Of course there was booze involved

When you're in the wine business, one tends to drink. Usually quite a bit. Drinking happens at work when salesmen bring you samples, maybe even a winemaker comes with them. You talk wine, you drink wine. There are trade tastings, which can be bacchanalian affairs with tables full of wine, all of it for free.

At work, I drank. At home, I drank. Socially, I drank.

One thing my wife and I did in that small apartment was throw a good party. Again, it was great that our downstairs neighbor slept like the dead.

And we were also invited out for the occasional party. This particular one was at the rented house of my wife's colleagues.



I'm still trying to remember exactly when it happened. I was working in a wine shop, but can't remember which one. All I know is I got seriously drunk and I started talking out of both sides of my ass.

This part is not my story to tell, so I'll omit those details. It was about an incident that happened to my wife at her work. It involved a hearing that became very Kafkaesque. My wife's accuser may also have put some offensive graffiti in the hallway of our apartment building. The outcome was not favorable toward my wife.

This did not happen to me. But it felt as it did the way my wife battered me with every single detail of every step of the process. The same way she would hammer me with every single detail of a person who cut her off in traffic, who gave her slow service in line, anywhere. The moment I stepped into the apartment, or the car, I would be hammered with her anger, with every outrage she had. This went on for a long time. And it got to me, what happened to her made me very irate, especially with all the crazy shit I was dealing with at my job. I could barely get a word in.

So at the party we were talking about their work, it was always about their work. Little else existed outside of their work. I found that one of the important faculty where my wife worked was there, and I called him over and probably said some very disparaging things about his workplace, the fascist judicial system they had in place, and academia in general. To the person's credit, they walked away from a drunk idiot. I deserved to be punched out. Hell, do not even remember the person's name.

An embarrassing moment in a lengthening line of embarrassing incidents caused by my drinking. Had to call the hosts the next day and apologize. One of my wife's friends called my behavior "magnificent" then changed the verdict to "rude and arrogant" after my wife moved out. We were not invited out much after this particular night.

The fourth job

This entry is a long one, painful to write at times. There are a lot of stories from this period. I'm not sure I remember them all properly anymore. I'm not sure I want to say everything I do remember. This period of my life changed me profoundly.


After about a month of unemployment, and Germany advancing in the World Cup, I found an ad for a wine shop manager in the Dispatch. I called and asked to speak to the manager, who I was speaking to. Asked about if I could interview, "I need a time" was the first of many strange things he would tell me.

Got to the shop, which was divided in two. One side the retail, the other a bar. A toothless drunk behind the bar says aloud to everyone and no one that her replacement is here. I don't even remember her name.

Chris, the owner arrived late. I recognized him from a vendor tasting I went to when I worked at the French Market. Time has erased what we spoke about, but it was lengthy and filled with interruptions. It was a couple of hours before I found out if I'd got the job. I have a feeling it was a given the moment I walked in the place. Meanwhile, my wife was waiting in the car. This did not help matters.

The business had been a wine shop since the early sixties, before that it was a gas station. It was run by the owner's Grandfather, who also owned the property and he passed it on to Chris giving him a lot of advice (and no rent) little of which took for he was a very irresponsible kid. The Grandfather died a few years before, leaving Chris to look after his Grandmother, who did not drive. She was also extremely wealthy.

The wine shop was a potential gold mine, at the time it was one of the few on the east side and sat right on the edge of the wealthy enclave of Bexley. They liked good wine in Bexley, and bought it too. It was a bit of a haul, since I still did not drive. I got to know East Main Street from my seat on the number two bus.



On one side of the building, sat the bar. A money pit of theft, drug dealing and other illicit behavior. Prostitutes met their clients here, strange things happened in the parking lot day and night. How it did not get busted is beyond me.

The bar itself was lovely, dozens of etched wine crates covered in layers of polyurethane lacquer. The back bar was a 24 bay Cruvinet, a wine tap system that worked as often as a 1968 Jaguar and was a pain in the ass to maintain. I hated it because it wasted money and attracted even more cockroaches. The clientele was diverse, a Columbus Municipal court judge was a very regular customer. Nice guy, but dying of emphysema, chain smoking unfiltered Lucky Strikes and the booze did not help. The man could fall asleep standing up, a talent we were all impressed with.

