Tag: Olentangy River Road

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University City Center

University City Center in Columbus Ohio

University City Center was a memorable strip mall, located on Olentangy River Road where The City apartment complex is now. They began knocking that building down in 2018 and its replacement took maybe a couple years to complete. I actually had no idea this project was underway, until cruising past one night in December of 2018 and noticing it was a fenced off construction site back there. Off the top of my head, I know that the Kroger was there for an eternity, and pretty much every building fanning off to the right (north) was in place from at least the late 90s onward.

Yet most of the detached buildings in front, nearer the road, are in place, which reminds me for some reason of how you’ll drive through the country every once in a while and spot a crumbled, abandoned house where just one wall remains standing somehow. Considering they are depicted on the sign itself, we must include them as part of this strip mall as well. A number of these buildings are quite weathered by now themselves. Below is a rundown of various entities who called the UCC home during its spirited run. Since it seems you were most likely to arrive here from campus, we will start at the bottom, southern edge and work our way north through the addresses. These are all Olentangy River Road, aside from a couple notable exceptions I’ll get to at the bottom:

2781: it all depends on whether you want to include this sad little brick building, which I am inclined to do. Though now closed, it still stands here and was formerly a shop selling Buckeye paraphernalia for many a year. It was called Across The Field and they were in business from 2010 to 2022. Somewhat resembles a church, and may have been one in its earliest days. Immediately prior to Across The Field, though, it housed Tedrick & Associates (1999-07), Studio 501 Architects, Space Craft Architecture, Art Access, Williams Music Co, and Allen Church Organs. That was all from the 1990s onward. In more recent times, a food truck called Chicken & Tea has been known to haunt these grounds.

Across The Field Columbus Ohio

2785: From at least 1997 to 2000, something called My Shop Inc. was here, as owned by one Georgeann Mock. But I can’t claim to actually remember this business.

2823: Raising Cane’s. As far as I’m aware, the last new building erected before the main strip mall behind it was knocked down. You know the drill here: great food, pleasant atmosphere, friendly help and tons of OSU/Columbus artifacts adorning the walls, alongside other randomness.

2825: Was once a Citgo, is now a Sunoco. But has boasted the same manager (Khalid Liraqui) for as long as I’m able to track these things (going on 30 years) which presumably means the same owner as well. The most remarkable feature about this location was that, in the late 90s, they ran this promo on a certain day of the week, every week, where all three gasolines “flavors” were priced the same. This place would be positively afire with traffic on that day, people lined up in their vehicles as deeply as the parking lot would allow.

One such afternoon, I happened to be driving through here, and for some reason paid more attention than usual to my surroundings. It was then that I realized, at least on this day, that every single car was occupied by Asians. And I thought this was really cool, kind of somewhat touching – this was before the internet had blown up, so obviously it had become a word of mouth phenomenon, they had passed along this tip in some fashion throughout their community.

On another occasion (who knows how or why this stuff sticks in your head), I was riding around with Alan one day and he popped in here for gas. As we’re leaving, he remarks that he has a headache, then happens for some reason to connect this with the fact that he hasn’t consumed any alcohol yet that day. Then catches himself and jokes, “oh god…I hope I’m not already so bad off that I get headaches if I’m not drinking anything…” We were, like, 22 at the time or something.

2831: I honestly don’t remember a Dairy Queen being here, even though it was apparently in existence clear up until 2008. But, alas, beer was obviously more of a priority for us during those years, not so much ice cream. But anyway, it would have sat at the very southern edge of the strip mall. After DQ left the scene, a restaurant called Cafe Kabul then gave it a go, up until the wrecking ball arrived.

2835: Hair Happening until 2007. A little later became Ace Cash Express, then something named Smokin’ Buckeyes, finally El Jalapeno Mexican Grill.

2839: CNC 30 Minute Photo, incredibly enough, lasted clear up until 2006 before giving up the ghost. Then it became a Liberty Tax operation.

2843: Chalkie’s Billliards had the most significant heyday in this spot. In more recent times I know a trendy modern bowling alley/bar combo sprouted up where Chalkie’s was – although it must not have been that trendy or modern, i.e. not worth saving. And I can’t figure out what that was called, despite having been here on at least one occasion.

I see that something called Red Planet X was also here, though this appears to have possibly been a clothing store. Then finally Sun Spot Tanning Salon.

2855: Big Lots was here for an eternity, right up until the end.

2865: Now we bounce down to one of those separate buildings in front, to a McDonald’s which has cranked out the quarter pounders even longer, and continues to this day.

2867: back up to the main building, where a Swan Cleaners seems to have been the final occupant. They were around for at least a decade or so.

2869: Fortune Chinese Restaurant stuck around from the late 1990s, if not even earlier, until very nearly the end.

2871: Was once a moldering pit called Time Out Sports Bar. Then turned into the much more lively NYOH’s (pronounced nye-ohs) (the owners, if I recall correctly, moved from New York to Ohio.) and then finally E Buckeye Bar & Grill, which I don’t believe I ever frequented. Prior to all this, it was a Mammoth Video, though this was before my time.

2875: Something called Just For You from 2002-04, then later Sushi Ting Japanese Restaurant.

2885: Jo-Ann Fabrics gave this spot a go for quite some time, which means it must not have been just drunken college kids stomping around these grounds, but little old ladies as well. Come to think of it, this probably explains all the fedora sporting grandpas over at Time Out Sports Bar, who were huddled over their Scotches while the wives presumably shopped for yarn in here.

Well, then it became Momo 2, followed by Cadillac Booz (possibly where the crotchety old timers relocated? Just a guess, based upon the name), and finally Red Club.

2893: was a Great Clips for many years, once again up to or very close to the end of this strip mall.

2895: X O X Karaoke Bar from 2013-17

2901: First a Rite Aid, then a Family Dollar.

2913: Kroger held this down as basically the anchor tenant of University City Center for decades. A full-blown operation with bakery and deli, of course, and also a Huntington Bank mini-location inside. Notable as the site where many of us glimpsed a Coinstar machine for the first time. Which in turn surely became the most ever used Coinstar machine for roughly the same group of people.

Cary worked here, at the same time she was a hostess at Damon’s, and through her I got to know a few other employees as well. Prior to her arrival on the scene, though, I actually applied to work at this store, part-time, though they shipped my application up to the not quite open Bethel Road one instead. And I joined the original cast there. As a result, though, this has all become an especially interesting what if? type parallel universe thought experiment for me over the years. Certain aspects of my life – like the Cary experience – might have turned out remarkably similar anyway, while others would have been completely different.

