I know it has been quite a while since I’ve seen many of you, but I thought I’d drop a note to let you know that I’ll soon be joining the ranks of the retirees.
It’s not by choice, mind you, but there’s no denying that it’s time for me to go. I leave with little ego boost in knowing that the current management finds me wholly irreplaceable. I agonize for those whom I have had the humble pleasure of serving; no matter how often I was taken for granted, I still don’t wish upon these fine folks the hurdles and hassles that so many will face in my absence.
It didn’t have to be this way. I won’t point the blame at any particular person; suffice it to say that decisions were made over the last decade or so to allow me to fall into disgraceful disrepair. I don’t mean to do it, but I drop chunks of concrete left and right these days. I drip some weird white chemical substance, unintentionally marking the cars with stains to remember me by. I’m a decrepit old pile. I think we all know that folks like Jack Knight and Ben Maidenburg would be appalled to see me like this.
You might say that I’ve endured more physical stress than any Beacon employee ever had to, but the presses might disagree with me. I was happy to give you shelter, a somewhat safe place to stash your car. Dial it back a few decades and my disappearance wouldn’t be such a huge deal. Remember how plentiful downtown parking was in the 70s and 80s?
And through it all I remember everything. Yes, EVERYTHING. Countless Fran Murphey naps in her car. Fireworks and barbecues. I remember one couple even got engaged here. Then there were the sometimes brutal Northeast Ohio winters when the homeless huddled in my stairwells. There were fender benders and maybe even a few plain old benders. But I’m not going to dish on anyone (I hear some of you breathing a sigh of relief). I was happy to be both an exercise track and a smoking buddy. I had a great job, watching all of you coming and going. Keeping something secure for you in the meantime. In my own mind, I had a sign over my entrance along the lines of the famous Riviera Lanes placard, only mine said “Through these gates drive the world’s greatest newspaper people.”
On some level, I am certain that it is time to check out. Aw, heck, on EVERY one of my levels it is clear. I leave with the comfort of having realized the answer to the Shakespearean question. The answer for me is NOT 2B! Still I depart with fond memories of all of you.
Gosh, it’s been a real pleasure.
Sincerely,
The Parking Deck
2 comments:
2B, or not to 2B, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
Since I was on 5B, or was it 5A, I had no roof over my cars that I parked on the deck. I remember the winter snow and ice there, and the day that Charlene Nevada slipped on the ice and broke a leg, which got maintenance to run up and throw rock salt all over the place. In summer, of course, particularly when the BJ was a PM paper, I would leave work at 2:30 p.m. and enter a steaming hot car.
No parking deck? You might as well tell me that there's no
Santa Claus.
Avoir, dear friend. You've disappeared along with what Ben Maidenburg described as "the smell of jobs," all the rubber factories on Main Street.
And the BJ is reduced to one floor of a building that once housed nearly 1,000 employees.
Sometimes it's so sad to look in the rear-view mirror.
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