PAULA VISITS JOHN OLESKY IN OHIO

 

Paul Stone Tucker visited John Olesky in Ohio for 3 weeks in August. John was Pat Engelhart's assistant State Desk editor and Paula was John's reporter in the 1970s at the BJ.

Paula rescued John from his misery when John’s wife, My Mona Lisa as he called her, passed away. For 17 years.

Paula has a home in The Villages, Florida.

John still lives in the condo they jointly purchased in 2006 and lived together in Talmadge.

Paula left The Villages on July 30 and arrived at John’s condo on August 1. She left for the 2-day auto drive to Florida on Sunday, August 22.

Paula and John made good use of the time.

They had dinner in Sugarcreek at Der Dutchman Restaurant, as they have several times before. After visiting the Atwood Lake A-Frame owned by Paula’s parents where she spent her childhood summers.

They walked through Gorge Park in Cuyahoga Falls, even though they had to crawl under a 100-foot toppled tree that blocked the footpath.

They visited the Beaver Pond in Summit County Metro parks and ran into Ranger Bob, Paula’s brother-in-law.

They hiked around the lake in Munroe Falls.

Paula and John golfed together at Mulligan Springs in Portage County, which shares a border with Tallmadge’s Summit County.

They visited Paula’s sister, Janet, at her Lakeside getaway on Lake Erie.

Paula visited all of her siblings: Tom and wife ‘Rae in the former Tamsin Lake area turned into housing allotments; Janet and husband Bob in Boston Heights; Michael and wife Ann in Silver Lake; and Raymond and wife Mary in Akron.

Paula and John also attended the Akron Porchroker event where Raymond and his barbershop quartet sang. The crowds were so thick that they had to walk 11 blocks from where they parked their car, the nearest empty parking place to the porch where Raymond and his quartet sang. Musical groups performed from porches on residential homes in block after block of the city. It’s an extremely popular annual event.

And, by driving 200 miles each way Paula spent her August 20 birthday with her son, Patrick, who drove from New York City for the Bear State Park rendezvous in Pennsylvania.

At Paula’s suggestion John and Paula looked at John’s My Mona Lisa photo album of his late wife and their extended family.

Paula and My Mona Lisa never competed with each other for John’s affections. They were bookends to his love life.

Paula took the sunshine back to Florida with her. But it was lovely while it lasted.