In the midst of all this I became trusted to do the ordering for the retail side and had little responsibility in operating the bar, this was good for everyone. I did not like the bar, the smoke and some of the people who came in there. I did not like serving cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon (this was before the hipsters embraced it) at 10AM, one bigot stared out the window and exclaimed, "You know, ten years ago, you never would have seen a nigger in Bexley, now they're everywhere."

I still have no real idea what went on in the bar at night. There was a lot of stealing. Friends of Chris were robbing the till constantly. He was too messed up to do anything about it. There was a lot of drug use. Chris left a substantial bag of pot in the middle of the retail counter one night for me to find when I opened. I just had to laugh. I guess people expected me to freak out. He asked me if I found an item that was, "indiscriminately left on the counter overnight." The drinking and the pot use did not bother me, it was the crack and harder stuff that ended it all.

In the midst of the chaos, I was learning a lot about wine here, especially the Germans. Despite his reputation as a burn out Chris knew his wine and I got a solid education. Learned to love Champagne here too and selling the stuff was quite a pleasure. One Christmas, I was interview by The Dispatch about an article they were doing on Champagne sales. One prominent local retailer said that sales, "were flat," while I said they've never been better.

It was depressing to watch his deterioration because of the cocaine. His family tried interventions, he was going through a divorce. Nothing worked. He was on his own road, riding his motorcycle drunk, or driving his Grandfather's Cadillac or partially restored vintage Mustang and excessive speed. It's a good thing he never made it to the cell phone era, more people would have been hurt with his attention span while driving.

We did have our fights, mostly about how the bar was being run as it took profits and customers away from the business. The theft from the bar was amounting to thousands of dollars a year. A grand a month, probably more. People were put off by some of the unsavory characters and excessive cigarette smoke that permeated the walls. the smell is still there, to this very day. I notice it.

Near the end, he was rolling with some very questionable characters, a few of whom were carrying briefcases full of what may have been cash and needles. They went upstairs to do their business, I never saw the bloodstains on the wall. I never would have cleaned those up. Why didn't I leave? I had nowhere else to go, so I thought.

He looked horrible the last time I saw him. Unwashed hair, dirty clothes, I think his belt was a piece of rope. He was taking beer out of the cooler, for himself and his buddies. He always called them buddies. I think it was a Tuesday.

Wednesday night, I think, my wife and I got home from whatever we did that night. I had just gone to bed when the phone rang just after ten. She answered it. One of his girlfriends who was now running the bar into the ground said that he died.

I did not know what the Hell to do so I went back to bed for a few minutes then asked if we could head to the house behind the store, where he was living, to find out what was going on.

When we got there, the house was empty, the bar was closed. It was about 11:30PM. I suggested we go to his Grandmother's, maybe something was happening there. The lights were on.

My wife tells me that when I walked into the house and saw his body on the floor of his Grandmother's living room I immediately went completely pale. She was right. His body was face down, covered in a sheet, and his mother was kneeling over his body. Did not expect to see any of this. I was not the same person after this moment. His dead body was the first I had ever seen. Not a body that expired because of old age or disease but a sudden overdose. I thought he died at the other house. His Grandmother was ill and living in an assisted care facility at the time.

About the only other thing I remember from this scene was when the coroner came to pick up his body. When he was lifted his arm fell, and not an a 90 degree angle, but more like a 30, because rigor was setting in. His skin was a mottled green and bruises and the image has never escaped me.

I went back to the bar and my wife called one of his other girlfriends, one of the better ones he had, she came over and we drank more than our share. I took all the money from the building just in case. I was worried about serious theft. We went to breakfast at Tee Jay's and got home about six in the morning. About two hours later, Chris' brother, Scott called.

His brother got out of Columbus and was living in Dayton with his wife and kids. He was an attorney. I ended up headed back over to the store, on about two hours sleep and hung over to talk.

He was not a bad guy, at all. He lost his father and now his brother due to drug addiction and he felt the need to be responsible for Chris' young son.

