This is the fifth in a six-part series: the Sights and Sounds of the Beachwood Area. If you are the first to guess all six locations described in the articles, you could win a free $10 Mitchell’s gift card. So what do you have to lose? Drop a comment with your guesses below, and check back here every day for all the BHS News you’ll ever need. Note: some locations are outside the Beachwood city limits, but still in Northeast Ohio. Journalism students and Beachcomber staff are not eligible to win.
“Crunch, Crunch” is all that can be heard across the room.
She has a pink striped shirt layered with a purple shirt and a skirt. She wears light pink tights to bring out the pink in her outfit and a pair of eye-catching sparkly black and white Uggs to complete the outfit. Sitting there with big pink beads at the top of her two pigtails. Munching on a bag of potato chips.
Another girl is sitting next to her, wearing a black sweater with white polka dots and glasses with just as eye-catching white sparkly Uggs. The third person, apparently the mother, is drinking a cup of coffee, dressed in blue jeans, black coat and a brown shirt that matches her skin tone. She wears silver hoop earrings and a wide grey headband.
I glanced at my watch and at 9:49 am the echoes of approaching feet from the hall fill the space. Kids come running into the room, playing with each other while their parents, like mules, carry their children’s forgotten items and follow their kids. Noise fills the air. Some parents are talking to each other; others just follow their kids into the door to the right of the space.
Abandoned coats and cases are left to wait until their owners returns to claim them. A kid sits and eats a candy bar because the sign through the doors to the left says “No Food or Drink”. A piano can be heard when the door is opened and closed. Great majestic horns can be heard off to the right behind another set of doors.
At certain places it looks and feels like a modern art museum. If you look up, you see part of a glass ceiling with grates to protect the world below. Lights are attached to the grates to add to the lighting. Even with grates close to the wall, the space was a little on the warm side. With big windows and angles, the space is lit where there is no direct sunlight shining on anyone inside the space. Across the space you can see a green brick wall that has been there forever. You can tell which is the new edition because the walls have small indented circles on them. The space has a total of 6 giant pillars, a small set of stairs are between four of the six pillars.
The three family members sit and pass their time in the world of electronics. The girl in the black sweater plays on an Ipad while her sister plays on a red Nintendo. Sounds of their games can be heard across the space. The mother tells them to turn the sound down. The mother sits with her phone stroking the girl with the black and white Uggs in a soothing motherly way.
As kids come out the door on the left, parents tell their kids where their next activity is. A group of Japanese women come out with their children and set up camp on one of the benches. Toys and snacks are brought out for the children.
The women distribute Purell before giving their children their snacks. There is a smell of burnt rice crackers that starts to fill the air as the children munch on their goodies. The children speak in Japanese. One girl pulls out a Hello Kitty origami set written in Japanese.
Deborah, the security guard, sits behind a huge desk with wood panels, waits to answer the phone or greet people who enter. The phone does not ring. Music can still be heard in the space, floating around the room like a gentle breeze.