It was also handy on the occasions we ran out of supplies at the restaurant. Which seemed to happen more often than a professional, theoretically profitable operation should ever allow. I know I personally was sent over here a handful of times with some cash, in order to buy them some emergency steaks, at full grocery store retail prices. And then there was exactly one memorable afternoon, where I showed up and our kindly manager Dave Weinle handed me a five dollar bill.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

He chuckled and told me to take a “leisurely stroll” down to the Kroger, use this to purchase some razor blades and shaving cream. Then put those instruments to use in the bathroom mirror before returning to action.

2931: Was a Life Uniform & Shoe Shop, followed by Famous Nails.

2933: Woody’s Sports Club called this home – as we patrons did, in turn – for a relative eternity. Although I have to admit, our final visit was highly depressing and I somewhat regret even coming here then. This was 2008 and the place was long past its prime, though hanging around until the bitter end. It would have been much better to hold exclusively onto memories of its golden era.

For quite some time, there was a framed photo montage in the foyer area, in between the zigzag of its two front doors. I knew a few people captured in that collection, and often debated just grabbing the thing somehow, when nobody was looking. And, once again, regret not doing so, but I just never had the nerve. If there is ever such a thing as a theft for a just cause, however, I think this might qualify. Maybe I’m wrong, but suspect this probably wound up in a dumpster, eventually, and where is the justice in that?

2937: This was a Subway franchise for eons. Our pal Jeremy Wendling worked here a bit in the late 90s. This dude named Garry Appleton owned the joint and he also ran some other business out of here in his spare time – Sigco Inc., whatever that may have been.

One night some guy left his car running in front of the store while he ran inside to place an order. Meanwhile, somebody else allegedly strolled out of Woody’s, half-ripped, and climbed behind the wheel, drove away. The cops apparently showed up at Woody’s and everyone said they soon determined that the culprit was this Michael guy, who had just started waiting tables at our Damon’s a few days earlier. We never saw him again, it goes without saying. Although I’ve been unable to verify this episode online in more recent times, so who knows.

2941: And now for the business bookending this lineup, the PNC Bank at the front, northeast corner. I applied for an account here when first moving to Columbus, yet they refused me on the grounds that I only had a state ID, but not a driver’s license. I.e. the exact same piece of identification, except for the driving part. This made absolutely no sense to me and they eventually called a manager over to intervene.

“Let me get this straight – you only open accounts for people who can drive?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” she said with a straight face.

I think basically they didn’t want to trifle with deadbeat youths, if at all possible. Nonetheless, though never venturing inside again, their external digital clock would prove quite useful to me for roughly the next year and a half – comparing it, against my watch, which comes in handy on the occasions where management at Damon’s would maybe try and get clever by adjusting their own time clocks. Claiming we were late, and trick us into showing up a minute or two earlier.

2943: Finally, back to the strip mall for the last couple businesses. Comprehensive Chiropractic was here up to 2004. Then, a Georgetti’s Pizza.

2945: Rick’s Beverage peddled its wares here, possibly with some slight name changes, for well over two decades. It appears at some point they added a check cashing and possibly even a U-Haul renting racket to their portfolio of offerings, too.

OSU Red Roof Inn Columbus Ohio
OSU Red Roof Inn

Honorable Mentions:

This is one final pair of businesses, lining the southern perimeter, that I feel must be included under this University City banner. Both Ackerman addresses, one still here and one long gone, though both represented crucial pieces of the comprehensive UCC experience:

Applebee’s – I probably visited this one more than any other Applebee’s, ever. This primarily due to a popular strategy when working doubles at Damon’s, in that many of us would drift over here in between, pound some drinks and possibly lunch before strolling back to work for our dinner shifts. Hey, the veterans were doing this long before I arrived on the scene, so it isn’t as though this was my big idea. I don’t recall Applebee’s employees reciprocating this stunt, ever, though, which probably just means they were a much more professional operation and strictly forbade such. Or else didn’t schedule their employees doubles like that, or else Applebee’s employees had no interest in visiting our dingy hole – take your pick.

As far as double agents go, my former colleague and “disciple” Kathleen is the only person I know who worked in both places. Although it seems highly likely that others attempted this move over the years – and if so, I’m highly curious to see the breakdown on which direction more traffic flowed. Up until this bit the dust in 2017, by which point the Damon’s had already been long, long long long gone.

Red Roof Inn – this remains an ideal, centrally located base of operations if visiting Columbus, or for that matter a local resident wishing to crash after barhopping. In my experience, it’s always been a reasonably priced and totally decent hotel option. Aside from all that, or should I say included with this, there are a couple memorable nights I can recall, which transpired at least in part on these grounds:

1) Melissa informs us that she and a bunch of her fellow ADPi sorority sisters are renting a room at the campus Red Roof Inn, for reasons unknown. Needless to say, once we hear of this, Damon, Alan, and I are all about joining forces with them. Exactly three of those chicks we vibe with, I would say, and they are with us as well: Melissa, the other Melissa, and Tonia. Aside from them, there’s some lame redhead, a lame heavy set girl (you may detect a trend here), and a few others that don’t make much of an impression. Plus two other guys – one of which, Stan, is dating Melissa P. these days. The other being the lame redhead’s younger brother.

“Oh McGathey, what happened to you?” Melissa P. says, with considerable sadness. I assume by this she means the year or so detour into a serious relationship with Jill, but don’t ask. Granted that was a previously unthinkable development, although then again she doesn’t have much room to talk considering the presence of this cheesy Stan guy.

And anyway it doesn’t much matter, because Tonia is fused to my hip now. I don’t quite know how this happened, but sometimes the very first occasion you meet someone, it isn’t so much that you “hit it off” extremely well, more like you have this idea about exactly what kind of shtick or approach will work with this chick. And every once in a while that turns out to be correct. She’s a slightly chubby blonde, wears braces even, thinks herself really hot shit indeed, is considered annoying by some…but has a pretty face and I’m not complaining. To anyone else, anyway. With her I’m just kind of breezy and distant and for some reason she eats this up.

