It was spring of 2007 and I was on a business trip in the Cleveland, Ohio area. It was the week before Easter and the weather was warm in Tennessee before we left. It was also warm in Cleveland when we arrived. I had checked the weather before we left Tennessee and I saw that there was a possibility of it getting cool while we were in Cleveland so I took a relatively heavy jacket on the trip. I was traveling with two men named Phillip and Todd. I don’t think either of them had checked the weather before they left home. Phillip had brought a light jacket. Todd was ready for spring and brought no jacket at all and only short sleeve shirts. The weather was warm in Cleveland on Tuesday when we arrived. But we were staying through Thursday and the weather was supposed to get cold before we left.
We knew we were going to have some spare time in the evenings and found out that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was open one night during the week. That night was Wednesday. We decided that we would try and see it that evening. As the day progressed on Wednesday, the temperature started dropping. Soon it was even snowing. Todd was going to get cold outside without a jacket. He suggested that we stop at a Walmart on the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so he could get something to keep warm. We stopped and he ran in the store thinking it would only take a short time to get something quick while we waited in the car. He soon found out that spring is not the time to shop for a warm coat, even in Cleveland. We waited for at least 30 minutes while he shopped. He finally came out and told us that he had a hard time finding any jackets at all. He had talked about picking up a blazer before we got to the store. They didn’t have anything like that. He told us that at one point, the only jacket that he could find had the words “Fat Ass” on the front. He continued looking until he finally found a pullover jacket. It wasn’t that thick but at least it had sleeves to cover his arms. We told him he was lucky that we didn’t shop with him or he would have come home with that Fat Ass Jacket.
We did get to spend a couple of hours at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The instruments that I remember the most from the tour included a homemade bass guitar used by the Zombies, Greg Allman’s Hammond B-3 organ and a Tom Petty Stratocaster that had an autograph from Carl Perkins on the back of the headstock. Being from Carl’s hometown, Jackson, Tennessee, made this guitar more interesting. The sign said that this was one of Tom’s go-to guitars for several years while he was touring. The museum is a glass pyramid and I remember being on the upper levels looking at the lake effect snow swirling near the glass against a black sky.
By the time we were done at the museum, the roads had begun to get icy. We didn’t have any major issues getting to our hotel. We took it relatively slow and followed the detours where all of the locals had wrecks and run off the road. I’ve always heard from northerners that people in the south don’t know how to drive in the snow. Based on this trip, I have to say that northerners don’t know how to drive any better than people from the south in the snow.
