Small Biz Boomer

This Memorial Day Weekend, I’m  spending time with my mom ” Miss Georgia”  and the family.  Couldn’t help but notice the giant monster plant has made a comeback.  The  plant in mom’ s  living room   fell off the table mysteriously in the middle of the night two years ago and was  thought was gone forever (Planticide – July 18, 2010).   After the fall  what was left of the plant was placed in a medium sized jar of  water on the family room table,  later  repotted and placed back in the living room.   Now the plant  is enormous, somewhat less menacing than before, (no scales so far) and quite glorious .  That’s the thing about reinvention – sometimes it’s incremental and it often yields  glorious results.

I grew up on Cleveland’s East Side in a middle class  neighborhood.   My mom and her girlfriends would play bridge  at  one of the homes on Talford Street while us kids played outdoors  rode our bikes, played kickball in the street,  caught lightning bugs or would gather in the basement to watch “The Twilight Zone” or “Ghoulardi.”     On weekends our Dads would gather at Mr Pace’s house on Talford Street to watch sports and barbecue.   Often my family would join the families of Talford Street on   trips to the West Side  Euclid Beach Amusement Park or , Punderson State Park Lodge  in the winter and the Jersey Shore in the summer.

The  families central hangout on Talford Street was the home of   Louis and Gloria Chapmon .  I came to know the couple as Mr. Chapmon and Aunt Gloria.  Later “Gloria” would become a lifelong…