18 minutes ago, eastvillagedon said:

I still vaguely remember the day the picture was taken. The photographer was named Robert Barbian. I think that year was maybe his first in business. He pretty much eventually had the entire school picture business, at least in the eastern half of Lake County, sewn up. I found out that he worked until a few years ago, and passed away fairly recently in his early 80's. I know of at least 3 classmates in the picture who have also passed away, including the boy standing next to me with his head at an angle. He was a transfer student (can't remember from where). I recall him telling everyone he was a descendant of a family on the Mayflower (I didn't know at the time that about half of America claims that! LOL). And at the time I was too young to have quipped that with a pedigree like that, how he ended up in such a crummy neighborhood as ours.  Anyway I did a search on him a couple of years ago and discovered he had died away in Hawaii (in his mid-50's), where he was working as an engineer, having lived in the south (attending the U. of Alabama) and in Colorado. No reason given for his death. And the girl in the vertical striped skirt two to my left also died. She was one of the nicest people in my class throughout high school. I still remember everyone's name. It was also the first year as a teacher for Miss Mason, who had just graduated from Lake Erie College. She remained at the school until it closed, about 10 years ago (demolished and replaced by a new one in a different location). Mason was from Louisville, KY whose father, as she told us, was a Kentucky Colonel (I don't know what the requirements are for this distinction, but I also remember someone from college--also from Louisville--who constantly boasted that his father was a KC and he was an arrogant, privileged ass). This was also the class of people I was with when I first heard of the assassination of JFK,  the previous November. Our school didn't have a PA system (did they have them anywhere in 1964?), so the principal went from room to room announcing that JFK had been shot (to audible gasps) and then later in the afternoon that he had died. Everyone gathered around the flag in front of the school at the end of the day for an observance of that event. 

 

Awesome narrative, thank you for sharing! It's insane how I couldn't tell you what I had for breakfast last Wednesday, but I can tell you the way my classroom smelled on 9/11.

 

Not to derail this, but my father was in 2nd grade when JFK died, at St. Charles School in Parma (at the time the largest Catholic school in the country) and he still tells me about how the principal came on over the PA (So I guess they existed) and was not able to speak for the first 5-10 seconds as she had obviously been crying. He said he came home that afternoon to find out that he had passed, and my grandma, a first generation Catholic, Irish-American was crying on their living room couch and my grandfather (also first generation Irish-American) was angry beyond words. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 20196 yr by Mildtraumatic

Last year from an abandoned high school in DC:

Edited April 30, 20196 yr by seicer

Is it that '70s one in SE D.C.? I remember being shocked to see a school that new already abandoned by 2004 when I drove past.

Springarn. The place was mostly pristine and intact. Full of chemicals in the labs and equipment but it's totally trashed now. I did score a cheerleading outfit, which I wore back to my car, mainly because my friends had taken my other clothes.

Edited May 1, 20196 yr by seicer

Oh lord.

20 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

Oh lord.

 

You missed it.

On 4/30/2019 at 6:50 PM, seicer said:

Last year from an abandoned high school in DC:

What the..... Why?  Lawd have mercy!

Happy Halloween from the Underworld ?

 

 

I see an Urban Ohio  "back-on-topic" meme coming soon

Well, I'm glad MayDay finally took off the make-up and went all-natural.

On 10/31/2019 at 3:53 PM, ColDayMan said:

Well, I'm glad MayDay finally took off the make-up and went all-natural.

 

You know I love @MayDay like a red headed step child, dropped off at a fire station door, but he looks a lil ashy.  I think she needs to moisturize.  Just sayin'.

On 10/31/2019 at 3:53 PM, ColDayMan said:

Well, I'm glad MayDay finally took off the make-up and went all-natural.

Less grey in the hair than I was expecting, after 15 or 16 years.

Hope everyone is enjoying the great weather this weekend and staying healthy and safe!

September 25, 2015. A wet spring day.

I'd love to do that Bridge Climb in Sydney some day...

I walked the bridge a few years before @dwhershberger and there’s a picture somewhere of me in that exact position holding that exact pose! I’m scared of heights and was pretty much terrified the whole way. It was great though. 

So a while back, I purchased a few facemasks from Yellowcake (Cleveland based design shop) and they asked me to post a review on their Facebook page and a photo of me wearing the mask. Fast forward to today - Fox8 did a story on Yellowcake's plans to get facemask vending machines in grocery stores, etc. Guess who made a brief cameo for a hot minute? ?

 

 

My mom just sent me this...

 

That was the place next to the old Burbank's, right?  If so, I remember going there a looooooooooooooooong time ago.  Probably the year of that card (1989).