The wake and funeral were held, both very sad events. The store closed for a few days while Scott and I sorted some matters. The bar was closed, and stayed closed. I ran the business solo, for about a year. A very hard year.

How do you tell people a 33 year old man died when his aorta exploded while he was smoking crack? That's the ghost I was left with for weeks after as the news filtered out. I also had to tell people that their precious bar was closed, and would remain so. People were not happy. And why would they be, their route to free drinks and drug access had just been cut off. There were rumors, I do not think he was alone when he died, but I do not think he was murdered. I think they were doing drugs, Chris collapsed and died, the other guy, or guys, panicked and left.

Store hours were cut drastically, the business was to be sold as a going concern once the legal details were sorted out. Naturally, Chris left no will. This was going to take some time.

I had help during the holidays. My wife was an asset. A good man named Mike, who was one of the better and more responsible bar regulars assisted during the holidays and times I needed a weekend off. He died a few years ago. At his service were pictures of him with large bottles of wine. His daughter told me it was me who gave him the wine bug. A colleague of my wife's helped out as well. This could not sustain itself though.

The bills were being paid, the store was well stocked, Chris' debts were coming down, all due to one guy running a shop right. I'll concede there was no rent to pay, which is a huge expense the store did not have. Scott would frequently check in, ask how things were doing, how I was. "Better than Kurt Cobain," I replied on that day eighteen years ago. I know the cut in hours lost a lot of business, but things had to stay tight, and losses were kept at a minimum.

Vultures would come in, expecting they were going to come in and take the place at a steal. Scott was a but more realistic. I remember one potential buyer praised my merchandising, saying it looked like a New York Wineshop, and it for the most part, still has the same layout. If I remember right I pulled in a quarter of a million in sales, by myself. A drop from previous years, but still an impressive amount of money. There was no way this place, if run well, could not take in at least half a million. In the best year when I was there we came close to four hundred thousand in sales.

About a year after Chris died I got a phone call from the owner of another wine shop, he wanted to hire me. We talked terms. I talked to Scott, who wanted me to stay a little longer, but the ghosts were too much, especially during the down times when no one was in the store but me, and a lot of alcohol. I think we parted on good terms. He sold the shop to a man who had a store on 5th Avenue, who still owns it. I'm not sure of his level of involvement as he's had the same person managing it for years.

I had worked at this place from July of 1990 to April of 1994. I had no idea I was going from one form of retail Hell and straight into another.

Home Number Two

With yesterday's post about Schiller Park, it may be a good segue to post about my second abode in Columbus, which was a short par 3 from the park. Lived here from March of 2000 to October of 2002.

The wedding date was 3/17/01 and we had been looking for places to live in the Victorian Village, Grandview and German Village areas. Nothing really stood out until this one.



It was the left half of the house, with the other half lived in by a ninety plus woman who was more or less deaf. I was lucky twice in a row. She was a very sweet woman who lived there for over thirty years, saw the house built when she was a child.

The apartment had a small living room with built in bookshelves than went into a dining area. The kitchen had decent size. There was even a portable dishwasher, which was used rarely but good to have. It was one of those dishwashers you had to attach the hose to the faucet in order to use, roll it by the sink, and start. A bit of work!

Upstairs was a tiny bathroom, two small bedrooms and a large front bedroom. The back bedroom opened up to a small private second floor balcony. Had I wanted to, I could have sunbathed in the nude.

The location was ideal, her Grandmother lived on the street behind us. We were within walking distance of the park, a good bus line, all the cool stuff in German Village and a grocery store. Should have been great. Maybe the car that crashed into the house next door a month after we lived there was an omen.

Had to move when she became pregnant. We could not afford the reasonable, but higher costs to rent there. Our hand was forced even more when she gave birth to our son three months early. The landlord was a bit of an ass and only returned part of our deposit. Still, I miss the location.

Making a forward leap

My favorite park in Columbus, which has several wonderful ones, is Schiller in German Village. It's relatively quiet, has a nice playground and a tennis court for my son to do laps around. I lived down the block from here right after marriage two and really loved the neighborhood.

Even when I did not have a car I liked to come down here and chill. Good place for a picnic. Not sure how it is for first dates though, back in the summer of 1998, it left me a bit dazed.

