Memories of Over-the-Rhine in the 1970s: Some Favorite Places

 I don't intend this to be a systematic piece on Over-the-Rhine, the old Cincinnati neighborhood north of Central Parkway (which at one time had been a canal). My living there happened at first by accident (or fate? Luck of the Irish?) and I had very little intellectual or social/political or religious agenda at first.

I moved to Cincinnati by invitation of Chris Cotter, my Notre Dame/Innsbruck Program friend. He invited me in late January of 1971, and I said yes more quickly than he could have expected. A few days later I drove my junker Ford Econoline van (a vehicle so eccentric only I could drive it) to Cincinnati. Chris had made some contacts with folks living in Over-the-Rhine (this began when he met Kenny Przybylski at Christ-in-the-Desert Monastery in Abiquiu, New Mexico; Ken invited Chris to come visit the Mansfield House Commune in Cincinnati).

 

For the first few days I stayed at Chris’s parents house in the Western Hills area of Cincinnati. This, to me, was luxurious living that I hadn’t experienced in our little home in Euclid, Ohio. Chris’s parents, Larry and Faye Cotter, were hospitable and generous, but Chris and I knew we had to find something that involved a simpler, more austere lifestyle, more in line with our values. It was our luck that Peggy Scherer and Anne Weinkam were getting ready to go on a very long road trip out West and needed someone to sublet their apartment, 225 Orchard Street in Over-the-Rhine (OTR). The apartment was not bad at all and the price was only $48/month--total! That was $24 per person. And we even had a responsive landlord. If memory serves, he was an Irish plumber who owned some old buildings in OTR. His last name might have been Dougherty. Chris and I immediately moved in to this “furnished” apartment--it was furnished but pretty simple. I think there was a kitchen table, a few chairs, a davenport, two beds, and not much more. I learned at one time that the chest of drawers Peggy and Anne left behind had belonged to Shirley Gallahan. I used it in Cincinnati, Pippa Passes, Kentucky, Berea, Kentucky, Euclid, Ohio, and Chardon, Ohio. About 10 years ago we bought a new Amish-built chest of drawers and gave Shirley's away.

Across Sycamore Street from our apartment was the Mansfield House, a commune of about 6-10 people . . . [more about that in another blog entry].

I loved Over-the-Rhine and explored it very thoroughly. Here are some favorite places and memories:

There was a little bakery near where I lived: north across Liberty and a block west to Main Street, then right around the corner on Main Street or possibly E. Clifton. This bakery sold donuts in the early morning right out of the grease for 7 cents a piece! (1971 prices). They were delicious, and police officers, firefighters, and ordinary working folks lined up to buy them. And I did too!

There was a great bluegrass music bar on Main Street near 13th, "Aunt Maudie's Country Garden." They had the best live bluegrass a few nights a week, no cover charge. Usually you'd hear The Stoney Mountain Boys, with Boatwhistle on acoustic bass (his real name was Vernon McIntyre Sr.); Earl Taylor on mandolin; Jim McCall on rhythm guitar; and Junior McIntyre on five-string banjo. They all sang. They were magnificent, maybe the best bluegrass band in the world. I almost got shot at Aunt Maudie’s one time!  but that’s a story for a different time.

There was a fine religious bookstore on the east side of Vine Street about a hundred feet north of Liberty. It might have been called St. Francis Bookstore. I loved to browse in this progressive book shop and I remember well the highly informed store manager (her name might have been Mary).

A block or two north of the bookstore was Stenger's Cafe. I especially remember an occasional treat they had--homemade potato pancakes. They were fabulous. They also had wonderful, affordable roast beef sandwiches. I can still picture the proprietor, though I can’t remember his name. This was a great neighborhood bar and restaurant.

Across the street from Stenger's was Bolte's. They sold dried beans, peas, lentils, whole wheat flour, spices, herbs, things like that. The prices were good and the quality was good. I don’t know how they could sell enough to stay in business. What a great resource for the community!

A block west of Bolte's was The Findlay Market. I did shop there often enough. Sometimes we’d go there at the end of the day when they were practically giving away unsold fruit and vegetables. This market was something like Cleveland’s West Side Market. The vendors were local and many had been there for years.

