255: HOMEWARD BOUND – ANOTHER EPIC JOURNEY COMES TO AN END

It was roughly 10:20am on Wednesday June 14, 2023 when my photographer, Bob Moldenhauer, and I left Kent State and the images of May 4th behind us. I was antsy during the entire 38-mile journey north as the next stop on our agenda was all too familiar. So much so, in fact, that some of my experiences from the past still cause me to have night sweats. But since my right arm was already detached, I figured old James Garfield would leave me alone during our visit to his tomb.

For the fifth time in just under ten years, I found myself on the grounds of the beautiful and expansive garden cemetery in the Little Italy section of Cleveland, Ohio known as Lake View Cemetery. The massive burial ground has over 104,000 gravesites, but only one of them was in our crosshairs – the James A. Garfield Memorial. Once Tom had our SUV parked near the memorial, the three of us headed around to the front where we had a great view of the imposing 180-foot-tall tomb. Even though it was the fifth time I’ve posed for pictures in front of the memorial, its massiveness and design never fail to take my breath away; and at times, some of my body parts as well.

Tom carried me through the enormous oak doors and into the memorial where I posed near the 12-foot-tall white marble statue of President Garfield, which was surrounded by stained glass windows and several deep red granite columns. While that section of the tomb was a beautiful tribute to the President, it was the chamber located one level down that I couldn’t wait to see again.

After my photographer had slowly made his way down the marble spiral staircase to the crypt, I was once again reunited with President James Garfield and First Lady Lucretia Garfield. It was an extremely nervous moment for me. In 2013, my head was mysteriously removed just minutes after our visit with the Garfield’s. Two years later, I had a creepy close encounter with an entity while a young woman held me through the bars of the chamber. During my third visit, in 2019, my photographer’s phone unexpectedly played a strange song at the same moment he placed me on the burial chamber’s floor. In 2022, I didn’t have an encounter inside the tomb, but my right arm became detached at some point shortly after the visit. I couldn’t wait to see what type of unusual encounter Tom and I would face on my fifth visit.

At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I posed for dozens of photographs with the two caskets behind me, but Tom and I didn’t see or hear anything unusual. There were times when my photographer talked to the President, and some of the talk was intended to stir up Garfield’s spirit like it had done in the past. But everything remained eerily quiet. Then suddenly, a man appeared out of nowhere and walked up next to us. The elderly guy, who didn’t identify himself, seemed to be on a mission – and his purpose wasn’t to pay his respects to President Garfield. Without any hesitation, the man asked my photographer what he planned on doing with his images of the crypt. I knew Tom was instantly peeved when he replied: “What difference does it make what I’m doing with my pictures? They’re mine.” It turned out the man was a volunteer staff member named Tom, who responded to “my Tom’s” sarcasm: “I just want to make sure you’re not planning to use the pictures for profit on a public social media platform. Are they for your personal use?” My photographer grew angrier by the second: “Look, this is my camera, they’re my pictures, and I’ll use the photos however I want to use them. Is there a law against that?” The staffer’s rebuttal was, “There’s no law against it, but I want to know if they’re for your personal use or not.” At that time, I wondered if my photographer would verbally brow-beat the man, or in a worse-case scenario, threaten him. “Quite frankly, it’s none of your business what I’m planning to use my photos for. They’re mine. Can I make myself any clearer? THEY – ARE – MINE!” Tom seemed stunned, “Just make sure they’re for your personal use” and he walked away.

While my photographer finished taking his pictures in the crypt, I felt his hands shaking with anger as he held me. He placed me in the camera case and the two of us returned to the second level where we met up with Bob. That’s when the fun began. Tom said to his friend, “You won’t believe what happened to me down in the crypt. This guy came down there and gave me the *bleeping* third degree about what I’m doing with my pictures. I’m so mad right now, I can’t see straight.” Bob laughed, but not because of what my photographer had said – it was because Tom the staffer was standing directly behind my camera guy and heard the entire exchange. The volunteer said: “I didn’t give you the blank third degree, and I don’t appreciate that language. I only asked if they were for your personal use, and you got all defensive.” My photographer bristled again: “You’re damned right I got defensive because it’s none of your business what I’m doing with them. It’s nobody’s business because the photos are mine.”

There are times when calmer heads prevail, which was what happened inside the Garfield Memorial. Bob stepped in and suggested the two Tom’s needed to step outside and calmly discuss the situation. Once on the front steps, Mongo began the peace talks by explaining to the worker what our mission at Presidential sites are intended to accomplish. Bob also went on to describe the passion the three of us have at all historic sites. The staffer quickly became enamored by Bob’s stories, as well as the sheer number of Presidential sites we’ve visited in the past. After our companion’s five-minute spiel had ended, the staff member apologized for his interrogation inside the tomb. Then Tom did an about-face when he admitted: “Actually, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t conducting any paranormal rituals in the tomb. You wouldn’t believe it, but I once saw a group trying to hold a seance down in the crypt. We’ve had several people claim they’ve seen ghosts down there, or they had heard strange noises in the crypt, and there’s no need for that type of nonsense.” I nearly fell over in the camera case with laughter, especially when my photographer didn’t tell him all the unexplained things we’ve experienced in that very crypt. After the two Tom’s shook hands, the volunteer said we were lucky to have visited when we did. Had we been ten days later, he said, we would’ve been out of luck until 2024. It turned out the memorial was scheduled to close for the season due to a scheduled, and much-needed, restoration project. I wanted to tell Tom that luck was on our side because of our Divine Guardian Spirit, but I didn’t think that would go over too well with him.