All I'm saying is that boasting about fellatio skills on a first date is not the best idea, nor is looking for someone whose lap you can sit on and call him Daddy. After being out of the dating scene, first one back out of the gate was a theater major. My kryptonite. That was my fault for not recognizing the sign of the Drama, among other things.



Nothing happened. It was all for the best. Big River was being performed by the Actor's Summer Theater that night. I think she's tried to find me on MyLife. I'm not hard to find.

A few months later, on the day of my first divorce, I burned the marriage license and gave it a Viking funeral in the pond. What the Hell is it about me and silly rituals?

Where Everybody Knows Your Game

Going in exact chronological order with this project is not going to happen. I may come close, but I'm going to jump around a little.

It was sometime in late August, early September of 1992 during a rain delay at a Columbus Clippers game when my wife approached a man wearing a Buffalo Bills hat. They got to talking about how it was hard to watch the games in town.

Back then, satellites were rare, Direct TV was not around. What we had to do to see regular season Bills games during the season was find a Buffalo friendly sports bar, not the easiest thing to do in Bengals/Browns country, and hope they'd put it on the screen for you.

We got lucky with a Damon's out in Pickerington, but that was a bit of a haul.

The guy she was talking to mentioned Michael Dominic's, a restaurant in Worthington that was owned by a guy from Buffalo and they showed the games on Sunday. She called and confirmed that while the place was closed on Sundays, it was open for Bills fans to watch the games on his satellite.

Our first Sunday there, we found home.

This was right in the middle of the four season Super Bowl loss streak. The team was great during the regular season. Crowds began forming as word of mouth grew. Eventually it seemed the place was busier on Sundays than it was during the week. Michael would serve chicken wings, Sahlen's hot dogs, beef on weck and other Buffalo food that was not on his steakhouse menu.

The Central Ohio Bills Backers were formed and organized bus trips to Indianapolis and to the Thanksgiving game in Detroit. Great times, despite the loss in Detroit.

The greatest day there remains January 3rd, 1993. A playoff game against the Houston Oilers. The Bills were down 28-3 at the half and 35-3 early in the third quarter. By this time I wanted out, but for some reason my wife wanted to stay.

We all cheered mockingly when the Bills made it 35-10, and said it was not going to be a rout when it became 35-17.

But when Frank Reich threw a touchdown pass to Andre Reed, it became 35-24, and it was game on.

The bar was chanting "D-D-D" People were screaming in all the rooms, running back and forth giving out high fives to everyone. When it became 35-31 people were getting body slammed. Bear hugs. Chest bumps and room spins. The craziest and most intense viewing of a sport on television I have ever been a part of.

The Bills went ahead, briefly and chaos ensued. Houston got a late field goal to sent the game into overtime, but we knew. We knew the Bills were going to win.

On the first drive of overtime Warren Moon threw a pass that Nate Odomes intercepted and a couple of plays later Steve Christie kicked an easy field goal.

I was bruised the next morning. I still find the highlights of the game on Youtube and watch them.

We still had two, sad, Super Bowl losses to sit through. There were still crowds. One of the local stations did a live broadcast of its pre-game show from the bar. The Dispatch came and took pictures. I was on the cover of the metro section, probably a bit drunk with a few other fans. The second Super Bowl loss to Dallas took a lot out of people and their commitment to the team, and going out on Sunday afternoons. After that, the team's run of success came to an end. Attendance diminished. Michael closed the restaurant to move someplace else, and that did not work out.



That's the location of the restaurant today. A strip center 90 degrees off kilter from the entrance. It was a bit unsettling to see the building gone. I spent a good 4-5 years of Sunday's there. The Bills Backers meet at a bar in Dublin now, it's fun, some of the same people still go to the games, even though they have dish network. Others have kids, like me, or have retired or moved on and do not have the investment in the team they way they used to. Maybe this year, with the new signings, and hope of an 0-0 record, I'll go back more.

The First Home

We first came to Columbus in late October of 1989. My wife had been accepted to Graduate School at a major Midwestern land grand university and we had a limited time frame to look at the city a little and find a place to live.

