Red Black And Grey Bedroom Remodeling
CLEVELAND, Ohio – It has been years aback I collection bottomward Buckeye Road.

I was on Cleveland’s East Side for addition reason, but I began cerebration about activity to Benedictine Aerial School.
And I anticipation of the Red Barn.
I anticipation of division hamburgers, 15-cent French fries. Add in a amber milkshake and it would amount a buck.
A blade for a burger, chips and agitate on Buckeye Road in the aboriginal 1970s.
I wasn’t alike abiding area to acquisition the old Red Barn, which was a few blocks from what is now Martin Luther King Blvd. Aback then, it was East Blvd.
I saw Orban’s Flowers, still there. Some of my classmates had part-time jobs there.
I chock-full at a spot. Looked vaguely familiar. The Red Barn is now a parking lot. I took a account and sat there for a few moments.
I anticipation about our country now, and aback then. Both eras accept ancestral tensions in common. At times, the streets were affronted and politicians on both abandon generally seemed clueless.
Then I anticipation of Wiley Pugh.
Suddenly, I had faculty of peace.
BLACK & WHITE & BENEDICTINE BLUE
Wiley Pugh was African-American. I was a white kid who grew up with white kids in Parma and again Northfield. Wiley was from a accepted ancestors and lived abreast John F. Kennedy Aerial School.
We got to apperceive anniversary added in home room, area we were sat in alphabetical order…Pluto again Pugh.
We additionally were in some ceremoniousness classes together. It didn’t booty continued for us to become friends.
I played (OK, mostly sat) baseball. He ran track. Back our practices were over in the spring, we’d go to the Red Barn.

We talked about academy and coaches and girls.
We both played for legends. Wiley’s clue drillmaster was Gary Stevens, who after went on to be an abhorrent coordinator/ quarterback drillmaster for the Miami Dolphins and old Oakland Raiders.
My drillmaster was Augie Bossu, who is in the Ohio Aerial Academy Coaches Hall of Fame for football and baseball.
Coach Bossu rarely yelled. Drillmaster Stevens was a walking megaphone.
“Don’t you get ailing of him agreeable all the time?” I already asked Wiley.
“He’s OK,” said Wiley. “You get acclimated to him. He’s a acceptable coach.”
I after ample out Stevens accomplished Wiley (an boilerplate runner) as if he had the being to be a star. Stevens had time to drillmaster everybody…hard.
Wiley admired that. He knew Stevens had a acceptable heart.
That’s article we charge to do – attending above the outside. Shut out some of the noise. Value what a being is bottomward deep.
IT DOES GET OLD
I went over to Wiley’s abode several times over the years. We generally played analeptic basketball in his neighborhood, area I was the alone white kid in the game.
We sometimes talked about race, and on a few occasions Wiley told me, “That guy in the abundance looked at me like some (N-word) off the street, like I capital to annihilate him.”
He didn’t use that accent often. He befuddled his arch as he told the story. I said article like, “That being gets old.”
“No kidding,” he said.
Because Wiley was a able artist and singer, he was a affiliate of the Singing Angels. That was a way for both of us to get dates, actual accessible because Benedictine was (and still is) an all-boys school.

No amusing media. No cellphones. It was an innocent age, at atomic compared to aerial academy dating today.
WHAT DO WE HAVE IN COMMON?
The Red Barn aliment was awful, but we didn’t care. It wasn’t about the food. It was about who was in the berth with you, administration the fries.
We could beam at ourselves, and at the ancestral stereotypes.
We got forth because we had far added in accepted already we got above the black/white, city/suburban curve that could accept disconnected us. We talked about our plans. I was activity to be a writer, a novelist. He was activity into music.
Wiley accelerating from John Carroll University. He abutting the Air Force and became a radiation therapist, alive at VA Medical Centers in Dayton and Cleveland. He died in 2014 at the age of 58 of a affection attack.
We absent clue of anniversary added as the years passed, but the acquaint he accomplished me accept lasted a lifetime.
There’s a Kirk Franklin actuality song alleged “The Blood.” My admired part:
“Some say You’re black, you’re white. They catechism if you’re real…Doesn’t amount what blush you are as continued as your claret is red.”
Two guys at the Red Barn about 50 years ago, talking about our dreams.
Two guys at the Red Barn who got to apperceive anniversary added because our claret was red and we never forgot that.
RECENT TERRY PLUTO FAITH & YOU COLUMNS
Driving myself crazy? Perfectionism during the pandemic
Another night with the frogs: Do I appetite to get well?
Is it account antibacterial a abutting accord over politics?

The Battle With Rejection
Pioneer Pastor Diana Swoope dies, afflatus to those with cancer.
Fighting the Inner Bully
The allurement of absent to be liked
Feeling ashore in the middle
What to say to addition who has cancer
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: A acreage of massive rocks, bugs, bears and beauty
Shelter In Place is asperous on those in Nursing Homes
Can you absolutely absolve and balloon back it’s so painful?
Stories of parents, kids, affliction and hope
Are you disturbing over your agitation child?
When you go the store, do you see the mask-wearing agent as a person?
———
©2020 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland
Visit The Plain Dealer, Cleveland at www.cleveland.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.