11 hours ago, ColDayMan said:

That was the place next to the old Burbank's, right?  If so, I remember going there a looooooooooooooooong time ago.  Probably the year of that card (1989).

 

Yeah but I never got to go to this one.  This one was from Florida.  It was the first time I saw palm trees and they kind of scared me. 

 

Whatever happened to the "number" abbreviation with the dash under the little o?  It looks like a Korean character. 

On 5/12/2020 at 9:30 PM, jmecklenborg said:

My mom just sent me this...

 

 

Hipster ...

@Cincinnatus I know you ain't talkin'...

 

5 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

@Cincinnatus I know you ain't talkin'...

 

 

Wow ... memories ... Still got it though. I need a lot of 5 minute hair color for men now to maintain the hair swag.

Found this old photo of me at work. The Athlete's Foot store at Randall Park Mall circa 1992. It was right outside the upper level of the May Company entrance.

13 hours ago, metrocity said:

 1992. It was right outside the upper level of the May Company entrance.

 

 

I remember them wearing referee shirts. 

 

It's funny how rare photos at work were back then.  Good thing for me - my bus boy job involved a striped polyester striped shirt. 

On 12/25/2020 at 11:03 AM, jmecklenborg said:

 

I remember them wearing referee shirts. 

 

It's funny how rare photos at work were back then.  Good thing for me - my bus boy job involved a striped polyester striped shirt. 

That was Foot Locker, we were not as cool

On 12/26/2020 at 9:32 PM, metrocity said:

That was Foot Locker, we were not as cool

They made you dress like you were on your way to small claims court!

I was always hesitant to shop at a place called "Athlete's Foot." Do they sell 'Fast Actin' Tinactin' by the front counter? I didn't know they were still around but apparently it's a global enterprise.

Edited February 20, 20214 yr by David

^ Yeah it's a weird name for sure, the specialty was runners so I guess that was supposed to differentiate it from fashion stores as a serious place for athletes. The HQ at that time was Atlanta, even though it started in Pittsburgh. Not sure how it ended up being Swiss.

 

Anyway, the only stores we had in NE Ohio were Randall Park, Parmatown, Summit Mall and Rolling Acres. At Randall we only sold the hottest shoes and the highest price. Parmatown would get pissed when the district Mgr would make them send all of their Air Jordans (or Dion Sanders or other hot shoes) to us. We'd sell out 100 pairs on the day of release by noon and so would Rolling Acres, Parma sold like 10, Summit Mall a few more.

 

On the flip side, we would happily send Parma all of our "sale" tennis Reebok shoes that sold for $29.99. They sold them like hotcakes, and we never sold a single pair.

 

Summit Mall got the K-Swiss and Stan Smiths.

Edited February 28, 20214 yr by metrocity

2 hours ago, metrocity said:

^ Yeah it's a weird name for sure, the specialty was runners so I guess that was supposed to differentiate it from fashion stores as a serious place for athletes. The HQ at that time was Atlanta, even though it started in Pittsburgh. Not sure how it ended up being Swiss.

 

Anyway, the only stores we had in NE Ohio were Randall Park, Parmatown, Summit Mall and Rolling Acres. At Randall we only sold the hottest shoes and the highest price. Parmatown would get pissed when the district Mgr would make them send all of their Air Jordans (or Dion Sanders or other hot shoes) to us. We'd sell out 100 pairs on the day of release by noon and so would Rolling Acres, Parma sold like 10, Summit Mall a few more.

 

On the flip side, we would happily send Parma all of our "sale" tennis Reebok shoes that sold for $29.99. They sold them like hotcakes, and we never sold a single pair.

Sounds like you guys had quite a rivalry! I used to work at Old Navy when I was a teenager and it was like that. Retail is all about the sales and meeting quotas. They would have us show up to these meetings and it was like all the managers were trained to pin us and other stores against each other, making us hate them.

It's really crazy if you think about it, how athletic shoes really are designed for specific sports and so much has been put into their design and engineering accordingly (Basketball Shoes are designed for pivoting and ankle stability, Running Shoes have the best traction and are as light, comfortable as possible, Tennis Shoes provide lateral support but also aim to be as light as possible, Kanye West's shoes are designed to exploit black people who he has led to believe will achieve higher status by paying hundreds extra for them while he makes billons off of it and raps and preaches about the problems in the black community.)

 

Regardless of the design and engineering, people seem to just buy whatever they think looks cool. I've ALWAYS hated basketball shoes, even when I played basketball. I think they're so ugly and they aren't comfortable at all. Same goes for the tennis shoes but to a lesser extent. My favorite shoe of all time is the AirMax95. I always buy Nike running shoes; they're for sure not the best quality but they're really comfortable, at least for my foot, and I like the way they look.

