he say? (looks to us for support, then mutters) That ticks me off…
May 23
Sach is what I’ve always kind of thought of as Doug Lite: often the same sense of humor and mannerisms, but not quite as extreme. Well today he calls Bridget “asshole” as she’s trying to run our morning huddle, just goofing off; she asks him not to do that, so he then calls her “dick” instead. So of course she calls him into her office afterwards.
It’s one of those situations where he had genuinely just been clowning, but since she’s made such a big deal about it he’s now officially pissed off for real. Leaving her office, he kicks the door leading out to the sales floor, on the sales floor side (which means customers can see it). So now the red wall has a white splinter mark, door won’t close. Management stumbles upon this and has at least repainted the thing within an hour, doesn’t know he did it. Not much they can do about the not-properly-closing part at the moment, however.
May 27
Dominic’s last day. I always feel so bad – never have the first clue what to say. Not that you know these people so tremendously well, but you’re worked across the line from them every goddamn 4am for months. Yet there is nothing to say when someone quits, nothing that isn’t either empty and lame, or over the top and cheesy.
The team suffers each loss of a link, so how does the operation continue? Our strengths/weaknesses amount to nothing – an illusion, that’s all. They just need a body to fill the void.
Sometime around early June, our store reports that since it opened 9 months earlier, we’ve already recycled 2500 trees’ worth of cardboard. And Sach was eventually fired for kicking in that door.
June 12
(Unloading truck in the morning; heavy furniture coming down the line, for the last – bulk- backstock pallet)
Amy – get over there and help him!
Richard – he doesn’t need my help….(squeezes one of my biceps) wait, yeah he does
Amy – you’re not looking much meatier, there
Richard – let’s try to keep our eyes above the waist, lady
(A couple minutes later, as I’m back down at the front of the line)
Becky – we got the perfect couple down there at the other end (Amy and Richard)
Tom – yeah, two complainers
(they’ve no sooner said this, than we hear a conversation drifting down to us from that other end….)
Richard – it’d be nice if we had a pacesetter that actually set a pace
Amy – COME! ON!
June 16
-Don: (80+ degree day) “Bridget walkin around in that sweatshirt like she cold or somethin…” Yolanda: “Well when you’re not doing anything, you do get cold”
-on the line, 5 gigantic boxes of Rubbermaid style containers (Steritech I think?) Richard: “yeah and if all 5 of these go out there (not marked backstock) I’ll kiss someone’s ass” Becky: “they’re not paying anyone enough for you to do that”
-Becky (on me, telling others): “he’s the quiet type and those are always very bad boys”
-Becky (later, in backstock, to Don): “You gotta watch Jason cause he’s one of those quiet types, and they’re always the worst. That’s why he comes in so tired in the morning – he stays out all night, showers, changes, and comes right in” me: “sometimes” Becky: “ah ha! I knew it!”
June 22
on 8am break I fall asleep in my car for one hour. To make up for it, I clock out for one hour lunch at 10 but only actually go for half an hour. Matt & Bridget were freaking out & looking for me during my extended absence, of course.
June 27
David: (pointing finger at my backstock side of line) “we need a one more people over here” me: “too much stuff” David: “yes! Too much stuff forever!” (later; Ralph emerging from truck) David: “Mistah Ralph! Good job!”
July 4
Don shaking his head at end of line: “Man I can’t believe they (Bridget and Matt) ain’t ever got more organized than this,” he says, in hilarious mutter that most likely only I hear.
July 5
Two new management trainees here today. One pacesetter with Bridget, one on the push side of the line (still no help for moi? What do you need 2-4 pacesetters for? Then again I suppose this is actually a compliment, that they think I can handle the workload). Bridget’s in “showoff” mode, needs to impress upon the newbies how “well” we function as a team – thus announcing our allotted unload time is one hour (usually never reads us off to this), big production about being way more chipper than usual, etc.
I’ve got 7 skids of transitional stuff but Matt H “helps” by dropping 3 extra empty pallets not at end of line, but behind the first row of them, in the aisle. Blocking said aisle (a) but also puzzling me as to how I’m supposed to reach them anyway once these front ones, of other items (category 33, 37, 36, 39, and so on) are filled (b). So then tiptoeing around, and it takes 4 of us to negotiate this crazy ass setup, boxes pile on floor, everywhere.