When we show up, it’s immediately apparent that there’s not nearly enough beer for eleven people. We brought a 24 pack of Busch, but there’s very little alcohol on hand apart from that. Not to mention, everybody is kind of hungry already. Therefore, we take up a cash collection for more brew, and theoretically some pizza as well. Damon is trying to shmooze the other Melissa, who has curly, dark hair, wears glasses, decent body and face, seems really cool. Alan is attempting to work the magic with one or more of the others. In consideration of this, it’s determined that I will make the big supply run. Tonia wants to come with me, of course. Unfortunately however the redhead’s brother is following her around everywhere, drooling in her footsteps, and insists upon riding along in the back seat.

Our first pit stop is at Hounddog’s, although they are closed for some inexplicable reason. Then again it is a weeknight and after 11pm, so maybe that’s what they’re doing these days. We roll onward to the Big Bear, up the road on High, figure we’ll just get the beer as well as whatever grub we can rustle up here. Throughout Tonia keeps peppering me with questions, but I maintain the same dry, don’t-give-a-fuck routine as always, and she seems to find this the coolest, funniest, most interesting material ever. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suffering from the delusion that any of this is hilarious or remarkable. Yet you have to remain in character anyway, and as long as I can maintain that, then she continues digging it.

If Paul were around, he would surely be miserable, though. And to some extent would have a point. Were it not for a couple of these fluke outliers, there would be no reason to have ever associated with these sisters. Really, I guess the most amazing aspect is that the other ones don’t torch our causes completely, which is often the case with these huge groups of girls where only a small percentage like you. It’s obviously not a problem if we’re with the smaller configurations of known allies – Melissa, Melissa, Tonia, maybe Melanie, in whatever varying combinations. Anything else has been a waste of time, though, if not an outright semi-disaster.

We tell ourselves in advance, hey, these girls are a little older now, maybe the other ones might take a little more kindly to us and our antics. Nope. And this includes nights like this where we are totally just playing it cool. In fact, our takes on these situations are that they are frequently the more ridiculous acting among us. See the girls drink a couple of cheap domestic beers and babble incoherently henceforth! See the girls (at least one per night, often more; tonight is admittedly on the low end) run off into the night crying over something (nothing)! See the girls insist we finally relent on playing Truth Or Dare, but only ever select Truth themselves, which is absurd considering none of them have done anything interesting to tell anyone about anyway!

Additionally, Melissa and Stan spend half the night locked in the bathroom, not to be seen again. Stan tells everyone with a broad grin, at one point, “Melissa gives great head,” which is presumably related to what they’re doing in there. But at least this counts as an interesting development, you could argue. Otherwise, in a room full of people, Tonia as usual lapses into total know it all mode, which is just something I’m going to have to learn to wait out or tolerate, assuming I have patience for this; the redhead’s brother continues striving to impress her, without success; these other whiny, wet blanket females, don’t change their trajectory one iota; and then there’s perhaps the only remaining salvation, the other Melissa, who remains really chill and cool. Damon seems to have that one locked up on his end, however.

In one of the exceptionally rare Dare turns, she does have to pull down my zipper with nothing but her teeth. Beyond this these young ladies seem mostly interested in comparing numbers, who has done what and how many times. Alan was crushing us at one point, but has been stuck at 18 for an eternity, thanks to his own recently ended monogamous relationship; in the wake of breaking up with his own girlfriend, meanwhile, this past year has seen Damon sail well beyond this figure, he says, and now tops 30; I’m able to dodge this question longer than most, but stick with the patented answer of 3, which nobody ever questions. I continue to believe this works better than the real figure and for certain much better than a bogus inflated one would. Not only that, but you have to know your audience, and in this crowd I’m definitely not convinced those large numbers are doing these guys any favors. They did after all notoriously kick that one chick out of the house for being too slutty – she was over at our apartment crying about it afterwards. And these girls all answer between zero and six themselves, as far as sexual partners. With one key exception, of course: the other Melissa.

It’s probably not a coincidence she digs Damon most of all. When we’re playing this game, she says she’s been with 12. That becomes a baker’s dozen by the end of the night, however. Those two eventually take off together, and we will learn of their exploits later. For now, Alan and I remain at the hotel, grinning and giving them a thumbs up as they leave. We have our own fish to try around here, with varying results.

2) I had rented a room here as my own HQ, having left town, but returning a year later to visit various people. This was the night of that final Woody’s visit, actually, which I planned out well in advance as seemingly the best place to conclude our full slate of adventures, considering it’s stumbling distance from this hotel. Not only that, but I also knew I would be calling my ex-girlfriend Heather when we got back to the room, though exceedingly nervous about this prospect. And am therefore drinking a wee bit more than usual. She keeps late hours, and this early AM one will be the best time for us to chat; this is an attempt to coordinate a reunion, but it’s been about five or six years, so who knows how any of this will go.

At this point, Damon is the last one left hanging out with me, though we met up with others earlier. The room has a spare bed, so he figures he may as well crash there too, then drive to work in the morning. Which surely helps amplify his alcohol consumption also. Not only that, but I’d already purchased some quality beer and stashed it in the fridge over there, to cover and any and all bases.

Well, Woody’s is a depressing ghost town, fallen considerably from its glory days, which isn’t helping matters any. Combine all this and I am in much more of a confessional streak than usual, and wind up telling him a couple things about which he had no clue. It’s been rainy out, and at closing time we are dodging puddles in traipsing across the lot, while continuing to chat. He asks me what Jamie was like in bed, which is funny to me because I was always under the impression that he had secretly banged her. But apparently not. In this funky mood I don’t mind divulging details, though, not at all.

Back at the room, I crack open a beer and dial a number I actually still somehow have committed to memory. A couple of my opening jokes bomb out somewhat miserably, but beyond that Heather and I have a fantastic conversation, one that stretches out beyond three hours. Damon is awake, kicking back in one of the beds and watching TV while listening for most of it. Even as this phone chat extends until 5:30 in the morning. She and I somehow skate around and technically don’t discuss one iota of our past together – instead it’s all about what’s happening now.

I tell her about Mom’s health problems and abrupt coarse correction into heavy drinking, which she has trouble believing. Then again, her mom is dead. And yet grandma Mary is still alive and well! She hasn’t talked to her sister in years, however, after they had a major falling out. I admit I felt like I had no choice but to leave town and move south, though am in this no man’s land right now where that doesn’t feel like home and neither does this, so I’ll probably just keep bouncing back and forth between the two for who knows how long. Obviously with Emma living here I will be up to visit quite a bit anyway, multiple times a year. Heather’s been working for Victoria’s Secret, which I know Damon finds the most interesting aspect of this entire conversation – out at the Limited compound, but still. That could prove a fruitful association, ahem. So she’s filling me in on how things are going over there. And we make plans to meet later this week.

