Mansfield House in Over-the-Rhine (#2)

I'm not sure who established the Mansfield House Community in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine. My guess is that the founders were Greg Haas (currently living in Bloomington, Indiana) and John Luginbill (still in Cincinnati, I think). The impulse to establish this community probably came from the Gano, Ohio-based Peacemakers and the movement against the Vietnam War. Also connected to the Peacemakers was the war-tax resistance and draft resistance movements. As you might expect, people drawn to these positions, which could involve prison, were a bit unusual--to say the least! Indeed, most of them were the brightest, most courageous, most-principled people I've ever known.

Other people in on the Mansfield House included Caroline Bromley, Dan Bromley, Bonnie Tompkins, Kenny Przybylski, Jack Shereda, Andy Meyer, and many others I will mention in this blog entry or in another entry.

A Holy Anniversary--Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Coughlin

Today marks the sixth anniversary of my Mother's death. I thank God for the lucky blessing of having her as my mother. She still guides my life and informs everything I do. I'm sure Denny, Mary Ellen, Kevin, and Jimmy can say the same thing.

Eternal rest grant unto Margaret Ann, O Lord!

And let perpetual light shine upon her. Amen.

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.]

"Blow Up Your TV"

"Blow up your TV

Throw away your paper

Go to the country,

Build yourself a home

Plant a little garden,

Eat a lot of peaches

Try and find Jesus on your own"



Thus goes the chorus of John Prine's song "Spanish Pipedream." This past week we sort of blew up our tv. What we did was this: we got rid of our cable TV.

The first day without television was eye-opening. I hardly knew what to do. I ended up reading a bit of Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, The Lacuna. Then I played my guitar and later my Irish whistle. Later I went to the piano and pounded out the few songs that I know. And then back to the whistle and the guitar. At some point I turned on the radio, NPR in Cleveland, 90.3 FM.

I started thinking what life in Geauga County, Ohio was like before television, which probably arrived here in the late 1940's (though reception was probably not good this far from Cleveland). And then I wondered about life before radio; that must have arrived in the 1920's. And electricity, which gradually came in the late 1800's and early 1900's. And the automobile, which probably didn't get here in any great numbers until the 1910's and later. Widespread telephones probably spread to Geauga in the 1900's to the 1920's.

An odd thought occurred to me. Right now, in 2009, we have thousands of people in Geauga County who live without most of the above--the Middlefield Amish (the second or third largest Amish community in the world). Now the Amish have very strict rules and mostly follow them faithfully (though like Catholics, they find creative ways to get around the rules). So you will see Amish people in their horse-drawn buggies--getting Big Mac meals at the drive-through window at McDonalds. Or Amish boys in Middlefield on cell phones.

Anyway, that first day without television was interesting.

New Poem Based on a Powerful Dream

Death Dream

The old woman in my dream said,
“O help me! My shoulder hurts so bad!”
I started massaging the painful cramp
Then hurried to get her a drink of water.

She headed straight for the bed, crying,
“Don’t leave me alone now.
Don’t leave me alone!”

And a crowd of women quickly gathered around her,
Laid her down on the bed . . .
And she quickly breathed her last

In the presence of family, friends, and kind strangers

Who began to weep
As the spirit slowly left the body.

I couldn’t get close to the woman,
Still surrounded by the keening crowd—yet I felt
That I played my part, however small.

This woman was Grandma Hoffman,
Gramma Coughlin, and my own mother—
All at the same time,
The weird logic of dreams.

I wept and felt comfort,
Again, all in the same moment,
Having been in the presence of something

Holy.

Robert M. Coughlin
November 30, 2009

Miracle of the Internet

The other night I got a phone call from Dick Crowley, a fellow I met in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati some 38 years ago! I last saw Dick, briefly, at a memorial service for Buddy Gray in Cincinnati's Washington Park (not sure when that was--I'm guessing some 13 years ago). I know Rev. Maurice McCrackin was still alive then, at the service in his wheel chair.

I had posted a blog entry wondering about Dick Crowley's whereabouts and just like that, an old friend of his, Bonnie Neumeier, responded to my post; and days later, Dick called me on the phone.

The internet, and the accompanying search engines, are amazing human inventions. I think of them as time machines.

[I just found a Wikipedia entry on Buddy Gray; indeed, it was 13 years ago that Buddy was murdered, November 15, 1996. The entry is at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Gray]

Karan Casey, Brilliant Irish Singer

This past Saturday I was listening to Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show (I hear it at 90.3 or 89.7FM in Northeast Ohio) and heard the beautiful voice of Karan Casey, accompanied by a haunting cello. She sang a fascinating cover of Joni Mitchell's song "Fiddle and the Drum" as well as a traditional tune. She has one of the greatest voices I have ever heard. I'm going to find the recordings of the Irish-American group "Solas" and listen to her work.

Garrison Keillor's programs can be found at this link:
http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/

Keillor, of course, is an American Treasure. He's always bringing great artists like Karan Casey into the public eye. Thanks, Garrison!