The Empire Theater, near the corner of Vine and Liberty. You might think I’m crazy for including this funky place. Joanie Levy first took the Mansfield/Orchard Street gang there to see Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns. The nice thing about this theatre is that it was air-conditioned. OTR was sweltering in the summer, and this was a place you could get relief for a couple hours. Unfortunately, your feet stuck to the floor in this theatre! Oh well . . .

12th Street Clinic. Also known as “Pilot City Health Service,” PCHS was a model for the future of medicine. It was a small but comprehensive clinic with general-practice physicians, a dentist, social workers, sanitarians, visiting nurses and aides, and a health education department (that’s where I worked 1971-73). Dale White DDS was the best dentist around. The social workers, Tom DeFolco and Mark were excellent (Tom later became a priest). I just recently heard of some unfortunate attitudes some of the doctors and nurses had, discouraging breastfeeding. That must have been an attitude of that era. It was unfortunate but not universal at PCHS. I know that because I assisted Becky Meyers, RN in teaching a class for new and expectant parents, and we promoted breastfeeding. The 12th Street Clinic had fees based on the ability to pay, a sliding scale, and was led by Dr. Joe Alter, who, I believe, had been a Conscientious Objector because of his Quaker beliefs during World War II. He was a terrific leader.

The Bank Cafe, 12th Street and Vine. This was an ordinary buffet-style restaurant, very busy, full of life. It was inexpensive and occasionally I’d get a hamburger there. I’d order it with everything on it, and the waiter would yell to the cook, “Burger through the garden!”

Washington Park. I walked through Washington Park (at 12th Street, between Elm and Race Streets) every day for a couple years when I worked at the 12th Street Clinic. Back in the early 1970s there were lots of alcoholics hanging around the park and I saw some unfortunate incidents there. Later, I attended some political demonstrations in the park, the last one being a memorial for Buddy Grey circa November 1996. That was the last time I saw Maurice McCrackin. I think I saw Kathleen Prudence there that day too.

Music Hall. This, of course, is the home of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. It must be the most impressive building in OTR, and, completed in 1878, kept hundreds of bricklayers, masons, plasterers, painters, woodworkers, and other craftspeople busy for years creating this master work. For a long time this was probably one of the few connections between Cincinnati’s upper-middle class and OTR. That, of course, has changed with the astonishing gentrification of OTR that’s been going on for many years now.

Seventh Seal Bar. This was a very strange bar on McMicken Street in OTR run by a fellow named Ted (for some reason I think he was a former priest). This was Ken Przybylski’s favorite bar and I was in there many times with the Mansfield House/Orchard Street folks. There was nothing particularly memorable about it except that I was there with my friends. And it had a strange name, I think from a famous art film by Ingmar Bergman.

Old St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s might be the oldest or one of the oldest Catholic churches in Cincinnati (built 1841). I only went to mass there a couple times (and I believe they had mass in English, German, and Italian!). St. Mary’s was also the place where we went when we were “jumping” for Meals on Wheels, so it served to a certain extent as a social center for the neighborhood. About a block from the church was the Bible Center, which became for a while a Drop-In Center for many folks in the OTR area. I’ve been working with Homeless folks many years in Painesville, Ohio, up in Lake County, and a drop-in center is about the most needed thing for homeless people. They often have nowhere to go during the day and during bad weather. 

Old St. Paul’s. I was never in St. Paul’s Church in the Pendleton area of OTR when it was an active church. But I was there plenty of times after it had been decommissioned. I believe Jim Tarbell had been allowed to oversee the church and its incredible rectory. I occasionally slept at the rectory when I was between apartments, and I did some painting and plastering work there with Jack Shereda in the mid 1970s. I remember strtipping off about ten layers of old wallpaper before patching the plaster (Jack’s specialty) and painting. I especially remember the incredible bathrooms and showers in the old rectory, with multiple showerheads. It struck me that these priests lived at a level of luxury unknown to the regular folks in the neighborhood. Around 1976 we celebrated a wedding in the decommissioned church, that of Chris and Linda Cotter. I believe Rev. Hilaire Valiquette was the celebrant (in the de-commissioned church!). The reception party took place right afterwards in the church and the rooms behind the tabernacle. It was a fun and joyous event, and much alcohol was consumed. The highlight of the night was Dick Crowley’s attempt to recite a Pablo Neruda poem, “I Body of a Woman.” Dick intended it seriously, but his recitation was met with howls of laughter. Gee, I really miss the Dick Crowley I knew back in the 1970s. What a guy! One other thing just came to mind about St. Paul’s. There was a Ravi Shankar concert held there around 1976. I lived very close by, but didn’t have the ten bucks needed to attend the concert.