When I finally crash out, I must have my neck angled at some crazy angle on the pillow, because it is killing me for the entirety of the following day. Comparing notes later with Damon, he says he couldn’t sleep very well, ended up watching some Lenny Dykstra documentary before getting up and heading into work. But that he glanced across the room at me, before splitting, and thought to himself that it looked like my head was at an extremely uncomfortable angle on the pillow. So he’s not the least bit surprised to learn that it is killing me now.

former Woody's Sports Club site Columbus Ohio
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Woody’s

University City Center, Columbus, Ohio

Though a campus area institution situated a beer stein’s throw away from the place where I work, it inexplicably takes me a good ten months to mix Woody’s into my rotation of treasured haunts. I had entered this cramped, cheerful and vaguely Buckeye sports themed bar a couple of times prior to this night, though the precise point of my conversation can be traced to an October evening where a bunch of us stroll over after shutting down our restaurant.

Clearly, it’s a safe bet to say this place was probably named after OSU football legend Woody Hayes, as close to a godlike figure as this university has produced. And there is a fair amount of Buckeye memorabilia dotting these walls, though not enough to make it obnoxious. Not that this likely would have mattered anyway – situated as it is in this strip mall on Olentangy, midway between and bracketed by the Applebee’s at one end and our Damon’s on the other, this place has emerged as the afterparty club of sorts for employees of both establishments. On a good night, which is to say most of them, the staff at these two restaurants easily numbers well over half of the Woody’s patrons, often rendering it a standing-room-only space.

The only reason it’s taken me so long to join the fray is that I had been working mornings only for the first nine months of employment at Damon’s. Shortly after going full time there, however, this impressively rowdy dive is reintroduced to me – properly introduced at last, you might say – and from here there’s no turning back.

I have heard from multiple credible sources that our bartender John H banged some girl back in the tiny enclave with the ice machine one night, a stunt causing both of them to emerge with a ton of dust covering their clothes, a round of cheers mere seconds thereafter. And while nothing this scandalous ever happened to me within these walls, it certainly became the pushing off point for many an outrageous night, not to mention the incubator for countless conversations and the inevitable subsequent pairings, as outlandish as they have might appeared mere hours earlier. Fat Bottom Girls was a selection on the jukebox we often punched whenever our busboy Scott entered the premises, owing to his charming preference for such. Another friend and coworker who shall remain nameless – at least for now, heh heh – wound up sleeping with a manager we couldn’t stand, mostly because they were the last two left there one night.

The evening of my indoctrination, John H, Sherrie and I stroll over to Woody’s together. Sherrie, oddly enough, had occupied an apartment downstairs from me in the same house on Summit Street, then wound up a few months later waiting tables at Damon’s. As we are all arriving in stages from the restaurant, the three of us are somewhere in the middle of the pack, still able to claim three consecutive seats right at the bar. Per usual, the grab bag of faces here counts employees from our restaurant as roughly half of its mass. Even the lone bartender on duty right now, John Rocci, used to work at our restaurant, quitting there not too long after I started, around the beginning of the year. He’s a stocky guy with close cropped brown hair and glasses, cannons for arms, he used to work banquets but surely finds the windfall here much higher.

John and Sherrie decide on beers but I opt for a mixed drink, the ever potent Long Island Iced Tea. Here the bar only comes up your knees, as the floor’s sunk in behind so the bartender’s face to face with you when sitting down – a nice touch that makes this place seem less a pub than the living room of someone’s house. The light here is warm, ambient, too, brighter than most but not blinding, with one large screen playing the day’s sports highlights, a fantastic jukebox, one pool table and two electronic dart boards and various Buckeye football paraphernalia lining every remaining inch of the walls.

Joanne is next to enter, and while roommate Sarah Berry had tonight off after working this morning, the third resident of their apartment, Jane, trails right behind Joanne. It’s hard to imagine a duo much more different than Sarah and Joanne, and indeed, as the latter appears to have way too much class, appeared from the outset way too self-assured to last in the dining room for long, Joanne has already been whisked almost exclusively into that more “serious minded” sorority of the clubhouse girls – our only hope is that she doesn’t become one of them, that we can somehow maintain her as an ally in their midst.

As for Jane, I’m guessing she might register somewhere between those other two, although in appearance she definitely hews closer to Joanne. Equally tall and blonde as Joanne, though Jane’s hair is curlier, her smooth, round face more compelling, the pull of her green eyes twice as magnetic. She’s a dead ringer for my ex-girlfriend Heather, also, to a spooky degree, and as they stand behind the rest of us – the only room remaining in the entire establishment – I hear them talking and think that if I once dated someone who looked like that, then I stand a chance with any of these girls, too.

Virginia shows up next with her boyfriend Brian, also from New York City, and they claim two recently vacated seats to my right. Brian’s moved here months ago in pursuit of a degree from our illustrious university, and with nothing better to do, Virginia recently joined him. She’s not in school but thinks she might soon be.

Nonetheless, Brian I instantly begin to see as the lame duck boyfriend. He currently holds office but won’t for long. He yawns and stares at his drink, he looks around the bar, bored, but never says more than a handful of words. Meanwhile Virginia’s hanging over me all night, she’s an unceasing bullet train of chatter, she has a hand on my shoulder and tells me her life story, start to finish. I breathe in the pine scented perfume billowing from her sweet, open neck, I make eye contact and suck in every detail, from the fine blonde hairs on that neck all the way down to the tiny gap between her two front teeth when she smiles. The provocative manner in which she’s unbuttoned the top two notches of her white dress shirt, tie removed, showing just enough cleavage to flip over cars and burn buildings to the ground.

“You don’t smoke?” she says, puffing on a menthol.

“No,” I explain, “this might sound crazy, but I never learned how to inhale.”

Behind us, the mob of people becomes further compressed as more and more employees shuffle in. Cooks, the clubhouse bartender, supervisors and the infamous clubhouse bitches, they’re all here now, everyone’s got pocketfuls of cash and you can hear the rising pitch of voices, gaining steam as well as intensity, as the night steadily spins further and further out of control. John H buys the two of us a shot of Wild Turkey, which means for me returning the favor with another round, and then here comes Maria, one of those clubhouse bitches I’ve long since written off, she wedges between us, buying shots of Jagermeister for herself as well as John and me.

