{"id":32862,"date":"2025-02-26T08:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=32862"},"modified":"2025-04-02T16:33:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T20:33:45","slug":"you-can-go-home-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/26\/you-can-go-home-again\/","title":{"rendered":"YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

The Mark IV apartments, Beachwood, Ohio<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m at<\/strong> <\/span>my parents\u2019 apartment near I-271. So loud — the highway. I\u2019ll hitch down to Cedar-Taylor to get some air.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to see Sleeper<\/em> and American Graffiti<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Cleveland . . . it makes one stop and think. I\u2019m thinking of Boston and New York.<\/p>\n

The history of the Jews. My parents grew up in the Kinsman neighborhood. Ezra lived in Babylonia.<\/p>\n

How do you get the girls if you don\u2019t go near them?<\/p>\n

I left my heart in Sandusky.<\/p>\n

My friend Chap drove his Corvette up and down Mayfield Road with 11 other Corvette drivers. Chap has a 350-hp engine with headers, minus emission controls.<\/p>\n

I saw Sleeper<\/em>. I resented the Jewish stereotypes.<\/p>\n

Stan Smith<\/span> vs. John Newcombe.<\/p>\n

Never write<\/strong><\/span> about a place you haven\u2019t done time in. And detail-for-detail-sake is useless.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to live here.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Recap:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My dad said, \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019ll be a success some day.\u201d<\/p>\n

At what? Whatever, I should do a good job of it. My father never said to me, \u201cWhat are your plans? What do you see yourself doing in ten years?\u201d That would have been cruel.<\/p>\n

My post-college days were hell, but not that<\/em> hellish. My mother lined up blind dates for me. The dates were usually with daughters of my mom\u2019s friends. I took the girls to bars and restaurants and ordered 7&7s. That was my booze repertoire: 7&7.<\/p>\n

Then I got feedback about the dates from my mother, who picked up tidbits at bridge games. Some of the girls liked me, some didn\u2019t. One date thought I was \u201ca little weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

She<\/em> was weird. She had no business dragging me through her dad\u2019s kangaroo court (his living room had World War II medals on the wall). What are my plans? What do you do?<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s an apricot sour? That\u2019s what the girl ordered at the bar.<\/p>\n

Chap asked<\/strong> <\/span>me to go to the Corvette rally at Manner\u2019s Big Boy, Mayfield Heights. He had a brand-new 1974 \u2019Vette. He said, \u201cYou think you\u2019re too good for my \u2019Vette, Stratton. You\u2019d prefer a VW bus with a hippie slut. Why not try real chicks and real cars . . . Friday night at the Strongsville Holiday Inn, it\u2019s crawling with chicks and \u2019Vettes. No, you\u2019d rather be in Cleveland Heights. Any city that has a bumper sticker like that is a losing proposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

When my sentence (nine months) at the Mark IV was up, I moved to Cleveland Heights, into a double, sharing it with three guys I met off the Case Western Reserve rooms-for-rent bulletin board.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in Cleveland Heights ever since, and I haven\u2019t seen Chap in more than 35 years. He doesn\u2019t hang around klezmer concerts, for one thing. Alice knocked on the door of the Cleveland Heights double in 1977, looking for a room to rent. Mom\u2019s Dating Service, RIP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Mark IV apartments, Beachwood, Ohio I\u2019m at my parents\u2019 apartment near I-271. So loud — the highway. I\u2019ll hitch down to Cedar-Taylor to get some air. I\u2019d like to see Sleeper and American Graffiti. Cleveland . . . it makes one stop and think. I\u2019m thinking of Boston and New York. The history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-of-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32862"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32882,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32862\/revisions\/32882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}