The three of us boarded our Explorer at 12:15pm and we began the short eight-mile drive towards downtown Cleveland. I was excited when I heard Tom and Bob had planned on spending a couple of hours in Cleveland, which at times has been called “The Mistake by the Lake”. My enthusiasm was spawned because we had visited President Cleveland’s birthplace, his grave site, and now we were in the city named after Ol’ Grover. As the late, great Meat Loaf once said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” It turned out the town of Cleveland was established on July 22, 1769, and it was named after General Moses Cleaveland, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. I admit, I felt a tad bit embarrassed when I learned Stephen Grover Cleveland was born 68 years after the city had been named. Perhaps I should be called ‘The Mistake by the Lake.’

Once we were parked near the waterfront, I wondered which Presidential site we were headed to in downtown Cleveland. When I heard Bob say there was a huge exhibit dedicated to the Fab Four, I figured he meant Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt – and my excitement grew. Little did I know he was talking about John, Paul, George, and Ringo – and the site we were headed for was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I had never been to the Rock Hall of Fame before, although I heard Mongo talk about it many times during our trips. While I knew there were no Presidential artifacts inside the huge museum, I figured we’d see some relics associated with a King, Queen, and maybe a Prince. As for my Rock and Roll lovin’ camera guy, I knew he was licking his chops to see items used or worn by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Big Bopper, Elton John, Alice Cooper, and the Singing Nun.

Once my companions had captured their images near the front of the Rock Hall of Fame without other people in the way, we made our way inside the enormous glass and steel tent-shaped building, which quite frankly, was better than my photographer and I had anticipated. Tom’s beef with the hall has always been their nomination and selection process, as some of my photographer’s favorite artists such as The Big Bopper, Meat Loaf, The J. Geils Band, and maybe even The Singing Nun, have never been considered for induction, while other performers, such as non-rockers Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, N.W.A., and DJ Kool Herc have already been enshrined. It’s ridiculous. This is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not the Rock, Country, Rap, and Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. While the political side of the Hall of Fame continues to be disappointing, there were a countless number of awesome artifacts on display, some of which I had the honor of posing alongside. Let’s take a look, shall we, at my visit with Tom and Bob inside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Or should I say, the Music Diversity Hall of Fame?

As the hands of the clock reached two-thirty, we left the Hall of Fame and its incredible artifacts behind. While I still had visions of The Beatles, Buddy Holly, and Elvis running through my resin mind, I hummed the lyrics to Dominique all the way back to the Explorer.

It was time for the three of us to hit the road and head west towards home. And I couldn’t wait to get on the road again, going places I’ve never been and seein’ things that I may never see again. I couldn’t wait to get on the road again. As we headed out of downtown Cleveland, we had one final site yet to visit on the trip – the grave of Kent State student William Schroeder. But before we made it to Ridge Hill Memorial Park where Schroeder was buried, Tom and Bob decided to stop and fill their faces at Quaker Steak and Lube, which was a motor-themed restaurant in Sheffield, Ohio. During the 45-minute feedbag, I was forced to watch my photographer scarf-down a plate of fish and chips and gulp down a large chocolate milk shake. I knew my chunky friend was hungry, but he tackled that fish as though cod was headed for the endangered species list. On the slip side, Moldenhauer seemed a lot more human as he methodically ate his hamburger and fries, all the while discussing what we had seen at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The drive from the Quaker Steak and Lube diner to Ridge Hill Memorial Park was a little over five miles, which was good because we needed to air-out the vehicle after dinner. The cemetery, which was started in 1929, was located a couple of miles northeast of Amherst, Ohio and sat on roughly 60 acres of developed land. The first thing I noticed as soon as we entered the huge burial ground was most of the grave markers laid flush with the ground, which made finding one grave out of the thousands like finding a black cat in a coal mine. Thankfully, Bob had remembered where the grave of William Schroeder was located, which cut our search time down to nothing.

For the three of us, it was a very historic moment when we arrived at the small, bronze plate that marked the final resting place of William Schroeder. There was a definite feeling of accomplishment during the visit. At the outset of the trip, Tom and Bob had set a goal to visit the graves of all four of the Kent State students who were murdered on May 4th; plus, they planned to walk the campus grounds where the crime was committed in 1970. Their goal was to see all five sites on the same trip. However, as exuberant as we were to complete the daunting task, we were saddened at the same time to be standing at the final resting place of a young man who was cut down in the prime of his life by a senseless act of violence.