A new experience for me, too, this Jagermeister. Set against the harsh background of those twin whiskey shots before it, Jager goes down like a cup of melted licorice, smooth, instantly addictive. Picturing some of the hardcore maniacs I’ve known who swear by the drink, it’s easy to see why they drink nothing but, how they can polish off a whole bottle in one good night. Still, I order a second Long Island, and we kick this show into high gear.

“Here,” Virginia says, sticking one of her Parliaments in my mouth, lighting it.

“No!” I hear Joanne squeal behind me, as she throws her arms around my neck, “don’t start smoking!”

“Don’t worry,” I laugh, “she’s just teaching me how to inhale.”

Distracted here, it doesn’t register at first that John H’s hands are also full, now that the tall blonde Jessica slithers into the bar. She works in some professional capacity back there in the Windy City, and dresses as such, even in attending this shoddy dive bar. With only the sheer magnetic force of her attraction she pulls his focus, unwavering, at the expense of everything and everyone else in the room. Jessica buys herself and John and me a shot of Wild Turkey, as we toss these back and do our best to imitate this whiskey’s namesake.

“Gobble gobble gobble!” we cheer, clinking the one ounce glasses together, the simplest toast of all time.

Right at this moment, Amy K and Erin stroll in, delirious with the money they’ve raked in on the clubhouse floor. Jovial and plump, plainly attractive, these two share one half of a duplex up in Dublin, just as they share the same essential personality. Amy K has silky black hair and great people skills, and while technically a manager at this point, there are still nights like this where she’s called into duty waiting tables. Whatever the occasion, when she laughs it’s this infectious, thunderous howl, which everyone loves, her mouth flying open as wide as my beloved table 61. As for Erin, whom everyone calls Ewok, tonight she’s wearing her long, straight hair in a ponytail that stretches halfway down her back, now that we’re off the clock, and like always the expression she’s sporting behind those oval shaped glasses suggests untold secretes, a sneakiness, or maybe just kinkiness. Tonight it’s outright jubilation as she won three of the four quarters in our employee football pool, netting her a tidy windfall of $300 in addition to all the loot pouring in from her tables.

Drinks are flying everywhere and there’s a manic expediency to our consumption, as the clock is not our friend, closing time draws near. First Joanne and Jane split, then John leaves with Jessica and though I feel I can sit here three days talking to Virginia, her man’s about ready to doze off on his bar stool and they too stand up to say goodbye.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow morning, Jay,” Virginia says, throwing her arms around me in a hug.

“We’ll do it again sometime!” I cheer, shaking Brian’s hand with an unbridled sarcasm.

The last two left, Sherrie and I close the gap of that cooling seat behind us, last occupied by our fearless leader John H. Shrieks of goodwill, the chatter of a thousand conversations behind us like a burst of soothing white noise, and buried somewhere deep in the mix the tireless spins of that faithful jukebox, moment by moment these sounds wither away and die. Sherrie picks up the baton of recital from dear Virginia and begins telling me her life story, as we polish off our drinks in rapid fire procession. Tales of drug abuse like the three day speed binge that coalesced with her and some friends hanging out at Ruby’s, whereby she runs around the bar shrieking her head off for no reason at all. Tales of heartache, past lovers, not to mention her most recent flame – also named John – a tall stringbean with piercings all over his face who lasted about three days in our dining room kitchen.

“I love him, but…..he’s got problems, let’s just put it that way,” she laughs, the trademark Sherrie chortle that leaves her overbite hanging out twice as prominently as before.

One by one the rest of the Damon’s crowd filters out, all the cooks and supervisors, all the clubhouse bitches. In fact as the house lights come on we’re the last two sitting there period, as engrossed as I am with her stories and these amazing mixed drinks, we close the place down.

Ours is a purely platonic end to the evening, I should mention, as we are only friends, coworkers, and interested in nothing else. Future nights and future companions, however, will bring with them a wide range of other outcomes. Many a late evening hiding out as much is ever possible in this place, in a corner booth, ordering a succession of shots for Cary every time I head up to the bar for a beer, because she’s still only twenty and these are much less likely to get us busted. The night Tiffany professes her love for me and like an idiot I don’t exactly know how to handle this information, am in fact chuckling in pure jackass mode as I wave goodbye and exit with a few of my cronies – am doing so as she shouts this out the door, in fact, across the parking lot. Or the time a bunch of us showed up here for last call, and I admitted to A-Bomb that I never actually slept with Alison, I couldn’t figure out why everyone thought I did – a conversation he was too drunk to remember the next day, anyway.

But this isn’t to suggest these only involve the females, my compelling memories stemming from this place. This would be the site of my first ever Columbus karaoke appearance, such as it was, a mostly dreadful rendition of Fight For Your Right sung with my roommates Damon and Alan.  Also the entirely sober moment where I finally worked up enough nerve to tell a bunch of my coworkers that I basically write all the time and at that point had completed one novel. Or the to-that-moment dull winter night where Alan and I were talked into an Applebee’s party at some apartment across town, the home of a waitress he already knew somehow and bumped into with me at Woody’s, a party that devolved into this major fight where only the presence of John Rocci and a couple other banquet employees from my restaurant kept us from getting our asses stomped. After which, from the following evening – why but of course, we returned to Woody’s the very next night – and ever onward, Rocci jokingly referred to Alan and me as The Slugging Crew.

Sadly, the good times can never last, and over the years our increasingly less frequent visits seemed justified, as the bar became lamer and lamer. During these occasions you would actually find yourself becoming more nostalgic than usual, because there was nothing else to prop up your interest in the bar – nothing interesting was bound to happen now, a realization that compounded the gloom. Which of course made one less inclined toward future visits.

In December of 2018, I drive past this place, intending to at least photograph the exterior so I have a picture for my piece. Only to discover that the entire strip mall is gone! Off the top of my head, I know that basically the entire right flank of this center was intact without change for at least the last 20 years: Kroger, Woody’s, Subway, Rick’s Beverage. Maybe some of these institutions will return, but it won’t be quite the same, of course – and it’s another example of why it’s important to document this stuff while we still can.

former site of Woody's, Columbus, Ohio
former site of Woody’s, Olentangy River Rd.

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Damon’s, The Place For Ribs

Dining Room of Damon's on Olentangy River Road.

Though a former employee at two different locations, I actually didn’t know until researching this piece that the restaurant chain Damon’s (a.k.a. “The Place For Ribs”) was in fact founded in Columbus in 1979. As far as I can determine, the last location remaining in town closed its doors in 2011, although a handful remain in the states and – bizarrely enough – there are a few still over in England.

