What a muck-up!

By John Olesky,

former Beacon Journal Television Editor

Well, it turns out The Back Nine From Hell at Brandywine in Peninsula has some competition from #9 on the front nine.

Tom Stone, brother of the woman I love and have lived with for 13 years, Paula Stone Tucker, and I were on #9 tee. In front of us is the pond that is far below the tee in altitude and between the tee and #9 green.

I hit my drive that didn’t quite clear the water on the fly. But my orange ball with “WVU” and “John Olesky” on it (I have about 800 of those) hit the water and plopped onto the far shore, about one foot beyond the water.

When Tom and I drove our golf cart between the green and the pond, I walked toward the orange ball … and sank into a black, mucky, suction/vacuum equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles that once trapped mastadons, relatives of the elephant, to death.

There I was, a modern mastodon, my legs sunk 17 inches deep into the black, sucking muck.

It took three Brandywine employees, a metal extension ladder placed flat on the ground and a 3 x 10 foot flat board and about 30 minutes of rescue work, directed by me, to extricate me from the trouble I got myself into.

The problem was that the black muck had trapped my feet in my golf shoes, so you couldn’t just pull me out without causing me a lot of pain and permanent damage.

The rescuers and I had to dig up around my two legs all the muck that was within a 2-foot diameter and 20-inch deep hole (to get under my feet).

As the rescuers dug close to my feet, following my directions, and I could feel how close their shovel/spade was to my body, then I would take the spade from their hands and finish extricating my leg by digging myself out.

When we got one foot and the left leg free, I put that foot on the rung of the metal ladder that was lying flat on the ground, so that it wouldn’t sink back into the black, mucky yuck. That was my left leg.

Then we extricated my right foot.

Part of the problem was that I was facing #9 tee and the water, and my back was to my rescuers. If they tried to yank me out they would twist my body and cause damage to it.

Once we got my second, right leg free, I plunked my butt on the board and scooted toward the green. Then the rescuers lifted me to a standing position.

I had the extra problem of having a store-bought right knee, so we didn’t want to dislocate or damage that. Plus my Pacemaker was working overtime to keep my calm.

My stoic Mountaineer and Polish background also helped me stay cool and direct my rescue.

By the time I got home and stripped naked in the garage (with the door shut so I didn’t frighten the neighbors or the squirrels), my right knee was swollen, my right calf, back, right arm and right shoulder had been tweaked and were uncomfortable.

After the naked Mountaineer climbed to the second floor and into the shower, removing what mucky debris was left, only the right knee remained a problem.

I called Tom’s wife, Lorraine, who is a nurse and told her that I had pain pills left over from my nose excavation two months ago to remove cancer. She indicated it was OK to take one pain pill, which I did, and to put cold packs on my right knee for 20 minutes, which I did.

So now I have something else for our family lore, including the time that I rode my wagon off the bumpity reddog road and down into the ravine about 100 feet deep. Tom Retton, our Jackson Street neighbor across the ravine in Monongah, West Virginia, saw me as he was driving by. He went down, carried my lifeless body to our Thomas Street house, knocked on the door and, when my mother answered, said, “Here’s your son.”

That was one of several times that my mother fainted over her wayward son’s adventures.

Monongah residents were used to me going into that holler, as we called the ravine, because I did it with four or five different types of riding conveyances. I was so clumsy that my mother refused to let me have a bike. So I borrowed one from a friend and drove it into a truck, which caused its owner to come screaming at me because I scratched paint from off the truck. It was the equivalent of a deserved “Get off my lawn” episode.

Somehow, I managed to survive my childhood, despite 8 black eyes, one at a time except for a double black eye once, and never because I was fighting. Only because I was a klutz who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. A guy coming out of my Uncle Renzy Fazio’s grocery store once found me hanging upsidedown, holding onto the top railing, and my nose bleeding from hitting the bottom railing.

