Fun With Book

Yesterday we actually did something strictly for  fun! I know – it’s a shocker, but bear in mind that it was still book-related.  Nonetheless (actually BECAUSE)  it  proved worthy of giving up a free afternoon which otherwise would have been spent  grooming the  patio for summer. Not that we would have USED the patio had we stayed home, but it would have looked very nice as I gazed at it out the patio doors while vacuuming the family room rug. But we threw chores to the spring breeze and instead bought two tickets for an author luncheon at the Medina Country Club sponsored by the Medina Historical Society instead. The speaker was Dave Giffels, an Akron author whose book All the Way Home landed him on the front page of the New York Times as well as on Oprah’s favorite list. Later it won him the prestigious Ohioana Award and now is set to come out in paperback in June.

I’ve known Dave for a long time because he used to be a reporter for the Medina County Gazette, the paper in which my friend Judy wrote the article about me before the Akron Antiquarian Book Show in April. When I was director of sales and marketing for the nursing home complex (back in the bad old days) I launched a fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association which pitted like businesses against each other in a week-long Jeopardy tournament at the assisted living building. Actually I have to admit that this annual event was pretty fun. We’d have three churches – say, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, and the Baptists – vying against each other in one round and  three rival insurance companies and three restaurants etc. in others. It was strictly pay-to-play so even after expenses we always raised at least a grand for the cause. Anyway, Dave used to play for the Medina Gazette and, as I recall, was a formidable fount of trivia. In fact, I'd wager the Gazette won one year.

A few years later when life was good again and my first book came out Dave interviewed me for the paper. I remember him telling me then that he and his wife were trying to buy a house in Akron, but it hadn’t been easy to find something affordable that they liked. Little did he know then that he stood poised on the adventure of a lifetime. I don’t want to give the plot away, but I’ll tell you this much. The Giffels bought a 28 room Tudor mansion ready to be slapped with a condemned sign – in other words, a fixer-upper so nightmarish it came with its own resident wildlife population.  Here's the website  address -- www. davidgiffels.com  You've GOT to go have a look at the Picture Gallery. You can't possibly imagine this.


Of course I’d already read the book long before yesterday’s talk and had liked it so much I bought at least five additional copies for Christmas presents that year. But Dave is never boring. He told funny stories,  talked about the experience from today’s perspective, and even ruminated on a topic I’m obsessed with – the writer’s sense of place.. Like me, Dave grew up in Akron and still loves it best, a fact I would have known even if I didn’t know him because of one single dead give-away linguisitic quirk. You know you’re from Akron when you call the strip of grass bordering the street the “devil strip.” Anyway, Dave is a lot younger than I am, so in the 80’s when he was growing up in the city Akron was a dying place, a rust belt has-been which parents actually urged their college graduate offspring to flee for a better life. But Dave didn’t flee. For him the good life was built on the decision to stay where he wanted to be and construct a life there from words and sweat. I’d say it worked out pretty well too. The house is a dream and he’s currently got a job as professor of creative writing at the University of Akron.

I tell you all this because yesterday was much fun and I love this story not only for its derring-do, but for its vision and its heart. And just wait ‘til you find out what he FOUND in the house (aside from the squirrels, the bats and the very old woman who used to live there).

You won’t believe it.