Above is a picture I snapped one day, of the location where I once worked. This one was attached to the Parke University Hotel on Olentangy River Rd and that’s an exterior shot of the dining room, taken from my car. So not the most exciting photo in the world but at least you can see how it looked. The company logo at the time kind of resembled the nautical flag for “diver down,” which should have maybe been a bad omen itself – a red rectangle with a white diagonal slash. Apart from the ribs, they were probably most famous for the onion loaf, which reeked to the high heavens and had one of these diver down flags planted at its summit. My personal favorite though was the Steamboat, which was this hollowed out bread loaf filled with a mountain of BBQ pork and topped with shredded cheese. In another nifty creative touch, they also had their dessert menu loaded on one of those red plastic Viewfinder toys, planted at each table.

Even by late 90s standards, though, the exterior décor was shabby, and the interior not much better. With its white plaster walls and hot cocoa carpet both no thicker than a page of the Columbus Dispatch, its matching plywood trim an equally disgusting shade of brown, the dining room where I worked had clearly not seen a remodel since probably the day it opened its doors. The dining room does have one redeeming feature, which is a giant bay window overlooking Olentangy River Rd. Three small two top tables are situated along the curve, and whenever the weather’s exceptional, I like to sit or stand there, dearth of patrons permitting. Cars hiss down Olentangy, but the gravestones filling this massive cemetery across the way remain unmoving, as they surely always will, the perfect backdrop to stare and dream against. And that’s about it for the dining room.

The clubhouse half of the operation, with its big screen TVs broadcasting sports non-stop all day, fared a little better, although even then, owing to the technology of the era, placing speakers at every table – so patrons could choose which event to tune in to – meant running wiring up through the table stand. Which meant the tables couldn’t be moved, which meant no large parties in the clubhouse. It was an unfortunate setup, as the big tops were either forced into our dreadful dining room, or one of the hotel’s banquet halls.

Our dining room definitely attracted a more elderly crowd, too, ones who’d probably last changed homes fifty years prior and could relate to the antiquated decorating scheme. This makes sense, but little else about the establishment does. Under this broad umbrella you might include its very design. Whichever architect laid out the blueprint for this abomination either fell under the influence of some heavy chemicals, or paid for his degree on the black market. At the very least, he should have been sent packing before the first pickaxe was lifted.

Attached as it is to the Parke University Hotel, our restaurant has a long central hallway running right down the middle, connecting the lobbies of both. The clubhouse and its kitchen are on one side of the hallway, the dining room and its kitchen on the other. In between, eighty year old grandmas clomp down the carpeted hall with walkers, kids bounce soccer balls, moms and dads stagger back to their rooms drunk. The clubhouse does three times as much business as the dining room, if not more, and yet its kitchen is about as big as the janitor’s broom closet. By logical extension, then, it stands to reason that our inanimate dining room kitchen has enough space to double as a practice field for the Buckeyes football squad. A pair of doors theoretically connect the two, but between these lies the obstacle of that goddamn hallway.

So as all prep work is done in the dining room kitchen – flouring onion loaves, baking bread, and countless other chores – our poor preps carry steaming hot, four by two metal pans from their work stations, creak the one swinging open door very carefully so as not to drill any passing hotel guests, look both ways, cross the hall, mount two steps, open the clubhouse door – it only swings out, not in, another brilliant conception – and then fight their way into the cramped cubicle where, on a good day, as many as half a dozen cooks are jostling about, yelling, cursing, in general paying little mind to some quiet, underpaid foreigner bringing in their next batch of barbecue sauce.

The faded red tee shirts our cooks had to wear were kind of cool in their own way, though. Certainly better than the ghastly uniforms we servers were always forced to break out. We went from hot pink polo monstrosities, to referee type vertical striped company shirts, and then finally to these white, long sleeved dress shirts, purchased at our own expense. March Madness did bring with it a brief series of black and white tee shirts, trumpeting that year’s (1998) event. At least the black dress slacks and non-skid shoes remained the same, and were not too horrific.

George Steinbrenner, he of New York Yankees fame, is in the ownership mix of both hotel and restaurant, although I’m not sure to what extent. I spot him at our breakfast buffet just once, having been alerted to his presence by a number of other coworkers, as we peeked around from the service station corner to gawk at him. At any rate, when the baseball season is in full swing, the Clippers often lodge at the Parke hotel during homestands, particularly the big ticket stars who might only be slumming it on a rehab stint.

Akash normally waits tables with me, in the moribund dining room, but one afternoon in the summer of ’97, he’s scheduled in the clubhouse instead. On this particular shift he has the 120s section, which, on the tri-level, rainbow shaped floor, means the middle cluster, far right, if facing from the front entrance. Word circulates he’s waiting at this moment on what passes as our greatest recurring celebrity, a spectacle I’ve thus far missed. In previous seasons, they tell me, both Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden were constant clubhouse presences, during rehab stints with the Clippers; just my luck that this year we’re accorded instead a Japanese import, pitcher Hideki Irabu. Brought here after the hype machine and an intense bidding war dropped him into Steinbrenner’s back pocket, the history shattering king’s ransom his signing bonus. Irabu polishes his act here before an eventual call to the big show, a possible metaphor for what folks think about this city in general.

I happen across the clubhouse just as Hideki’s finishing lunch. A veritable mountain of dishes cover every square inch of his two top table, as he reclines and lights a cigarette, with his fantastic Buddha mound of a belly nearly reaching the eating surface. I confer with Akash in the clubhouse server station, who beams and whispers, counting off the dishes on his fingers, everything the star twirler has knocked off – and only in baseball, I’m thinking, could a prized athlete get away with this. In the papers George will refer to his golden boy as a “fat, pussy toad,” and yes, to the naked eye, the Asian sensation is disastrously out of shape, but so long as that arm is lively he will justify the millions spent, you can chisel his enshrinement plaque as god.

As a true fanatic of the national pastime, though, I get a kick out of rubbing elbows with any of the players – and Damon’s also has an outpost right inside Cooper Stadium, it’s worth noting, to which a number of our employees are frequently loaned. Although this thrill is mitigated somewhat once I discover to what extent these minor leaguers, ahem, poach the talent from our farm club, i.e. establish hookups for when they are in town. Whenever they’re around, we sad dudes wearing the clowntastic Damon’s uniform become invisible, and we stand little chance of dating most of these girls. This is a cycle that will repeat every summer.