 

2 hours ago, metrocity said:

Summit Mall got the K-Swiss and Stan Smiths.

LOL!

Edited February 28, 20214 yr by David

11 hours ago, metrocity said:

^ Yeah it's a weird name for sure, the specialty was runners so I guess that was supposed to differentiate it from fashion stores as a serious place for athletes. The HQ at that time was Atlanta, even though it started in Pittsburgh. Not sure how it ended up being Swiss.

 

Anyway, the only stores we had in NE Ohio were Randall Park, Parmatown, Summit Mall and Rolling Acres. At Randall we only sold the hottest shoes and the highest price. Parmatown would get pissed when the district Mgr would make them send all of their Air Jordans (or Dion Sanders or other hot shoes) to us. We'd sell out 100 pairs on the day of release by noon and so would Rolling Acres, Parma sold like 10, Summit Mall a few more.

 

On the flip side, we would happily send Parma all of our "sale" tennis Reebok shoes that sold for $29.99. They sold them like hotcakes, and we never sold a single pair.

 

Summit Mall got the K-Swiss and Stan Smiths.

 

Yeah it's unbelievable how differently sames stores within the same metros can act. When I lived in Cincinnati (late 2000s) most of the really expensive games and systems we took in headed straight to our Tri-County Mall location. It would sell much more quickly there than at our others (Eastgate and Florence) and we could price it at 30-50% over market rate and it didn't matter. The customers just spent.

 

For a Columbus example, a friend of mine with similar stores started off the 2010s with four stores -- Clintonville, Hilliard, Sawmill and Powell. Powell put up big numbers and some guy who just had to own a video game store for a living threw a bunch of money at my friend to sell it to the guy. Fine. What the guy didn't think about (and I'm sure my friend told him) is that nobody would sell that store anything because the area was way too wealthy (I experienced this problem myself later with my store at Dayton Mall). They could charge 2-3X market rate for games and get away with it since the customers there had no price sensitivity. Without the other stores like Hilliard (which is the kind of quasi-depressing suburb where every house is bursting with video games) to feed them stock the guy probably had to resort to paying close to retail for all his games on the internet. You'd think you could just buy big lots of games on eBay to save money but that's not how it works since there are tons of basement resellers on the internet that don't care if they only make $1 a piece on the games pushing up the price of lots. Plus nearly every video game system on the internet is broken somehow since people can't even take care of a video game system properly. Anyway, the Powell store is still there as far as I know and seems to have turned more into one of those "Gamesmaster" stores where the owner is like a game host that entertains the customers in the store all day and has a lot of events. Of course that business model got totally wrecked by the virus. I'm not the guy to do that since I don't care about the product enough and already get far too much attention from other males already.

@GCrites80s
I didn't know there could be drastically difference prices for the same used games at different locations in the same metro area; that's crazy... It's like that even after the proliferation of smart phones where you can look up the value of everything now? I'm not an avid gamer so I would probably just go in there assuming a huge markup is due to its rarity or it having a special edition case or something like that. I'm glad people still appreciate game stores; it really made my week seeing GameStop Redditors disrupt the market the way they did. It would be more effective if they actually spent all that money in the stores but they brought a lot of attention to undervalued companies.

Deviating a little bit but just as a consumer, I think the biggest contrast in used merchandise between locations is seen at thrift stores. The Goodwill locations in Hilliard have merchandise EXPONENTIALLY better than thrift stores in the hood. The ones in rich neighborhoods have donated items from people who shop at places like William Sonoma, Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel and whatnot but after treasure hunting there, you hit up one in a poor inner city neighborhood or a small town and its just full of dilapidated Walmart junk. Yet, the prices for something like a couch or lamp or candle holder or whatever, will be about the same. Further causing a stark contrast is management/employees at the hood and small town locations stealing anything coming in of actual value. I used to love going to thrift stores and I used to make a lot of money when I was younger, reselling online after finding antiques and things like fixtures made of precious metals, sterling-silver spoons, sterling picture frames (I used to walk in them with a magnet lol) and other things of high value for really cheap but after Pawn Stars came out and especially now that there's 50 popular apps to sell stuff, everyone does that and the margins are too slim for it to be worth it and you just have a much harder time finding good stuff in there, in general. I wonder if chain thrift stores in wealthy neighborhoods ever send donations to locations in poor areas just so they can have a couple nice things to display but I highly doubt it.

Edited March 1, 20214 yr by David

3 hours ago, David said:

@GCrites80s
I didn't know there could be drastically difference prices for the same used games at different locations in the same metro area; that's crazy... It's like that even after the proliferation of smart phones where you can look up the value of everything now? I'm not an avid gamer so I would probably just go in there assuming a huge markup is due to its rarity or it having a special edition case or something like that. I'm glad people still appreciate game stores; it really made my week seeing GameStop Redditors disrupt the market the way they did. It would be more effective if they actually spent all that money in the stores but they brought a lot of attention to undervalued companies.