I realize my list is strange and eclectic. It probably reflects the point-of-view of an unmarried man in his twenties, which I was. My friends who were married or had children would almost certainly have a different list. And this list doesn’t talk much about the most important and remarkable thing about OTR, the people that lived and worked there.

An Amazing One-Woman Play on Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker

A couple weeks ago, at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, I saw an incredible one-woman play on the life of Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day was the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement (co-founder, with Peter Maurin, Dorothy always said). I have been interested in the Catholic Worker since the early 1970s and met Dorothy Day many times. I ate dinners with her (along with maybe 30 other people), went to Vespers with her, and briefly talked with her over dinner. Some of my old friends, in particular Peggy Scherer, Terri Antholzner, and Pat Rusk, were very close friends of Dorothy Day. Dorothy even paid my phone bill one time when I was living in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati. She paid it because her friend Pat Rusk had run up an enormous long-distance bill on my phone and Pat asked Dorothy to pay it. Some day Dorothy Day may be canonized an official saint, and that is about as close as I am going to come to knowing an official saint (I have known many unofficial saints!).

Dorothy Day at age 70 [credit Milwaukee Journal]

I first met Dorothy when she was about 77 years old. Even then you could sense her charisma and even her great physical beauty. I have always thought that some of the people that followed her in the Catholic Worker movement were attracted by her physical beauty as well as her ideas, her energy, her religious and political commitments.

The one-woman play I saw, "Haunted by God, was put on by  Still Point Theatre, and the actor was Lisa Wagner-Carollo. She portrayed Dorothy Day from age 20 to her death at 83 (November 29, 1980), and she did it with very minor changes in wardrobe, hair, and body position. It was brilliant acting!

This one-act play reminded me of the power of theatre to move and change people. The 200 people who saw this play will never be the same!

Postscript: I lived at the Catholic Worker house in Davenport, Iowa, in the summer of 1976. Margaret Quigley Garvey was the founder and leader of that house. She and her husband Mike Garvey have published books on Dorothy and the Catholic Worker. That summer has influenced my entire adult life.

Currently I work at a meal for the hungry and homeless at St. Mary church in Painesville, Ohio. The program, called the Karpos Ministry, was established five years ago by Kathy Philipps and a seminarian friend of hers. Hard to say home many people help put on these meals twice a week (serving up to 200 meals per night). The regular helpers number about 20, with another 10-15 coming occasionally.

The Spirit of the Catholic Worker and its mission to live out the Works of Mercy is alive and well!#


From Still Point Theatre's Website:

Lisa Wagner-Carollo

Lisa Wagner-Carollo - Founding/Artistic Director 

Lisa Wagner-Carollo is the Founding Director of Still Point Theatre Collective. She founded the company in 1993, motivated by a strong desire to combine ministry and theatre. Ever since, she has toured the country and overseas with Haunted by God: The Life of Dorothy Day. Among other productions, Wagner has also performed in and produced (for Still Point), the internationally toured Points of Arrival: A Jean Donovan Journey, a play that explores the life and commitment of one of the four North American church women killed in El Salvador in 1980. She is currently touring the United States and overseas with Strong Women, Haunted by God and Deep Listening (death and dying). Lisa also works as a facilitator in Still Point's outreach programs. Her education includes a B.S.E. from Emporia State University. Recently, she completed her certification as a spiritual director at Siena Center in Racine, Wisconsin and has recently begun a spiritual direction practice in the Chicago area. 

Awards: Outstanding Recent Graduate, Emporia State University, 1997 

Seeds of Hope Award, Wheatridge, 2009.

Peacemaker Gathering at Memorial Picnic for Dorothy Glanzer

Yesterday at Mt. Echo Park in Cincinnati there was a gathering of old Peacemakers and friends of Dorothy Glanzer and Greg Haas. Dorothy died recently after suffering for years with MS. The gathering was a wonderful reunion of old friends, many of whom met back in the late 1960s or early 1970s in the Vietam-era peace movement. The peace movement is gaining steam again, in response to perpetual war.