As the name would imply, ribs are a drawing card, too, although it does continue to amaze me that people willfully choose to eat here when so many other options abound. Attached to this dilapidated hotel of equal shabbiness, our rib joint could be a crown jewel among campus establishments but is in such a sad state of neglect it’s difficult to imagine what kind of lunatic might actually eat here. The food’s great, sure, but there’s a roach motel clipped underneath each table. Our clubhouse has a handful of big screen televisions to entice the gluttonous, beer swilling sports fan, but each time our bartenders are forced to make a mixed drink their archaic blender’s loud enough to drown out all sound. They may as well rev a motorcycle back there. And the stench arising from the busser station along one wall of the clubhouse is enough to turn even the staunchest stomachs, an aroma duplicated by the backed up floor drains across the way in my dining room server station. The cheapskates who own this place give our general manager Mark Stokes twenty dollars a week for incidental repairs or improvements, but he’d get more bang for his buck buying lottery tickets with the money than to try to fix anything on such a shoestring budget.

II.

For roughly the first 8 months of my employment here, I’m just a part-timer, working days. Then I quit my other job to go all-in on this outrageous establishment, and it’s immediately apparent I made the right move. Though enduring considerable condescension from the clubhouse veterans, us dining room servers are pulling pretty much the same amount of money with a lot less managerial interference, not to mention the requisite bitchiness from many of those same clubhouse employees. On weekends, Saturdays especially, some of us are putting in fifteen hour days, from 9am to midnight, although it’s worth it as the pace is nonstop, my coworkers are a riot, and you have the hands-on gratification of watching if not stopping to count the growing bulge of tip money in your pocket. That first great eye opener occurs on such a Saturday where the Buckeyes football game is immediately followed by the Cleveland Indians in game one of the World Series, and I walk home (or should I say, over to Woody’s) with more in this one shift than I was making all week at Kroger.

Everything will permanently change for me, after this first OSU game. Dozens of patrons without tables are standing around, drinking, lending even our relatively sedate dining room somewhat of a keg party atmosphere. So this is what it’s like to have arrived in the big leagues. They schedule five of us to carve up the dining room, and Marlene mans the seldom used bar. It’s wall to wall madness, and this would include prep work leading up to the shift itself. I help manager Jeremy carry up umpteen kegs from the strangely mazelike basement I’ve heard rumors about yet never visited. And the night before, they pay me extra to stay over and pop onions with one of the full time evening bussers, this goofy Bosnian kid named Randy who’s apparently worked here for eons.

I might know nothing about the basement, but Randy’s allegedly an expert. Multiple sources indicate that he’s been busted on more than one occasion hiding out down there to avoid work. Other than that I have no other information on him, except that he has that prototypical pale and skinny European look down, that he also speaks very little English and smiles all the time – a smile surprisingly intact and unmarred considering he seems to drink Pepsi nonstop all night, every night. Actually Randy is not even his real name, it’s something long that starts with an A. But apparently when he first started, Mark Stokes, a poker faced man of few words if ever there was one, asks this new busboy his name, purses his lips and nods his head, prints out a sticker for his badge. Randy it is, then, we are calling you Randy.

As far as this popping onions business is concerned, he and I are assigned to a prep table in the spacious dining room kitchen, where dozens of white plastic tubs await. Much like the basement, I’ve absorbed occasional mentions about popping onions but never partaken, or paid any attention to anyone tasked with such. Someone has sliced who knows how many hundreds of white onions into these tubs. Now all we have to do is manually pop them out, i.e. punch the middles with our thumbs so that they fall apart.

I already considered our wildly popular yet noxiously fumed onion loaf to be the most revolting item on the menu, and seeing what goes into their creation takes this repugnance to a whole new level. The precise alchemy eludes me, but somehow these are dumped into a deep fryer, pressed into loaf shape and seasoned, possibly with the addition of flour or something somewhere along the line. After about fifteen minutes of this popping motion, blowing one’s brains out begins to sound like a viable option.

Randy and I manage to work our way through this entire mountain of tubs, although some understandable shenanigans creep into the proceedings. We might suffer a language barrier, but fortunately certain gestures and facial expressions transcend speech. At one point, spying a tomato nearby, I seize and pantomime dropping it into the popped out tub we’re working on. Randy giggles and nods eagerly – yes, yes, do it. Into the next tub, he buries a pair of metal tongs. One of those mini bread loaves used in making Steamboats finds its way into still another. And when this stunt grows a little dull, we’re winging onions at our comatose dishtanker, though he never responds in the slightest.

Fortunately, this is an isolated assignment I can’t fathom ever agreeing to again. My first ever night shift, and then, yes, the initial OSU game, these represent complete paradigm shifts from anything I’ve known before, and from here there’s no going back. It isn’t that these nights are busier than the days ever were, or that Saturdays during football season blow the rest of the year’s out of the water. It’s that everything is different, somehow. The way it feels is as though the entire restaurant were flipped upside down and we now find ourselves in the Southern Hemisphere, or something, the seasons and the weather and everything else flip-flopped, a change this drastic. People who’ve worked here the entire time whom I’ve never met, among them some really sharp females. Entirely different clientele, including the regulars, with bigger tickets on average and therefore larger tips. Dimmer lighting, even, and a Muzak that automatically changes at 4pm from whatever randomness happens to be playing to this disco dance party mix, every night, without exception. To this day any time I hear Rock The Boat by Hues Corporation, it instantly takes me back here, showing up to work an evening shift.

People get so fired up about these Buckeyes that their mania borders on fits of panic. Working this first game, one party is in such a hurry they leave me an $18 tip on a $21 check because they’re too impatient to wait on change. We do have a couple of TV screens behind the bar, though the room layout impinges much standing around. The hardcore nuts are therefore predominantly over in the clubhouse still, for the most part, meaning the spillover we pick up are mostly the unfortunate, or the few disinterested, the ones going to or coming from the game and okay with just soaking up the atmosphere. Maybe catching some action from their fitful glimpses of the bar screens, or speculating and recapping with all these other goobers in scarlet and grey.

Front of Damon's check with handwritten notes

III.

One afternoon in early January, our audio-visual guy Kelly and I are hanging out in the clubhouse server station, bored, and are idly wondering if anyone ever cleans the upper reaches of these walls, or the drop tile ceiling, for they are looking quite grimy. It’s the kind of thing you joke about but don’t exactly mention to management, as they might consider this volunteering. 