Bridget exceptionally cheerful because we “make” our time by 1 minute, but nobody gives a damn; we never “make” our times on the other days because it says on the sheet you need 13 people to pull this off, and the most we’ve ever had is 9. Except today, of course, for showoff mode, where we’ve got the two new management guys (2nd day for both), plus Matt on backstock, plus Bridget on the line, none of which ever happens. How very impressive and amazing – we can corral the extra help on these showoff days, but not the others. Now obviously, we appreciate the help when we can get it. I just think it’s hilarious the extent to which corporate people aren’t even fully corporate people, they’re selectively corporate, tuning out what doesn’t fit with whatever they’re trying to sell. The implication that we’re somehow screwoffs because we don’t “make” time on typical days, but yet we’ll just ignore the part where it’s telling you how many people you’re supposed to have right on the same goddamn sheet. Because we can’t hire enough that will come in at 4am and stick around for this kind of pay. So the pertinent facts aren’t that you’re maybe a few minutes over with at most 2/3 the staffing you’re supposed to have – only the first part of that equation truly matters, chump. Get it together.
Tina: (approaching me later in backroom) do you go to the gym? me: no. Tina: how did you get to be so strong? me: Doing this. I was a weakling before.
Matt H is standing right beside a skid I’ve already got loaded about 1/4 high with transitional stuff (giant blue stickers on boxes) and he tells me, “go ahead and separate the transitional stuff onto a separate skid today.” Oh, you mean, keep doing what I obviously already started, which is piled up just inches away from you, and therefore you theoretically could not possibly miss? Cool, got it.
July 7
Matt talking at huddle – “I know he ain’t talkin,” Don mumbles. David busted out for leaving his boxes.
July 8
Chad – “someday they’re gonna be writing books about you, Machine.” me – “I hope so” (I haven’t heard talk like this is in years; actually gave up on it & started writing books myself)
July 9
I overhear Myrna telling (fat) Chris, about me: “I wish we had 5 more just like him.”
July 29
another 2000+ piece truck (all week) – this time myself (of course) alone on backstock line. Tom-Becky-Richard-David-Dan goes push line, until halfway thru they pull Dan to bowl. (Dan wears batting gloves on line). Becky distressed because David refuses to budge from spot to retrieve boxes. “What is he gonna do just stand there and watch Richard work?” she groans. Her sayings and mannerisms remind me of Jill. People have given up – make no effort – saying anything to David. Even though he’s very intelligent and comprehends English fully, his own replies in English are not very fluent. Thus they perceive a language barrier, because they can’t “make” David get with the program the way they can us. Guess you’d call this “diplomatic immunity.”
August 2
Truck only 1000, but Bobby unloading (1st time in months), w/ Don. Everyone groaning horror stories, how bad this week has been – 3 people every day push side; yesterday no Bridget no Jason just Matt, & unload doesn’t start till 4:45. I’m cracking up all day picturing him freaking out. Hardly any 27/40 for me today (elec/MMB) but all of yesterday’s still undone, plus Thursday’s MMB, plus today’s autofill awaits me, eats up all my day – & still not quite finished. But I love it: this, & backstocking it, the only part of job I truly enjoy.
August 14
I’m in the trailer of the semi truck, unloading it with Don. This is a rare occurrence for me. Matt says I’ll only have to do so, “just until someone else gets here.” Whatever that means, because it’s only Don and me until we are finished with the entire truck. The line is frequently backed up, where we are firing boxes down the whole collapsible/expandable snake-like metal conveyor belt thingie. And so we have to stop, until it’s cleared up again.
“This must be the slowest unload ever,” I remark. “No, there was one slower than this, one day we had a 1200 piece truck n’ didn’t get done till 6,” Don says.
He asks me about my new job at the North Market, can’t believe how much I’m making there, says he’ll be in to shop – and maybe even apply.
Then we get off the truck and Becky exclaims, “you guys eat your Wheaties today or something? You guys were flying.” “I thought we were going slow,” I admit. “You guys were fast,” Cindy insists, bolstering Becky’s claim.