William Schroeder was the perfect definition of an All-American young man. The handsome student was a star athlete, an honor student, an Eagle Scout, and he earned several academic awards in college. Ironically, he earned the Association of the United States Army award for excellence in history. Schroeder had no way of knowing when he woke up on the morning of May 4, 1970, he would forever be a part of American history, and all thanks to the Army he wanted to serve upon graduation.

While thousands of other students were involved in Vietnam War protests leading up to the May 4th tragedy, Bill stayed away from the mayhem. As a matter of fact, Schroeder was walking through the Prentice Hall parking lot towards his next class when he took a few extra minutes to watch the confrontation between his fellow students and the Ohio Army National Guard. At precisely 12:24pm, the soldiers opened fire on the unarmed students in and around the parking lot. Schroeder was 382 feet away from the National Guardsmen when he tried to take cover during the 13 seconds of hell. During the mayhem, Bill was struck in the chest by an M-1 rifle bullet which knocked him off his feet and onto the pavement below. The All-American student laid in a pool of his own blood – the bullet had entered his chest at the seventh rib, it pierced his left lung, before some of the fragments exited at the top of his left shoulder. Within a few minutes of the shooting, Schroeder was rushed to Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna where surgeons attempted to save his life. But the high-powered rifle bullet had done its job – 19-year-old William Knox Schroeder was declared dead.

During our fifteen-minute visit at the gravesite of William Schroeder, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people were affected by the senseless shooting at Kent State University when those kids died. I stood there and thought about the words Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes said at a press conference on May 3, 1970, the day before the shootings. Rhodes vowed to “eradicate the problem” of the demonstrators and said “they’re worse than the Brownshirts and the Communist element, and also the Night Riders and the vigilantes. They’re the worst type of people that we harbor in America.” I suppose Rhodes was referring to the youth of America, who together were fighting to end a war in Southeast Asia; a war United States soldiers should never have been sent to fight in the first place. While John Lennon was singing ‘Give Peace a Chance’, Rhodes not only refused to give peace a chance, but he also didn’t give Bill, Sandy, Allison, or Jeff a chance either.

It’s hard to fathom James Rhodes could be elected as dog catcher after his role in the Kent State Massacre, but somehow, he managed to connive his way back into the Ohio State House for two more terms as Governor; and that was after the shootings. Roughly twenty-five years after that tragic event unfolded on the Kent State campus, Governor James Rhodes suffered a stroke that severely affected his life. After being hospitalized in late 2000 and early 2001 for pneumonia, Rhodes died on March 4, 2001 from heart issues. In my resin mind, that was a surprise – I found it hard to believe James A. Rhodes ever had a heart. After all, he was one of the worst type of politicians that we harbor in America. Unfortunately, America still harbors a few of them today.

Tom carried me from William Schroder’s final resting place through a seemingly endless number of graves that were in our path. When we arrived at the Explorer, my photographer placed the camera case with me inside on the back seat for the 190-mile ride back home. I don’t know for sure if I had tears running down my resin cheeks or not, but I felt like crying. I was saddened by the four Kent State student graves we had visited in the past few days, plus there were no sites left on our agenda. We were homeward bound.

“Every day’s an endless stream, of historic people from my dreams. And each town that welcomes me, their sites become my fantasies. And every stranger’s face I see, reminds me that I long to be – homeward bound. I wish I was, homeward bound. Home, where my friends are stayin’. Home, where Dominque’s a playin’. Home, where Abigail lies awaiting, silently for me.”

Tom, Bob, and I had been inseparable companions for the past eleven days. But at 7:44pm, we arrived at Mongo’s house in Marysville, Michigan where my photographer and I said our goodbyes to our trusty teammate and friend. Just eighteen minutes later, Tom pulled into our driveway in St. Clair – we were home. Our family dog, Abigail, was happy to see us. And since Tom had talked about little “Abbers” at the tomb of Abigail Adams in Quincy, Massachusetts, we were glad to see her as well. Unfortunately, that was the last homecoming where my photographer and I would be greeted by Abigail’s tail wags and wet kisses. Abigail Adams Watson died at 1:45am on July 2, 2023 – just eighteen days after we returned home.

We had travelled 2,667 miles in eleven days and saw a lot of amazing Presidential sites. While Abigail’s sudden death dampened our spirits, Tom and I knew our quest, and her memory, had to live on. And it will – albeit with heavy hearts. With no rest for the weary, Tom arranged a one-day adventure with Bob Moldenhauer for July 10th, which was billed as “Jefferson’s Tenth Anniversary Tour”. It’s hard for me to believe that my first-ever visit to a Presidential site happened in Freemont, Ohio on July 10, 2013.

But I wasn’t going anywhere until my arm was re-attached. A week or so after we returned home, I had a surgical procedure performed on my right arm. Thanks to the finest bobble head surgeon I know, the re-attachment procedure was a success, and I was good to go for our trip to Spiegel Grove in Freemont. It’s a story you won’t want to miss, but one you’ll have to wait for.

To be continued…

** THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO BOB MOLDENHAUER FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, COMPANIONSHIP, AND FOR ALWAYS TRYING TO OPEN LOCKED DOORS **