Just to make it interesting, I was hanging 10 feet above a concrete walkway. If I had let go, that would have been a fatal brain blitz.

I kept the whole town business trying to keep me from killing myself.

As for The Back Nine From Hell, Brandywine’s famous 9 holes where you stay in the narrow fairway or lose the ball or confront snakes, Tom and I combined for FIFTEEN lost golf balls, most of them by me. That’s a record because my daughter, LaQuita, and I lost only 9 golf balls on the first 7 holes for the previous high.

While I was stuck in the equivalent of the LaBrea Tar Pits, I was thinking: “Hell, my coal mining father was covered TWICE in cave-ins and rescuers had to go through 4 or more feet of coal to get to any part of his body, and he lived till black lung killed him in his 70s, so this is a piece of cake by comparison.”

I am eternally grateful to the Brandywine trio that my golfing partner at Sunny Hill (Kent) and Brookledge (Cuyahoga Falls),  Tom Stone, summoned. They did an excellent job of getting a mastodon who will 85 years old on November 5 extricated from some nasty, foot-sucking muck.

Thanks, guys.

I think I’ll wait a while before I play Brandywine again.

And I think I’ll let my golf ball stay stuck atop the black muck, rather try to go for it again.

After all, I have dozens more with “WVU” and “John Olesky” emblazoned on them.

All in all, it was a fun and interesting day.

  Photos by Tom Stone

Not to be catty about it, but I think Ed Suba, Jr., who retired April 29 after 33 years as a BJ photographer, may be entering a, shall we say, hairy phase of his life.

He’s made his four cats the stars of his comic strip, “The Kitty Kingdom.”

Ed takes photos of his cats in various poses (whatever they’re in the mood for; you know cats) and puts comment bubbles above their heads.

My favorite is the one about Michael Phelps, who has won some many Olympics swimming medals that he would drown if he dived in the water wearing them all.

I looked over a dozen or so. Most are funny. Others are philosophical.

Cat people would purr over the comic strip. What we used to call old maids would be delighted and chattering among their friends in the nursing home.

The comic strips are on Ed’s web site, the Kitty Kingdom.

Explains Catman Suba:

“Each cat has its own personality and I base the strips on events in the world, my family and pretty much anything that looks interesting. Most try to be funny while some can be thoughtful and serious. It's something

I've always wanted to try and helps me keep the creative juices flowing, writing and photography-wise.”

It’s Ed’s version of “What’s New, Pussycat?”  Tom Jones, eat your heart out.

I’m trying to decide whether Ed is bonkers or a creative genius. I lean toward CG since Ed has been Ohio News Photographers Association Photographer of the Year three times and was bestowed the Robert S. Carson Award, the organization’s highest honor. He was ONPA president for about 20 years.

He calls it “my first retirement project.”

To go to Ed’s web site, click on http://kitty-kingdom.strikingly.com/

His email is ESUBAJR@neo.com and his phone is (330) 873-9868 if you want to cat … er, chat … with Ed. If you hear screetching on the other end of the line, it may be Ed playing the violin or one of his fabulous fearsome fantastic foursome frolicking favorite fixative flexible fuzzy feline friends.

I think I just broke the world record for alliteration.

 

When I attend the Hudson Art on the Green, I always look for former BJ chief artist Dennis Balogh (a title held at various times by Joe Grace, Bud Morris and Art Krummel).

Paula and I found him today wandering about other 36^th anniversary HAG artists although his tent (#80, in case you’re looking) already was open.

Dennis and I have a lot of Ol’ Blue Walls history together.

Dennis drew some of the most memorable covers for the Channels TV guide that I gave birth to in 1980, under the sprvsn of Jim Nolan (those who remember Nolan know that he never used vowels in his memos, so sprvsn stands for “supervision.”).

When Jim and I were preparing for the launch of Channels, on the Sunday of the Super Bowl (which we hoped in vain would be the Siper Bowl, for Browns QB Brian Sipe – damn Red Right 88!), Jim had me provide him with another page proof for every period or comma he inserted.