At the meeting, Jason P. compliments the line for keeping up with me and Don – guess we were flying – but it’s no joke that he and I both felt we were moving at a snail’s pace.
September 3
Cole and Richard are pissed off about Jason B. calling off again, therefore conspire to have everyone call off next Sunday. “I’ll give you 50 bucks,” Richard tells me. These two remind me of guys I’d work with in the union atmosphere at Kroger. “He’s called off at least 50, 60 times in the year we’ve been open,” Cole says, mystified why Bridget doesn’t can him, “yet, we had this one kid – he was 15 minutes late every day, but he was here – every day, and they let him go.”
September 9
Matt H more hilarious freakouts. Twice pulls me from backstocking electronics, says, “I’ll have Maggie do it when she gets in,” but it never gets done. (Maggie sexy quiet not enough attention new girl wears thongs to work every day, easily visible, nice body, bends over a lot, often wears a bandanna.)
September 18
Amanda our adorable new human resources person – I think sexiest chick at my Target – is around in the early morning taking a poll, which of us are willing to work overnight come November (not I,) versus which of us are willing to come in at 3am instead of 4 (I said ok.) She approaches Ricky and me as we’re in F50/51, working electronics. She has her glasses on, which I don’t believe I’ve seen before, but anyway, as she’s asking – cutest squeaky voice, and a bubbly personality.
And as luck would have it, I have a viable pretense for dropping into her office later, having a seat at her desk. First thing this morning when I came in, Bridget was at the door and I told her the news of my move. “Oh no!” she said, “a lot of people are gonna be heartbroken…..” which would have seemed an impossible comment, say, just a few months ago, but the more I think about it, I guess she’s right. Just like anywhere I’m a nobody when I start, because I don’t have much to say. But over time in some roundabout fashion people are won over, I make friends even without often ever having a “real” conversation w/ any of them, it’s just my zany always upbeat cheerful friendly hardworking self winning them over without any direct effort to. They slowly befriend me. And now I guess I do feel fairly popular here, though apparently too bizarre still to have much luck w/ the females at this particular establishment – maybe that would’ve taken two years instead of just this one.
Bridget tells me to get w/ Amanda about arranging my transfer. Eight o’clock I’m in the coffee shop on our first break, reading a book, and I hear Amanda pipe up around the corner, talking to the counter girl and some other coworkers in line w/ her: “I should have never tried the pumpkin spice latte! Now I’m addicted!” she jokes, in sweet chipper voice. A few minutes later I’m in her office and she’s sipping on said pumpkin spice latte and we’re chatting.
“Normally this takes awhile to approve, but trust me,” she says, “holiday season, they’re gonna want you.”
“Yeah, everybody’s desperate,” I agree, and she nearly chokes, giggles sweetly over top of her plastic lid.
Janine is technically the biggest knockout we have working at our store, with a body that is an absolute 10 and a face that’s probably a 9, but I don’t know, she’s friendly, but there’s something almost dweeby about her, strange as that is to say, she definitely doesn’t carry herself in a sexy manner. Whereas sales floor Amy (not to be confused w/ crunked up flow team Amy) positively oozes sexiness, though having not much of a body – tanned, and always wearing this scrumpdiddyumptious perfume, an alluring vaguely gravely voice, swings her hips, great sense of humor – and there’s something about Christina that’s sluttily enticing, too. And a number of the cashier teenyboppers have absolutely drop dead figures and angelically divine profiles. But out of all of them, I swear I’d take this Amanda over any. She just has that special something – you can never define it, and maybe nobody else would agree (or at least not for the same reasons, or as strongly), but for me she’s just IT. Out of any girl at any of my three jobs right now, actually. And I thought so pretty much the first day I ever laid eyes on her.
September 23
James sprinting back, as I’m sorting combos, to reclaim toboggan he’d taken off during truck unloading
September 25
For some reason our truck wasn’t “recognized” by the system, which meant everything we unloaded today had to go out to the floor, unless it was stamped TRANSITION on the box and we knew for sure it was backstock. Otherwise, everything had to be checked to see if it would push. I’m cracking up for some reason to see our ragtag crew this morning, what’s left of it, what it’s devolved into at this point. Ricky and James the unloaders today, the latter wearing this hilarious toboggan for the first 1/4, roughly, of our unload. Took forever, till almost 6. I had an easy day, with only a bunch of combo boxes to sort through, and the couple dozen boxes marked Transition. Becky, Richard, Amy, and Don on the push side of the line, with Ben (first time I’ve seen this) scanning. And me. That’s it.