It was a freakishly warm weekend. I know we had lunch outside on the patio of A La Carte, which is now Alana's. We looked through the Dispatch for apartments with little knowledge of any of the neighborhoods. We found an apartment that sounded decent, by the ad, and called them from our hotel room.



This was the first place we looked at. The upper right hand apartment. Walking in we both had an instant feeling this was the place. It was not large, but looked comfortable. A decent sized living room. Functional kitchen. Two bedrooms. Basement storage. We wanted this apartment. We had appointments for two other places, but after driving to them we realized we did not even want to look at them.

Luckily we got it.

I lived here for over ten years, she moved out after eight.

It was not a horrible place to live. A bit small for two, especially when times were rough. We did have a few memorable parties. It was not air conditioned and we broiled in the summer. Opening the front windows did not provide much coolant, and the noise from the busy street did not help. The windows were casement, so finding a decent air conditioner was difficult.

The location was decent, just a short distance from campus. Relatively safe. We never had a problem, but our downstairs neighbor was broken into and had her car stolen. Right on a major bus line, close enough to shopping. Because of the street noise, I do not miss it.

It had a backyard that backed up to a ravine, so we had families of raccoons and other assorted critters visit all the time. Our downstairs neighbor had lived there, and still does, for over 40 years. She was nearly deaf so our noise never bothered her.

I finally moved out to live with wife two. I'd been there for ten years and four months. I'd worn of the place and it showed. The landlord was generally attentive, and I got my full deposit back.

Five Months, Three Jobs

Thus begins the April 2012 Columbus in Infamy Project.

I moved here in December, 1989, with no job to come to. The economy was a bit different then. It was easier to find employment in the go-go days of pre-Gulf War America. After a few interviews, and an experience with a fly by night scam of a networking service, I eventually landed a part time position as a bank teller for Bank One, who are now known as Chase.

The work was alright. I did not mind the cash handling, the place I worked on campus was certainly busy, with a young but diverse clientele.



Bank One, or Chase, are no longer in that location on campus, but it still is a bank.

It may have been the most stable position I have ever worked. Had I been a bit more patient I would have had full time hours, but I left here after two months to take a full time job in a wine shop.

The owners just took over the wine shop in the French Market, a once bustling building of food stands and quaint craft shops. I interviewed for the position as manager, and somehow got it. I was not expecting owners who had no clue what to purchase. They bought about 100 cases of crappy beer for a Kentucky Derby party that they thought their customers would embrace. They were mistaken. A couple of a accountants who thought they could make a small fortune in the business.

I admit my attitude was not great. The French Market was just beginning to die. Their rent was outrageous and business was dead. I was let go a couple of months in. The first, and only time I have been fired from a job.



Not entirely sure what happened in the years after. The owners mentioned moving the business a couple of times, but it never happened. Eventually they closed for good, and the French Market was torn down. I ran into one of the owners in a bank a few years later. I said hello. He walked right past me without a word.

By some miracle I found work a couple of weeks later, at a grocery store in Muirfield Village. A golf based community just north of Dublin, Ohio. It was a bit of a hike my long suffering wife tolerated somehow as I did not drive.

The work was not impressive. The owner put a lot of investment in the Memorial Tournament, which like many years, was a rain out. I was manager on duty most evenings and tried to keep myself busy in an independent grocery store that could not compete with Kroger. Once, I bagged the owner of Wendy's, Dave Thomas', groceries. That was the high point, along with finding out Jim Henson died on my wife's birthday. Not a high point, but I remember when and where I was. It was also the first time I experienced hail. There was a massive storm and I was in the storeroom when I heard loud banging on the roof. I looked out the back door and pebble sized ice was falling from the sky. It was on my day off, that I got a phone call telling me the store had shut down.



It was hard to find the location of this place again. Had not been up here in over 21 years. I think this is where it was, and what it has become. I saw the store manager, the guy who hired me, one more time, in the wine shop I was working at after the owner died. He was vulturing around, thinking he could by the place. He did not.

Hell of an introduction to a new city, three jobs in five months. I had no confidence and little trust. Ended up out of work for the month of June, sitting on the couch, drinking Stroh's beer while watching the World Cup in Spanish.

After the fourth of July, my employment situation would change, for the crazy.