Hey, I didn’t complain, because the $10,000 in overtime that year (really!) paid for The Pool That Channels Built on Morrison Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls. My children and grandchildren and my late wife Monnie and I enjoyed Nolan’s obsessive behavior for more than two decades. Every supersplash cannonball into the pool was dedicated to Jm Nln.

Dennis and wife Patty have three children, graphic designer Lori in New York City and two sons.

In other years at the Hudson show Paula and I ran into retired BJ photographer Denny Gordon’s wife, Bonnie, and her sculptures; former BJ chief artist Art Krummel, with his paintings; and former Features Department editor and columnist Connie Bloom, with her fabric art (formerly know as quilt art) as Ohio’s fabric art guru. 

The National Association of Black Journalists, National Headliner Awards and Creativity Annual are among Balogh’s awards.

 

He did portaits of the past presidents of Samford University in Alabama that hang on the campus walls.

 

He has illustrated the top CEOs of the year for New York Stock Exchange Magazine.

But I take credit for Dennis getting his training wheels by doing Channels magazine cover illustrations for me during my days as television editor at Ol’ Blue Walls. Yeah, right. He already was a legend by that time.

Balogh went from Cooper School of Arts in Cleveland to the Cleveland Press to the Columbus Dispatch to the BJ. Today, he and his wife live in Broadview Heights – phone (440) 546-9223 or email baloghstudio@yahoo.com if you want to renew old times.

After 21 years at the BJ, starting in 1985, Balogh was part of a major exodus in 2006 when 335 years of experience walked out the door. The place has never been the same, with the staff shrinking from 250 to less than 60. Those who remain are just as dedicated, but there are too many ownership downsizing alligators encumbering their efforts.

In 2000 the Beacon art staff included Terence Oliver, John “Derf” Backderf, Art Krummel, Rick Steinhauser, Phil White, Dennis Earlenbaugh and Dennis Balogh. It used to be if you said, “Come here, Dennis,” when Dennis Haas also was there, a crowd would show up.

Now, they’re all enjoying a second life without the BJ, just as I have for 20 years. But our beautiful and fun memories will live with us till we move into the cemetery permanently.

They are painting, making fabric art history in Connie Bloom’s case, enduring earthquake tremors in New Zealand every week in Massey University Journalism faculty member Cathy Strong’s case or traveling to 55 countries and 44 states, in my case (with Paula Tucker, former State Desk reporter, at my side), when we’re not spending 4 to 6 months in Paula’s 2^nd home in The Villages, Florida, where we escape Ohio’s winters that overwhelm our Tallmadge home.

Dennis reports that Art Krummel and wife Charlene Nevada sold their retirement home in Garden City, South Carolina because the nasty weather in Ohio they were trying to escape followed them there. They bought the place in 2010.

That’s why Paula and I rotate between The Villages, where it’s not as nasty as Ohio’s snow and ice in the winter, and Tallmadge, where it’s not Devil’s Oven weather like The Villages in the summer.

This article appeared in the February 2011 issue of AkronLife magazine, but I just came across it and thought it was worth publishing again.

It’s a love story. The best food writer in Akron Beacon Journal history, Jane Snow, walked into this Merriman Valley sushi restaurant and Japan native Tony Kawaguchi swept her off her feet – literally and figuratively.

Let Jane explain it, courtesy of AkronLife magazine:

 “There’s some ineffable thing that makes us click,” says food writer Jane Snow, about her four-year marriage to Tony Kawaguchi, owner of Sushi Katsu in Merriman Valley.

When she walked into his restaurant for the first time, he came out from behind the counter and hugged her so enthusiastically that he lifted her feet off the ground. “You could have felt electricity in that room,” Jane remembers. “You’re going to be my girlfriend,” Tony announced. Two weeks later, they were engaged.