They’ve got Matt H. coming in at 4:30 now instead of 4, to spread out the coverage a tiny bit more. Richard tries telling him about yesterday, but Matt either doesn’t believe him or doesn’t think it a big deal. Later, I’m kneeling down on the floor sorting through the repacks as boxes zip past me overhead on the line.
Richard: did you fall down or are you taking a nap?
Amy: he’s missing in action.
Richard: he’s missing more than that.
Matt’s freakouts making no sense again. Has me on MMB and Ricky doing electronics, which is fairly normal, except there are a bazillion white repacks (electronics) and I’m the only one w/ a gun. But tells me to give Ricky my gun when I’m done, head over to C & D (the domestics aisle – bed, bath, curtains, frames, pictures, plants, vacuums, etc) because “they need help badly” (he’s panting, having dashed over to tell me this, I heard him coming a mile away), yet has told Amy, who’s working over in C & D at the moment that “when you’re done, uh, if you could head over and there’s a pallet of baby and two skids of shoes, then if you have time you can help them in soft lines.” I have a ton of videos myself, it takes me until about 7:15 to make it over there.
“You’re messy,” Amy says, mock chidingly, of my empties at the end of each aisle method.
“Eh, someone else will come along and pick it up,” I tell her, only half kidding.
“Now I wanna know how that works,” she says.
“You should try it sometimes,” I insist, “you’d be surprised.”
Amy, one aisle over from me, tells hilarious story about running into old coworker Michael (“New Gedroe” as I thought of him) at the video store and the instant he saw her, he literally ran out of the building. “Mom, what did you do to that guy?” her son asks, thoroughly puzzled. I relate my own recent Michael sightings, on consecutive days: Tuesday, stopping into the Shell station here in Hilliard as I begin making my way on foot all the way down to Bob’s, and he’s working there; then, the very next night, Michael’s in the frozen aisle at Kroger the same time I am, then at the U-Scans the same time I am, and the employee overseeing these is on the verge of losing his cool because Michael can’t seem to get the hang of using this U-Scan. Which I would wager money he’s used a quarter of a million times before. “HIT THE GO BACK BUTTON!” the guy finally shouts at Michael. What a weirdo.
Bridget materializes w/ a troubled look on her face, she’s on a mission to speak w/ Amy in “low” voices the next aisle over. Apparently trying to gauge Amy’s latest beef w/ Matt. She recites the line I’ve quoted above (about heading over to work baby, shoes, and soft lines) and adds, “then he comes back fifteen minutes later, and tells me the exact same thing! I told him, stop harassing me! That’s what it is, he’s harassing me,” she says.
Reaching me, though, Bridget’s cracking up – says she’s spoken to the logistics coordinator at the store where I’m transferring, he called her this morning at 4am and “he sounded reaaaaaaaaaaallllllyyyyyy hyper, I think he said his name was Rodolfo, he kept asking me if you were a good employee, what your attendance was like, were you here on time, what you knew, I’m like, man, this guy is way too hyper for four in the morning,” and I’m thinking, great, I’m going to be working for another Matt Hawkins. But she put in a good recommendation: “I told him you were really fast and that you worked good with people but worked good by yourself too.”
By this time Amy and James and I have knocked out most of C & D, and the lights come on at 8am. Working our way back up C, getting the last bowled out boxes pushed, we encounter James, a good five minutes after we’ve last seen him, picking up my trash from the very aisle where Amy made her notorious comment earlier.
“I’ve just got some trash here to pick up,” James explains, almost apologetically, because it’s the last thing left in this section.
“I see that,” I tell him, and Amy starts cracking up.
“I see that,” she repeats, “you should have said, I created that!”
-today James wore a fishing hat on the job instead
September 30
Most ungodly mountain of backstock (and by “backstock” I mean: 20 unopened white repack boxes) I’ve ever seen, including my stuff from Monday; also a box of assorted check lane candies I’d found in here on Sunday, & set outside door then.