Greg Haas

Alice Ann, Peggy, Mary Alice, Anne, Clare, me

Mansfield House photo from 1971 or 1972. Looks like a poster for the musical "Hair"! Ken Przybylski at far left, with Chris Cotter to his right. Also pictured, Carolyn Bromley, Greg Haas, Peggy Scherer, Anne Weinkam, Jack Shereda, John Luginbill, Joan Levy, Bonnie Tompkins, Denny Ryan, Mary Jane Atkinson, and two neighborhood boys

Me with Mary Alice Shepherd Milnes

Me with Peggy Scherer

With Jim Tarbell

Manuel, Alice Ann, Peggy, Mary Alice, Anne, Clare, me

A strange thing that often happens at wakes and memorial services is the joy that people have in seeing old friends. That certainly happened yesterday. The afternoon was filled with hugs and hilarious stories.

One woman approached me and asked me if I knew who she was. I recognized her right away, but her name didn't come to me. It turned out to be Debbie Boerschig, who had lived in my old apartment building--I think my own apartment on the third floor. Debbie is a nurse who began her career at 12th Street Clinic, where I worked from 1971 to 1973. We know many people in common from 12th Street Clinic and from our old neighborhood in Over-the-Rhine. There were other people at the gathering who had lived at 225 Orchard Street--Anne Weinkam and Clare Weinkam. Clare said she moved from the second floor to the fourth floor because the rent was cheaper the further up you went--from 48 dollars a month to $47.50 (or something like that). The rent was astonishingly cheap, and the building fairly well-maintained by our plumber-landlord, whose name I think was "Dougherty." I also saw Joyce [can't think of her last name--Hillstrom?] there--hadn't seen her since maybe the memorial services for Maurice McCrackin or Ernest Bromley. Joyce had lived in the Lang Street house in Over-the-Rhine (as had John Luginbill, Chris Cotter, and other friends). The rent there was $40 per month! Talking to Debbie I heard that one former resident of 225 Orchard had died--Mary "Bird" Bliss. I also learned that Rowena Toews, who had a short, unfortunate marriage to Richard Gale, had also died. So many of our old friends gone--Jack Shereda, Kenny Przybylski, Carolyn Bromley, Maurice McCrackin, Ernest and Marion Bromley, Chuck Matthei--so many.

We also talked about friends who didn't make it to the memorial: Chris Cotter, Henry Scott, Andy Meyer, Denny Ryan, Bonnie Tompkins, Richard Gale, John Luginbill, Joan Levy, and others. We missed them all.

Our prayers are with Greg Haas and his wife Dorothy Glanzer. Rest in Peace, Dorothy.

Old Poem about Kenny Przybylski

I recently thought about this poem I wrote about 12 years ago in memory of Kenny Przybylski, our great friend. The form is (loosely) a ghazal, a Persian poetic form. In ghazals, the poet's name is mentioned in the final verses.

Ghazal for Kenny Przybylski                      

(Riffs on lines by the poet Ghalib)      

           

“No wonder you came looking for me, you

who care for the grieving, and I the sound of grief”

After high school in Winona, your parents astonished and angry,

You joined the Franciscans, Little Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis,

Living in Simplicity, in imitation of the life of the great saint

Who stayed close to his own suffering and forever cared for the grieving.

Working with “bad boys,” delinquents, incorrigibles,

Abandoned detritus of a brutal society.

They gave you a religious name, “Masseo,”

An early companion of Francis in Assisi,

And you lived up to the name, staying close to suffering,

And laughter, fun, practical jokes.

After six years of this life, you get kicked out.

Who gets kicked out of the Franciscans?

Well not exactly kicked out, “asked to leave.”

They were right, of course, your vocation was stranger, more complicated.

A vagabond life, some time in jail, picking apples in Wisconsin,

Oranges around Tarpon Springs, time at the Catholic Worker,

Sometimes finding food in a dumpster behind the Piggily-Wiggily.

(Easter breakfast, 1977!).

We all recognized your holiness and your craziness, your unusual ministry.

Wanted to be around you as you ministered to our grieving, the sound of grief,

Stayed close to suffering. And in the end, as you lay dying of AIDS

In a Franciscan hospital in Tampa

(You tried to ride there, from New Orleans to Tampa,

on your bicycle to visit Joanie)

In the end, full circle, surrounded by Terri, Peggy, Joanie, Chuck,

The Franciscans, keeping watch over your suffering, your sound of grief,

Still blessing everyone in your luminous circle,

Ever the Francis, wounds on the hands, feet, chest.