The next year, they were married in Vegas.

Tony was born in Japan, where he apprenticed for a sushi master before moving to the U.S. in 1982. He worked at five-star restaurants in places like Hawaii and New York City before coming to Akron at the request of Hibachi Japan, whose customers (Japanese executives from Bridgestone/Firestone) were looking for high-quality sushi here.

Jane was born in Liverpool, Ohio and came to Akron to work for the Beacon Journal. Her research for a sushi story brought her to Tony’s restaurant.

Coincidentally, Tony’s dad owned an American restaurant in Japan right outside the gate of the Air Force Base where Jane’s dad was stationed in World War II.

Tony likes Bob Evans and Alexandri’s; Jane prefers the Sweet Pea Café. She likes dogs; he has a cat. Tony loves tractors, ATVs and bow hunting. Jane prefers the arts. They go to different movies together — she slips into the chick flick while he heads into the action film.

”He’s more American than I am,” Jane jokes.

They love skiing; biking; going to fancy restaurants, flea markets and county fairs; and spending time with Tony’s 16-year-old son.

 “We’re two very alpha people, but we each have our own areas that we allow the other to lead,” says Jane. A sign Tony hung in their bedroom reads: “Forever. For Always. And No Matter What.”

Tony ordered their wedding on the internet at Cupid's Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas and they had their first meal -- chorizo sausage and melted cheese sandwich on Cuban bread for Jane and chicken and rice for Tony -- as husband and wife at a hole-in-the wall Cuban restaurant in Vegas.

You can check out Jane’s fabulous recipes at her janesnowtoday.com web site with her weekly See Jane Cook newsletter on the Internet.

The Sapporo, Japan native’s restaurant, Sushi Katsu is at 1446 North Portage Path in the Merriman Valley. Not all that far from their love nest they call home, either.

If you’re in Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer’s Summit County Probate Court on S. High Street, look around. You might see fabric art (fancier than quilts) made by retired BJ editor/pet columnist Connie Bloom.

Connie sold these art quilts to Her Honor this summer.

The white one is titled Connected and was a recent work.

The picnic table scene, titled The Infinite Virtues of Salad, was done in 2004.

You can see Connie’s name stitched above the apple.

The full title is Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division.

Connie is the resident quiltmaker in Summit Artspace on the third floor at 140 E. Market Street, next to the Akron Art Museum.

Retired BJ reporter Jim Carney is guest-hosting on WAKR-1590 AM’s 10 a.m.-2 p.m. talk show again, through Wednesday of next week.

Melissa Kramer, who has her own show on New Paltz Village, New York’s WFNP at 10 p.m.-midnight, “Midnight Music With DJ MK,” calls Jim’s show “The most polite radio on Earth.”

That’s our Jim to a T.

Jim Carney retired May 8 after 35 years of being a darn good reporter and all-round nice guy for the Beacon Journal.

35 years at the BJ. 35 years since Jim worked in radio. Nice symmetry.

Writes Jim:

“Last time I worked in radio was March 1979 at WHLO News Talk 64 before I started working at the Akron Beacon Journal.”

We hear you, Jim. On AM 1590.  Nice.

Hopefully, there won't be another oak tree to put Jim and wife Katie Byard, still a BJ reporter, in the dark the way it did a few days ago at their Akron home.

Jim’s guest Friday included retired BJ editor/pet columnist/Ohio fabric art guru Connie Bloom.

Bobbi Horvath and Don Baker Jr. were on, too. 

Connie and Bobbi met through friends way in 1992.

Connie is the resident quiltmaker in Summit Artspace on the third floor at 140 E. Market Street, next door to the Akron Art Museum.

Sandra Hall, married to Harry Hall, is a daughter of James “Bus” Lowery, the late BJ pressroom retiree. Sandi spent a lot of time in the BJ Advertising department before her retirement.

Janet Hall is a BJ Circulation Department retiree.