Don Chronicles: “somethin boilin in my stomach,” he mumbles, farts, “it’s not what you’d call polite…”
Jason B playing harmonica all day while backstocking.
October 1
-Tina tries to get sent home for “toothache”
-tall redhead Matt is on ladder in PHAR backstock aisle; Cole preparing to pitch various varieties of tampons from this huge recently torn down end cap display
Matt: “where should I put these?”
Cole: “Oh, put them where they’ll fit?! (everyone laughs) I’m sorry but you walked right into that one.”
me: (handing box that fell on floor to Cole) “here, this one fell out.”
October 7
today was Tina’s last day, Cindy has 14 more & Becky 11. “Man what are we gonna do for the next 11 days,” Don mumbles at our end of the line after hearing another one of Becky’s dumb wisecracks. Bored, he keeps wandering to the front to check status of truck, critique Becky’s pallet stacking (“what is this?”), etc.
“What it is is they won’t shut up,” Richard says of Ricky & James, the reason our unload takes an eternity, “that and Ben waits till he has about 35 boxes to push them, then they fly past so fast Amy doesn’t even have time to scan them. I kid you not I had her PDA in my lap earlier cause he knocked it out her hands pushing boxes.”
“Oh Ben tears me up,” Joyce says, “that’s why when I’m scannin I have him stand behind me & push.”
Don & I knock out toys, then electronics, then MMB. I love working with this guy – he & David the two most unintentionally hilarious people here. Better still, they share no names when it comes to the “names” quandary section of my Ceiling novel, where all this crap will end up.
October 8
15 min late today, though I don’t feel as tired as I thought I would. Don has “the WAV” out on sales floor loading stuff up onto the risers. Redheaded Matt & me are outside last thing, as far as our pulls go – just barely daybreak – in these 4 semi trailers they have parked this year, stocked with product, to make holidays smoother: all bulk diaper, paper, pets & plastics are stored there now. PDAs don’t work out there, so you have to write down all your pulls, then go out & retrieve them, delete them from gun when you get back inside. Matt’s talking about how he & Steve plan to go bowhunting for deer together – his family has land outside Logan, Steve owns land in Hilliard area.
Earlier, slightly: green coat hanging on hooks by freezer (also worn outside), I pull frozen. Ridiculously small rooms, total chaos, pulls & backstock tend to sit here for days. One open ended cage has bagged ice, another ice cream; another rack on wheels has the whole F section (A-E against walls), you’re always maneuvering these around to get at what you need. Trying to operate PDA w/ gloves on.
October 14
Western/classics now combined. Country music expanded, gospel browser format now, soundtracks & comps reduced. 8 pallets of Halloween candy (all Halloween is on flex) on 1800 piece truck. Richard, pissed off at pile of boxes marked 38 on line in front of him, swipes all of them to the floor – flying every which way – with one vicious swing (“there we go!” I cheer.) Then, later – because David, instead of moving one centimeter to his right (it’s the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen) to drop a box onto a pallet past his designated 3 pallet “section” (today 36 – baby; 35 – shoes; 37 – toys), he’ll just shove it on down, even if the next person (Richard today) happens to be a half mile away – Richard keeps getting these 38 boxes way down at the end of the line, where he’s helping Amy unload all the Halloween crap. Richard finally walks over to David & seethes, “stop doing this!”
-Overheard chatter from soft lines later as I’m working MMB:
Joyce: “that’s why when I need a jacket a lot of times I’ll look over in men’s”
Amy: “ok, we’ve got a giant, and we’ve got a munchkin!” (everyone howls w/ laughter)
-Matt comes over to tell me to go to toys when I’m done
-Matt comes over to tell me to forget about toys, to go to HBA (health & beauty acces.) when I’m done.
“Veda’s going to soft lines, because everyone over there’s leaving at 10:30,” he rues.
-David a whole stream of hilarities this morning, though. Comes up to front door same time as me (usually 5 min late, somehow today I’m miraculously 15 min early), wearing some crazy fitted cap that’s half cabby/half baseball. “Too cold,” he grimaces (35 degrees when I pedaled past clock), “maybe I find other other job. Especially when it snow.”
During a break in our unload, I start to root through a combo box; he says, “psshew!” & shakes his head, “save for later Jason!” Adds, almost under breath, “take it easy.”
