in toledo

Bloggin’ at ya from T-Town, Toodle-ee-do, Toledo, on the workplace computer where I read some of my first blogs lo these many years ago. (This was in the dark ages of Internet access, when there were two computers in the whole newsroom with connections — oops, make that three, because there was one old 386 with a 14.4K modem. Boy, that made for fun surfing.) Unsurprisingly, Toledo hasn’t changed all that much since I left. (A sentence that could have been written at just about any point since 1950.) Downtown is still pretty much abandoned, despite regular pledges from all the right people to do something about it.
The current mayor, the wonderfully named Carty Finkbeiner, has actually accomplished much more downtown than his predecessors — getting a new baseball stadium built, turning some ancient buildings into apartments, etc. — but he’ll be out of office soon, alas. His successor, elected a couple of weeks ago, is a fine guy (if a bit walrus-like), but not the sparkplug Carty was. (I covered Carty on and off for a couple of years — he’s a former football coach known for the occasional physical outburst, and he’s often borderline insane, but he gets things done. Anyway, Carty won’t ever be remembered for his downtown work; he’ll always be remembered for advocating the creation of a deaf-only neighborhood near the Toledo airport, because they wouldn’t mind all the noise. Yes, he seriously said that.)
Anyway, I’m off to Fort Wayne, Indiana, tonight (seriously, do the exotic locales ever stop?) for a benefit dinner for one of Kelly’s friends. (Kelly’s the ex-girlfriend/current very good friend I’m staying with here.) The planned highlight of the event: a performance by a ragtag rock band made up of writers and editors at the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, where Kelly used to work. The inspired name of this ensemble? Paper Jam. (Get it? They work at a paper, and they…never mind. If my DMN band is ever revived and I consider Paper Jam as a name, please shoot me.)