Day 3 - Only Rock and Roll at DennyGibson.com

Day 3: October 27, 2018
What Do You Want From Life?
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I decided I would eat breakfast before driving to Akron and settled on a nearby place called L.A. Pete's. Excellent food, great service, and almost bargain prices.

In Akron, I made a brief stop at the Indian Signal Tree. It isn't absolutely certain that it was a signal, and, if it was, there's no proof that Indians had anything to do with it. Pretty much everybody, however, does agree it's a tree. You can read the plaque here.

Today's the day I finally pull Frank Seiberling's Stan Hywet mansion off of my to-do list. I don't believe I'd even heard of Stan Hywet until my interest in the Lincoln Highway increased my interest in Seiberling. The founder of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was a big supporter of the highway and served as the Lincoln Highway Association's president for several years. Today I finally got to see where he lived.

I had more than half an hour to kill before the guided tour started, and I used it to stroll around the grounds in a light drizzle. I headed first to the conservatory where the lack of color, other than green, was offset by a beautiful waterfall. That seems like a rather fancy bowling green in the third picture.

The name Stan Hywet, from an Old English phrase meaning "stone quarry", was chosen because there was a quarry on the property when Seiberling acquired it. That quarry was, I believe, in the area of those ponds in the fourth picture. From the ponds, I walked to the manor house holding hands with myself.

The Seiberlings were quite fascinated by old English manor houses so Stan Wywet was designed to look much older than it is. Furnishings are a mix of genuine antiques and reproductions. The circular room is topped with a domed ceiling which allowed the Seiberlings to converse with their guests even though the room beyond was filled with music.

The organ console operates more than 2,000 pipes hidden behind walls at the other end of the room. In addition to being played normally, the console can be driven, as we saw and heard demonstrated, by paper rolls. The last picture is of Frank Seiberling's office.

Stan Hywet may contain some things that really are three hundred years old and others that just look like it but it is also filled with what was the latest technology. The Frigidaire refrigerator has been going for more than a century as has the stove in the main kitchen. The stove can be heated with wood, oil, or coal and is so large the kitchen was built around it. Needle showers were quite popular at the time because they supposedly massaged your internal organs as well as getting you clean. The Seiberling boys reportedly challenged each other to see who could tolerate this one the longest.

As someone whose neighborhood first got dial telephones in the late 1950s, I had trouble accepting that devices like this were installed here in 1915. I used my own dial-less phone to learn that the technology was patented in 1898 and started becoming common in the Bell System around 1919. I never claimed to live in a progressive neighborhood.

Charles Goodyear, the guy Seiberling named his company after, patented the vulcanization of rubber in 1844. Among the many ways he tried to commercialize his invention was covering furniture with rubber. The chest in Seiberling's hallway in one of Goodyear's sample pieces. Profits from vulcanization came too late to benefit its inventor. Goodyear was more than $200,000 in debt when he died in 1860.

The Peanut Shoppe showed up on a TripAdvisor list of Things to Do in Akron and it immediately caught my fancy. The business started in 1933 across the street from its current -- and supposedly temporary -- location. Sixteen years ago, it was forced to move to make way for some major renewal that has yet to happen. Until it does -- if ever -- happen, the store will continue to roast a wide variety of nuts, stock an equally wide variety of candy, and display a possibly wider variety of photos and signs.

Luigi's isn't quite as old as the Peanut Shoppe and it hasn't had to move but it is every bit as much of a landmark. And it has expanded a bunch and had the street it's on cut in two. The sixty-nine year old restaurant was every bit as crowded as you would expect for a Saturday evening. Fortunately for me, it was all couples and groups and no one wanted to sit at the counter -- except me. Apparently no one wanted to play the jukebox, which gets the Band Box going, either.

I ordered ravioli and the waitress asked, "Baked?" I asked which was better but her tone had already supplied the answer. My baked ravioli was great.

The Tangier, where The Tubes would be playing, was just over a mile away. It's a pretty swanky place with a free parking garage beside it.

The Tubes may be getting older but they sure don't act it. Nor do they sound it. The ultra tight five piece group went full blast from the start with front man Fee Waybill changing costumes -- often on stage -- every few songs. He ended the regular part of the show as alter-ego Quay Lude who was definitely on top of things doing Suffragette City followed by White Punks on Dope. That's guitarist Roger Steen on the far side and bassist Rick Anderson nearer the camera. That's drummer extraordinaire Prairie Prince and keyboardist Dave Mead in the next two pictures. Although Waybill was the only one changing clothes, the others popped various masks on and off throughout the night. Prince did the first few number in blue. Following a seven foot Quay Lude singing White Punks on Dope ain't easy but they did it with She's a Beauty, I Saw Her Standing There, and Talk to You Later.

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