October 16
(Truck done but line still piled up, mostly w/ soft lines stuff)
(Amy says something to Richard about helping, but jokingly. He was up at the front of the line all day, she’s at the back)
Richard: hey, my name’s Tom and I’m gonna just keep pushing boxes anyway
Amy: okay Tom I bet you miss your girlfriend Becky
Richard: Yeah, about as much as you miss Tina
Amy: I do miss Tina….crazy chicken bone throwing woman
(I’m not sure what this means)
-though 1800 piece truck, it takes us almost two hours. And I’ve got a normal amount of electronics, MMB. But Matt says, “when you’re done with that, uh, just go ahead and knock out toys.” Right. I’m cracking up all morning about this one – not even done w/ what I’ve got by eight, much less starting toys, much less “knocking out” toys. But it isn’t like he’s telling you this stuff because he’s hoping to motivate you, like some managers do, it’s their managerial style; it isn’t like he’s hoping to kick you into gear, knowing it’s unlikely to get accomplished, but that more will be accomplished this way by kicking you into gear; he’s more like some little kid who really really believes it’s going to happen, and is disappointed it doesn’t, not in you, but that his crazy schemes have failed to materialize, even though this is a recurring pattern, it’s happened the other 364 days this year as well, and the same percentage of the days the year before.
Another thing I wonder about: the goatee. It seems like a strange personal accessory for a guy like him to insist upon. I wonder if he thinks it makes him look older.
-Haika really flirty today toward the end of my shirt. Sure I’d like to hit that. She strikes me as one of those still youthful and partying late 30s/early 40s women who look for older guys with money to hitch, but hook up with younger guys for fun.
-and an xtra friendly hello this morning from Amanda, passing her as she stands in the front end morning huddle, as I’m en route to the coffee shop. Today her eyes are green.
November 4
Steve in on no sleep (domestic troubles) looks rough but (of course) in zany mood. Takes talking grim reaper – Halloween prop that stands in yard – shakes it & says “if any more people quit, we’ll be down to a skeleton crew!” Then tapes sign to it saying YOU BRING IT BACK, YOU STO (sic) IT. Places it to where it blocks backroom entrance. We both agree Janine looking her hottest ever today – maroon shirt flimsy & tight, & her breasts have never looked so huge. Why would she wear that to work? Wow. Forget what I said about Amanda: I might “vibe” with her the best, but you’d be insane not to pick Janine as your 1st choice
November 11
-they were playing Rumors by Timex Social Club on the radio this morning at Target, 5am-ish, the “whatever weekend” one of these stations always has. I only know who does this song because it’s on one of my old school rap compilations cassettes from like 1984. But I’d certainly never heard the song on the radio before, had never heard anything about it, was not aware of its ever having been a hit.
-Matt H freaking out as usual. I come in and he lets me in the front door, says to head over to MMB, that there’s one shopping cart of movies that still needs pushed but that “it’s already sorted out.” What does he mean by sorted out? Dumped out of the box into the shopping cart, apparently. He also instructs me to backstock electronics/MMB when I’m done here, and then help backstock in light duty. Well not only is this movie mountain a complete nightmare, there’s a box full of CDs on the undercarriage of the shopping cart, and there’s the whole electronics/MMB pull for the day waiting here, too. Two hours later and I’m mostly done with the movies – still have to run up to checklanes w/ one batch of movies and CDs, to this endcap in the back end of store with still others – done with books and about halfway done with CDs – also a holiday display of these back in G – and haven’t even looked at the electronics pull. First he comes out and says, um, forget about, um, backstocking electronics/MMB, just go straight to light duty when I’m done. Then five minutes later he comes back out again and says just leave this stuff – to dump all my sorted out groups of stuff into one repack hodgepodge, thus wasting a ton of effort on my part, as the next guy is just going to have to sort all this crap out again – and head back to, um, help them knock out the light duty backstock.
I don’t really care, and in fact find this entire episode hilarious, but there’s no denying his freakouts set everyone back a great deal – not to mention that some of what I have established as backstock and take back to set by the electronics door with me was clearly “subtract 99″ stuff from yesterday, but was never treated as such, thus pulled again today – a waste of that guy’s time – had to be sifted through today – a waste of my time. And, now, I’m saying screw it, I’m not marking it as such, either, so someone can waste their time backstocking it again tonight, someone can waste their time pulling it tomorrow, and I can waste my time looking at it again, also tomorrow. Why not.