This leads to speculation about an experiment, however. Over a series of back and forth half jesting suggestions, he and I decide to open a pack of saltines, and smear butter – or whatever it actually is – across one side of the cracker. Then draw a smile and two eyes with ketchup on the other side. He’s tall enough to reach the low ceiling, and is able to affix this humanized food bite, dubbed Mr. Smiley, to the drop tile with no other adhesive except for that butter, right in the middle of the room. Now we debate how long Mr. Smiley will beam upon us all before someone spots him. I’m a little more optimistic, proposing it will surely only last a week, while he’s going long in predicting a month. As it turns out, we are both way wrong: April. This thing doesn’t disappear until April.

So this is another fascinating subject, these case studies in what does or doesn’t get noticed at the restaurant. Cleaning out the Evergeen Room one night after a banquet, I find this lacy purple bra, its owner by appearances a well-endowed one, flung on the floor underneath a table. Interesting. I had no idea the guests were getting down like that in here. Stuffing it into my apron, I don’t have time and am too dead on my feet to think of how to plant it right then. But arriving to open the following morning, I sneak over to the clubhouse, and hang it from the corner of this framed Mike Tomczak jersey, in a dark, crowded section of wall. Nobody saw me, but this thing is common knowledge within half an hour, which just blows my mind. I keep my mouth shut as the remaining servers attempt to solve this crime.

“Who wears a bra that size?” 

“Is it Ewok’s?” 

“Is it Marlene’s?” 

“No, I don’t think she wears one that big.” 

No one bothers to actually take it down, of course, so late afternoon is upon us before Jeff notices the bra dangling there. He then defiantly strolls through our main kitchen toting it, as though a vice squad detective having made a huge bust, but in reality that purple undergarment billowed above a room full of paying customers for hours.

And yet the Mr. Smiley saltine persists in plain sight in the clubhouse server station, weeks after Kelly and I placed it there. Maybe we should bring in those ceiling tile specialists from the Swabby shows to work their magic on these as well. 

Kelly is also at the center of the latest intrigue, as I arrive to open the dining room yet again. “Dude, there’s a half empty keg sitting in the Evergreen Room!” he tells me first thing, his moon sized blue eyes even wider than usual, a mischievous grin on his face. 

“What?! Is it flat?” I gasp. 

He’s not sure about this detail, so we head over there in the name of scientific research. Sure enough, in our tiniest yet most trafficked banquet space, just up the hall from the managers’ office, here this metallic buoy floats on a bed of all but melted ice. Clearly, a remnant of last night’s party, which our faceless guests paid for but failed to kill. Isn’t it a sin to let perfectly fine beverages go to waste? Kelly doesn’t really drink much but is eager to pump after I go grab a clean cup. 

Though far from cold and heavily foamed, it’s beer, alright, and even the foam transforms by unknown alchemy to still more beer if you leave it sit long enough. Bruce and Akash, the next two servers to arrive, are soon clued into our little discovery, and we take turns sneaking over for refills the rest of our shift – a diversion so appealing that even Kelly can’t resist joining in the fun. Though unable to speak for the other three guys, I’m about half loopy by noon. 

IV. 

At the conclusion of the 1998 March Madness basketball tournament, the dining room is shuttered for a much needed remodel. During this time, we will operate out of the Evergreen Room if business dictates – pretty much only during weekend nights, or for large parties who have booked the space – but otherwise cram ourselves into the clubhouse, both patrons and wait staff alike. Though the remodel is accomplished in what feels like an impressive three weeks, casualties mount in short order on both sides of this equation, some of which are never seen again.

All signs point to a clear demarcation of eras, though it’s anyone’s guess what this might mean. While the final four doesn’t conclude until an insane Monday night, where L.J. is going positively berserk in the clubhouse, as his beloved Kentuck-ah Waaaahlcats claim another title, and the typical rate of his playing YMCA every fifteen minutes so people can jump up and reenact the arm motions is doubled, it’s decided that the Saturday prior is our last night of business for the current dining room.

It’s estimated with complete seriousness that I might have spent more hours in this room than anyone in the history of the restaurant. Most normal folk jumped ship after about a month in this space. As such it’s with a little bit of sadness, shutting this puppy down, its future not altogether certain.  Saturday night, after shutting the place down, we servers on that half are tasked with cleaning the dining room and stripping it down to the fixtures. Everything is hauled either into the kitchen or the basement – tables and chairs, ketchup bottles, glasses, every drop of booze behind the bar. By the end of this exercise, I’m so wiped out that I drive straight home and collapse in bed.

back of Damon's check

Things do not exactly end on good terms here. I will wind up getting canned near the end of April, 1998. But even after being terminated, I am not quite finished with my former employer, nor they with me. We will continue to toy with one another, albeit from a distance. These are all very distant, nebulous chess moves, inconclusive and perfectly defensible as accidents – the culmination of which, I have to admit, is the final W-2 they turn in for my tenure here.

Stumbling onto this document just now has totally made my night. I couldn’t find the W-2 itself at the moment, but here’s the correction they eventually filed. As you can see, they have me at $249,648.26 in tip money for those three plus months, which let’s just say differs ever so slightly from my records. By, like, $247,000. We were doing okay waiting tables here, sure, but not that okay.

corrected 1998 W-2 for Jason McGathey

This piece of paper is so hysterical that I feel like framing it. I never really determine whether they did this intentionally, either for comedic effect or the latest volley in this back and forth battle. Perhaps this was an attempt to indirectly bill me for damages. Whatever the case, I have a hard time believing it was an honest typo, committed while filling out paperwork for one of their servers. Actually I have a hard time believing anyone involved with this operation made $250K on the year.

V.

I eventually realized in going through my stats for this site that there are a couple of posts that (relatively speaking, of course) “blew up” for a minute on Reddit. Someone posted a link from a subreddit there, over to here, which I truly appreciate, especially as it sent a decent amount of traffic my way. However, one of the more frustrating and befuddling aspects about this is that what tends to happen is someone will read that subreddit…come over here and check out my post…then bounce back over to Reddit to comment on it, instead of doing so here. So you would never even know any of this was happening – as I didn’t either, for quite some time.

Anyway my half-baked idea for incorporating some of this is to at least post the Reddit feed here. I’m not crazy about linking over to there, but at the same time, it seems kind of stupid not to. So here goes, beginning with the one that kicked the subreddit off:

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