My father never wanted his children to know what he did for a living.
Dad worked in maintenance for the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, in Plant C.
Perched on the shore of Lake Erie, it sucked him in at sunrise and spat him out at dusk.
Sometimes my mother would take my siblings and me to the public beach in our hometown of
Ashtabula, Ohio. She'd gather us round and point to the smokestacks further down the
At Stern Pinball, employees must play the machines 15 minutes each day.
Ever since I was a young boy, I've played the silver ball. But I'm no longer a young boy. And
the silver balls are disappearing.
Pinball is hanging by a thread. Once you couldn’t go to a bowling alley or an arcade without
hearing the
ching-ching-ching of those pleasure machines. The Who wrote a rock opera about a pinball
player. Fonzie banged the flippers on
Happy Days.
In the 1930s, there were around 150 small companies
Well, our secret is out.
Finally, the rest of America realizes what we’ve known for years: Cleveland is the capital of
middle-aged womanly hotness. How hot? Boys, we’re talking oven mitts if you even want to touch our
sizzling selves and live to tell the tale.
Mercy.
TV Land’s first television ads for
Hot in Cleveland said it all: Four women with windblown hair and a billowing
Sean Forbes performing before a crowd of 200 on the set of his new video.
In rap music, “def” is what you want to be. “Deaf” is another matter.
Sean Forbes is both. As an infant, Sean lost nearly all his hearing. He grew up in suburban
Detroit the way many deaf children do. Special classes. Sign language. Constant tussles with kids
making fun of him.
Click here to watch videos by Sean Forbes
But music. There was always music. At an early age, Sean made his mother play Mitch Ryder’s
Sitting next to a teen who's learning to drive can be a terrifying experience.
As I open the door and slide in, I realize I have never known such fear.
That may sound bizarre to you. I am, after all, a thriller writer. I routinely delve into the
darkest chambers of the human heart. I've written about murder, kidnapping, depravity, horror,
violence, and disfigurement.
I thought I understood sheer terror. But I didn't. Not till now.
I slide all the way in, close the door, buckle my
For years, my friend had wanted me to see her childhood home in the small Virginia town named
for her family.
Finally, I headed south and knocked on her door. She served pie on 200-year-old china, poured
tea from her great-great-grandmother’s pot. We chatted about the breath-taking view of land outside
her windows. Then she mentioned how her great-great-grandfather had loved the slaves who worked his
fields.
“Our slaves were happy,” she said.