November 12
Matt H opens the door for me and fat (“John Candy”) Chris, immediately flapping his jaws. I spent much of my shift the past two days stowing toys, which was nigh impossible, as we’re already out of room; what it meant was a lot of rearranging for very little progress. Now today they purge six pallets of toys casestock at random – wiping out the four top shelves (two aisles) of toys backstock – to see if any of it would push. Quite a bit did; what happens that’s unique to top shelves is that you’ll have five boxes stacked atop one another, and when someone’s up that high pulling autofills in the morning, if it’s calling for a case at the bottom of that stack, a lot of these lazy bastards just “burn” the pull, i.e. input it as if they’ve yanked the case when in fact they haven’t. Because it is admittedly a royal nightmare at times moving all those boxes around way up there in the rafters just to get at the one at the bottom. Still…..I’m roped into this project, trying to push them out onto the shelves with everyone else, which basically makes you feel like you’re wasting your time. It all pays the same, though. Still, you get an idea why any corporation is ultimately inefficient – too much slack in the line from the top to the bottom, even a micro-top to the micro-bottom. The system this company has in place for everything is actually extremely efficient, except when you input these deadbeats we actually have working said concepts. But the reason they can only seem to hire deadbeats is because the job doesn’t pay all that well – yet the reason it can’t afford to pay all that well is because there’s so many hours wasted as a result of these deadbeats. And so if you’re sitting in some office high up on the ivory tower, you don’t know these particulars, all you know is that crew A gets B dollars to do job C. I mean, essentially, my last two days, the entirety of them, were a complete waste of time to this company – not my fault, but because of all the people not doing their job ahead of me. I spend two days stowing these toys, we turn right around and yank them back off the shelves at random (well, six pallets’ worth, which is maybe half a day’s work at optimum speed, which I wasn’t achieving w/ all the rearranging) and push them.
For comic relief, of course, we always have Matt H’s insanities to lighten the mood. James joins us (me and Cindy and two people from the sales floor) out here pushing toys, says to me, “these all have to go out, right? We can’t backstock any of it?”
“Nooooooo,” I emphatically demur, “they just pulled this stuff off at random.”
“Oh,” James chuckles, “Matt told me he checked, and all of it should go out, he said.”
“This is six pallets’ worth of stuff!” I howl.
Looking for the riser schematic later, I ask the guys in the backroom – currently John Candy Chris and Matt E – if they’ve seen that booklet anywhere. Chris Stoffel overhears and tells me “don’t worry about that. If you’ve got a lot of something and there’s a hole, throw it up there.” I can’t resist telling these guys what Matt H said about all the toys going out, and they’re cracking up. And it isn’t like the guy is trying to be “motivational,” he sincerely believes it might. In the breakroom on our lunches, fat Chris is chirping like a Chihuahua as he regales Matt E with the story of how Hawkins accosted us at the door this morning.
“He’s like (rup-bup-bup-a-bup-bup-bup) and I’m thinking, oh my god, it’s too early for this, give me a chance to wake up…….”
“It’s definitely easy for him to get under your skin,” Matt agrees, “he said something to me when I came in this morning about, yeah, uh, just head to the back room and start doing pulls. Oh, okay, so basically, you’re saying DO THE EXACT SAME THING I’VE DONE EVERY SUNDAY THIS ENTIRE YEAR? OKAY, THANKS! I’M PRETTY SURE I KNOW HOW TO DO MY JOB BY THIS POINT!”
November 14
Steve and me standing outside at 4am, 35 degrees, and Matt H lets us in. Jesus Christ what have I done to deserve this. Rubbing his head already freaking out, says truck was 1800 but pulls 1400 and already asking if we can stay over! Steve says he’s out at 7am because of school; I tell Matt I doubt it.
“Man!” Steve bitches to me at the time clock, “can you give me a chance to get in the door and get my head clear and warm up before you start flapping your gums, Matt!?”
Stop Rewind Fast Forward: 1993. (click to view/read more)
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