Listen, Bob Coughlin, this amazing blessing, rubbing shoulders

With this ragged funny saint, who forever cared for the grieving,

Stayed faithful and close to our own suffering

The song of our grief.

 Robert M. Coughlin/October 25, 2002

50th anniversary of the March on Washington and "I Have a Dream" Speech

I was 15 when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech in the August 28, 1963 March on Washington--one of the truly great speeches in American history. I was a sophomore at St. Joe's High School. There were no black students in the student body of 2000 boys (at least that is my memory). There were no black people in Euclid (as far as I knew), a city at that time of 80,000. The only black people I knew were our garbage collectors in Euclid and the janitor, Rev. Bill Love (we called him "Bill") at St. William's School on East 260th Street.

Euclid now might be half black; the public schools in Euclid are majority black. And we have a black President of the United States.

Thirty years ago, August 28, 1983, I and my wife Linda were in the 20th anniversary March on Washington. It was stiflingly hot, 95 to 100 degrees, and we were in a great sea of people. We had come to Washington with a group from Berea College (which included Anne Weatherford, Loren Kramer, et al.). I remember watching the crowd--and then, incredibly, seeing my old Cincinnati friend Peggy Scherer in the crowd, marching with a group from the New York Catholic Worker, carrying a banner. What astonishing luck to find Peggy in the great crowd.

I'll never forget that March, hearing a recording of Dr. King's original speech, hearing Peter, Paul, and Mary sing as they had done 20 years earlier.

I wanted to be there, to be part of this great and messy movement for equality.

Bluegrass Music at Aunt Maudie's in the 1970's

In the winter of 1971, Chris Cotter and I took over, from Peggy Scherer and Anne Weinkam, the apartment at 225 Orchard Street in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine (OTR) neighborhood. Over-the-Rhine was one of the most interesting neighborhoods you could find in America. It was a mostly poor, urban Appalachian area, with remnants of German and Italian-Americans, and a scattering of other ethnic groups. In 1971, there weren't many Blacks in Over-the-Rhine; they were, for the most part, in the West End and on the fringes of OTR. There was a small group of Vista workers; some Mennonite workers from Bluffton College; some peace activists (I guess Chris and I fit into that category); and some young people who were artists or craftsmen. Some people fit none of these categories!

About one quarter mile from our Orchard Street home, near 13th and Main Streets, was a Bluegrass bar called "Aunt Maudie's Country Garden." I am sure that you could not find better Bluegrass music anywhere. We had the best, and there was no cover charge. The beer was served in mason jars and was cheep and plentiful. Life was good!

On the weekends, a band called the "Stony Mountain Boys" played music at the bar--they were stuffed in the back of the long, narrow bar, behind the pool table, just to the right of the men's toilet, on a small, slightly elevated stage. I once asked Junior McIntyre how much he was paid per night. If I remember correctly, he told me $7 bucks a night. Now that couldn't be possible. But whatever they were paid, it wasn't much, and it did not match their incredible talent. [More coming soon]

Dorothy Day Article on Ernest and Marion Bromley and the Cincinnati Peacemakers

I've been reading Patsy Harman's book "Arms Wide Open," and it made me think about some of the characters in the book that I knew who were involved in a historic victory for the peace movement. Dorothy Day wrote about it:

 
"Bromley Eviction Halted"
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, September 1975, 3. 

As we go to press it gives me great joy to write of a victory on the peace front, a victory achieved by the valiant work of the younger members of the peace movement in the United States, which has long known the patient and long-suffering work of such bodies as the War Resisters and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, not to forget, to speak modestly, of the Catholic Worker. As of now, it looks as though our friends, the Bromleys, will not be evicted from the Gano Peacemaker house in Cincinnati, and that the sale of the house, which took place this last summer, will be annulled. Among others, credit can be given to Peggy Scherer, who, in addition to her manual labor here at the farm in Tivoli this past year, had continued her close collaboration with Chuck Matthei in Washington and other Peacemakers around the country. And Lee LeCuyer, who is a tireless worker at First Street, has also leafleted and picketed both in Cincinnati and New York. These are the ones who helped lead the movement which achieved this victory. Ernest and Marion Bromley's patient hard work--picketing, leafleting, resisting, speaking the truth--has not gone unnoticed.

