My Blog
ELLIOTT LEWIS
Hello Akron, Ohio!
It's true. After 10 years in Washington, DC, I've packed up and moved to northeastern Ohio to attend law school at the University of Akron. Why Akron? Well, that's kind of a long story. The short answer is that the law school here has affordable tuition, part-time evening classes, a well-regarded program in intellectual property (one of my interests as an author, journalist, and broadcaster), and a low cost of living. In fact, my new apartment in Akron is roughly the same size as the one I left, but I'm paying about a third of what I was spending on rent in DC.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Elliott-isms
A semi-irregular blog
(Does anybody read this stuff?)
Actually, the decision to come here isn't farfetched at all. I was born about 40 miles north of Akron, in east Cleveland, and lived in the suburb of Mayfield Heights until I was nine years old. When I returned to the area earlier this summer on an apartment hunting trip, I paid a visit to my old neighborhood, drove by my old elementary school, and snapped a few pictures of my old surroundings. A flood of memories came rushing back. In Fade, I described the moment my mother told me we were leaving my dad. She broke the news one afternoon as we sat on a grassy hill near our home. Well, I got a look at that hill for the first time since writing the book. In fact, I took out a copy of Fade, plopped myself down on that spot, and re-read that passage at the very place where it happened more than 30 years ago. The thing is, I remember that "hill" as fairly steep, and as a third grader, I guess it was. The adult reality, however, is that there really isn't much of an incline there at all.
The experience of traveling back to places that once played an important part in your life can be like that, I guess. The memories get "re-sized." Landmarks that once loomed large don't seem quite so big anymore.
My new home in Akron is set in a part of the city that seems to be a mix of white working class folks, new immigrants of many shades, a handful of black residents, and a few students.
But clearly, Akron is not DC. During the first week of law school, the student bar associations held an activities fair where entering law students could get information on the various student clubs on campus. I added my email address to the mailing lists of the Black Law Students Association, the Sports and Entertainment Law Students Association, and the student section of the Ohio Bar Association. (For the record, all clubs are open to all law students. Men can join the women’s law student group, whites can join the black student group, etc.) But I was particularly intrigued by a club called the Asian Latino Law Students Association. Could it be, I wondered, an organization for mixed race law students, specifically "Asian-Latinos"? No, the club president explained. There just aren't enough Asians or Latinos in Akron's law school to have two different clubs. So they joined forces and formed one. Oh, well. I signed up anyway.