Deviating a little bit but just as a consumer, I think the biggest contrast in used merchandise between locations is seen at thrift stores. The Goodwill locations in Hilliard have merchandise EXPONENTIALLY better than thrift stores in the hood. The ones in rich neighborhoods have donated items from people who shop at places like William Sonoma, Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel and whatnot but after treasure hunting there, you hit up one in a poor inner city neighborhood or a small town and its just full of dilapidated Walmart junk. Yet, the prices for something like a couch or lamp or candle holder or whatever, will be about the same. Further causing a stark contrast is management/employees at the hood and small town locations stealing anything coming in of actual value. I used to love going to thrift stores and I used to make a lot of money when I was younger, reselling online after finding antiques and things like fixtures made of precious metals, sterling-silver spoons, sterling picture frames (I used to walk in them with a magnet lol) and other things of high value for really cheap but after Pawn Stars came out and especially now that there's 50 popular apps to sell stuff, everyone does that and the margins are too slim for it to be worth it and you just have a much harder time finding good stuff in there, in general. I wonder if chain thrift stores in wealthy neighborhoods ever send donations to locations in poor areas just so they can have a couple nice things to display but I highly doubt it.

 

 

The problem with smartphones and used items is phones will tell you that a particular item is way, way more expensive than it actually is. They leave out an enormous amount of detail that is obvious when using a computer to value the item. The world is full of people overpaying by 3-5X as much for things since they use their phone to buy it. This isn't as true with new items since they have an MSRP. People who know what they're doing regarding video games or cards use special pricing websites like pricecharting.com or tcgplayer.com. A lot of people in these wealthy locales know roughly what the games are worth -- they just don't care since they have a lot of money. Same thing you see with game stores in Seattle and San Francisco.

 

RE: Thrift stores. When I hear people ask where the stuff comes from the workers always say "our warehouse". It has to be true in some sense because some locations take in way more than they could put in the store. Like when CDM and I were cleaning out his storage unit in Dublin and taking stuff to the Goodwill on Sawmill. We went inside to have a look around and the store was like 6000 sq. ft. I think people dropped off more than 6000 sq. ft. worth of stuff in the time we were there! But woof are the small town thrift stores stinkers as compared to the big city ones. Unless it's some curated hippy one.

Oh and by far the best place to buy sneakers in Columbus is Eastland Mall.

 

A combination of waterfall photography and fly fishing in West Virginia.

Adventuring around Puerto Rico.

Went to VT, NH, ME last week. Here's one of me at Jordan Pond in Acadia 

hey its me! I still exist! This is last fall in Geneva, IL (a super cute, river town if you get bored).

 

IMG_20210901_145843 by Jimsey, on Flickr

I didn't even know it was possible to be even more hipster since 2005.

1 hour ago, ColDayMan said:

I didn't even know it was possible to be even more hipster since 2005.

 fine, I'm not giving you a ride in my subaru outback

Pfft, Subaru? Hardly as legendary as @ColDayMan’s gold Saturn 😆

1 hour ago, MayDay said:

Pfft, Subaru? Hardly as legendary as @ColDayMan’s gold Saturn 😆

 

I like to Imagine that @ColDayMan is still driving that all over the midwest and terrorizing passengers still.

Welcome back, the pope!  Now somebody find Locutus of Board, and it'll be 2005 all over again!

5 minutes ago, X said:

Now somebody find Locutus of Board

 

No.

1 hour ago, X said:

Welcome back, the pope!  Now somebody find Locutus of Board, and it'll be 2005 all over again!

 

I was in my early 30s in 2005 - I was too old for that sh!t back then, and you can best believe I’m waaay too old for it now that I’m turning 50 this year.

5 hours ago, MayDay said:

Pfft, Subaru? Hardly as legendary as @ColDayMan’s gold Saturn 😆

 

4 hours ago, the pope said:

 

I like to Imagine that @ColDayMan is still driving that all over the midwest and terrorizing passengers still.

 

On 2/16/2022 at 6:44 PM, MayDay said:

 

I was in my early 30s in 2005 - I was too old for that sh!t back then, and you can best believe I’m waaay too old for it now that I’m turning 50 this year.

Ah, the magical age of 50. The year AARP starts calling you to join them.
(25 years ago, when my parents turned 50, AARP mailed them letters to join)

9 hours ago, Magyar said:

Ah, the magical age of 50. The year AARP starts calling you to join them.
(25 years ago, when my parents turned 50, AARP mailed them letters to join)

Also amazing:  the dating club brochures turn into hearing aid ads.