It is a lesson for us all in the peace movement that gentle pressure, constant hard work, a faithful, straightforward--one might even say respectful--adherence to the Scriptural command to love our opponents and to exercise the virtue of hope even when all seems hopeless, offer a great example of the pure means to achieve our ends. Jacques Maritain impressed this use of pure means upon us as in the earliest days of the Catholic Worker. This victory also gives us all a sense of joyful gratitude, not only for the hard work of the young people, but even for those in government office who can respond, as they seem to have, to these persistent, though gentle pressures. Let us pray that this "little" victory will give courage to others around the country to take a stand, which involves a real commitment to the "voluntary poverty" we all talk so much about.

[This text is not copyrighted. However, if you use or cite this text please indicate the original publication source and this website (Dorothy Day Library on the Web at http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/). 

Suggested citation:
Day, Dorothy. "Bromley Eviction Halted". The Catholic Worker, September 1975, 3. The Catholic Worker Movement. http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/Reprint2.cfm?TextID=556]

Cincinnati Peacemakers (and John Leininger's Death)

The passing of John Leininger has certainly awakened my memories of the active and courageous peace community in Cincinnati in the early 1970's. I mentioned some of the Peacemakers that John would have known and worked with in the previous blog posting. Here are some others that I remember: Andy Meyer, Joan Levy, Denny Ryan, Richard Gale, Bonnie Tomkins, Joel Stephens, Dick Crowley--and all the other folks who either lived in or often visited the Mansfield House Community and the neighborhing Orchard Street house (where I lived, along with Chris Cotter, Anne and Clare Weinkam, Peggy Scherer, and Jack Shereda). Henry Scott was for a while at the Bromley's in Gano, Ohio, and at other times in the Over-the-Rhine area. There were many others who were in and out: Maggie Jones, the local VISTA workers (Dick Crowley, John Thornton, and many others), some folks from the Bluffton College Mennonite service group, some local organizres and social workers. Jim Tarbell was occasionally there, as were some local artists. It was a dynamic, ever-changing, fantastically interesting gathering of people. Many Peacemakers, Catholic Workers, and Quakers from out of town came through from time to time. They were all offered hospitality--a place to stay and food to eat, without a question being asked. I wish I could express the flavor of this time and place better than I have. It's something that won't ever happen again in exactly that way.

The Mansfield House, in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine (#1)

I moved to Cincinnati in late January of 1971. I had been on the phone with my Notre Dame/Innsbruck friend, Chris Cotter, when he said, "Why don't you come down to Cincinnati?" I said, OK, be there soon!"

I had been working for $2.50/hour at Terminal Parking, the parking garage run by Gene Killeeen and his family at West 6th and Superior in Cleveland. I loved the Killeen's, and believe it or not, enjoyed my job. I'm pretty sure we had the best-educated car parkers in the history of the world. At one time, besides Gene (Notre Dame, 1956), we had Earl Hurd (Notre Dame, 1970), me (Notre Dame, 1970), and several other well-educated members of the Killeen family, as well as my Euclid friend Bill Heiss( St. Joseph's, 1966) working there. But I knew that parking cars was not going to be my career. And it was a very tough job working outside that cold and snowy winter of 1970-71. So I decided just like that to make the move. Within days I was in my raggedy old Ford Econoline van, driving down to Chris Cotter's house in Cincinnati .

For a very short time I stayed with the Cotter family in the Western Hills area of
Cincinnati. Then one day Chris and I went down to the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and found out that we could sublet Anne Weinkam and Peggy Scherer's apartment on the third floor of 225 Orchard Street. The timing was just downright lucky because Anne and Peggy were ready to leave for a very long roadtrip and they needed subletters. And another astonishing piece of luck was that the Orchard Street house was about 150 feet from the Mansfield House, a raggedy old house at the end of Mansfield Street, just off Sycamore and near Liberty, a hundred yards from the old Cutter Junior High School (which later became the famous School for the Creative and Performing Arts). The Mansfield House was one of the most interesting community experiments in the history of Cincinnati--and Chris and I were nextdoor neighbors! [More on the Mansfield House coming in another blog entry.]