Wednesday, May 18th,
2016
Downtown Cleveland,
Ohio
Got Excited
Abhimanyu Arjuna and
I trekked from Beachwood to the downtown Public Square of Cleveland. It would be our rest stop, but renovations
are underway so we continued on for the ideal relaxing location. At Superior Ave we were told by a city rep to
not cross the road but to wait for three minutes while a movie stunt was being
done for a 'Fast and Furious' sequel.
Okay! Something about racing cars is what Arjuna
was saying. He says he likes the
series. I resigned to say anything about
the boring nature of fast cars. I don't
even care much for slow cars.
Never cared much for
basketball either. On my second
installment of walking today Gopal accompanied me. He was clicking away with the camera as we
passed by the stadium. The Cleveland
Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors were playing next. Still, this doesn't excite me as much as
meeting people.
At mid-day Agnihotra
treated us to her exceptional soya nuggets.
I'm a bit warmed up now. And her
husband, Avadhut, took us to the pilgrimage sites of Bhakti Tirtha Swami's
earlier childhood. He died from cancer
over ten years ago and was a dear friend to me.
Known as John Favors, he was recruited to attend Hawken private school
for boys. He was a remarkable student
and he graduated at the high school the same year as classmate Jeff Briggar who
took us for a tour of this thriving school.
We also drove to B.T.
Swami's former home, or at least where the home was at 82nd St off of Kinsman,
now an empty lot. The church he attended
as a child is now boarded up.
Jeff did pull out a
copy of the school's year book which opened to two pictures of B.T. Swami when
he was John Favors. The write-up on him
goes as follows.
"With his
amazing strut, his flaming, iridescent, tapered, cuff-less, belt-less,
sharkskin, electric, spray-paint, skin-tight, orange tubes (pants), his
matching four-inch high-rolled-collar-turtleneck, offset by contrasting sport
coat (belted in the rear), and alligator pinstripe shoes, John Favors came to
Hawken. Underneath that sartorial
splendor was a real student. Favors'
contribution to every class was always impressive. He was one of the few seniors who studied
during the day (or studied at all for that matter) and he could be found any time
in his private carrel in the library. He
appeared very quiet, perhaps a bit frightened by Hawken when he first arrived
last September. His fear wore off in
time yet despite his overt amicability, Favors remained somewhat
estranged. It's possible that that is
the way John wanted it. Regardless,
Hawken and John learned something from each other."
Being in his places
of the past and reading about my dear friend, I got excited.
May the Source be
with you!
14 miles
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