Kathy Kochanski once was Hot Type/Sidebar editor of the Beacon.

Carol Eubank, a BJ Accounting Department retiree, is active in the Portage Lakes Kiwanis Club and Portage Lakes Historical Society and has been involved in Greystone Building activities in downtown Akron. Carol, a 1957 Coventry High grad, lives in Portage Lakes. 

A few days later Carol viewed the 300 Nativity sets at St. Nicholas Church collected by Pat Mitchell from around the world, the subject of a Beacon Journal article last week. 

Tom & Kathy Moore

Annual elfing time for Tom

I guess the question is: Would you trust getting on a train with this elf?

As BJ newsroom retiree Tom Moore posted:

“Dad and daughter elves … back on the Polar Express.”

Tom’s elf daughter is Kathy Moore, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls after retiring from the Environmental Protection Agency with 35 years of service. She began her “career” as a copy girl in the BJ newsroom.

Tom is a conductor on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad when he’s not helping former BJ sports editor Tom Giffen run the Roy Hobbs Baseball World Series in Fort Myers, Florida.

You can board the Polar Express at 7900 Old Rockside Road in Independence, 1630 Mill Street in Peninsula and 27 Ridge Road in Akron.

The Express operates only on weekends at this time of the year. Check first at (800) 468-4070 before you show up.

Toot, toot!

Connie Bloom in her ArtSpace studio and her "Concentration" art quilt for the Ohio book

Connie Bloom art quilt in new book

Former BJ Features Department editor/columnist Connie Bloom’s art quilt, Concentration, will be published Nov. 29 in the book, “Present Tense, Contemporary Art in Ohio, A Juried Exhibition in Print.”

The book will be launched Nov. 29, the same time and place as the opening of this year's Kaleidoscope, a United Disability Services way to use literature and fine art to dispel misconceptions about those with disabilities. UDS is at 701 S. Main Street in Akron.

This “Present Tense” book will be available to artists and libraries throughout Ohio. The show “opening” will be a book launch party at the BOX Gallery in Akron on Nov. 29, 2014.

The BOX Gallery is an Artists of Rubber City Gallery that opened in October 2009 at Summit Artspace, where former Garfield High majorette Connie has her studio at 140 E. Market Street on the third floor. 

It’s impossible to have Art on the Green in Hudson without Beacon Blue in there somewhere.

This weekend it was retired BJ chief artist Dennis Balogh hawking his wares in one of the many tents at the Ohio 91 and Ohio 303 intersection in downtown Hudson, a stone’s throw from the gazebo where music floats through the air every weekend.

In other years, it was former BJ photographer Denny Gordon’s wife and her sculptures, former BJ chief artist Art Krummel with his paintings and former Features Department editor and columnist Connie Bloom with her fabric art (formerly know as quilt art). 

And Balogh, in 2013 and earlier years.

Balogh’s illustrations have graced such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post (the cover), Kiplinger Financial, New York Stock Exchange, St. Louis Magazine, Success Magazine and  Harvard's HBS Magazine.

He has won so many awards that it could make this article too long to list them.

Balogh did some great original art for Channels television guide covers over the years, too. That was in ancient times when there was a Channels magazine worthy of the name when I gave birth to it with David Bianculli handling the writing when he wasn’t entertaining the newsroom with his antics before he left for New York City and Mark Dawidziak provided a sanier atmosphere. 

I took care of my baby for 16 years till my 1996 retirement.

Balogh went from Cooper School of Arts in Cleveland to the Cleveland Press to the Columbus Dispatch to the BJ.

After 21 years at the BJ, Balogh was part of a major exodus in 2006 when 335 years of experience walked out the door. 

Ol’ Blue has never been the same since. And the newsroom staff has been bludgeoned from more than 200 to fewer than 60.

Dennis lives in Broadview Heights – phone (440) 546-9223 or email baloghstudio@yahoo.com if you want to renew old times.