THAT BANK SHUT DOWN IN THE EIGHTIES,” my father scoffed when Grandpa handed me the old passbook at my wedding — but I went anyway, and the manager… came out from behind the teller station with another executive at his side, both of them suddenly much more formal than anyone ever gets over a worn little bankbook. It was just after nine on a Cleveland morning, the sky pale over the lake, the downtown office towers still coming awake behind their sheets of glass. I stood there in work boots and a flannel shirt, holding the same blue passbook my grandfather had placed in my hands at my wedding while half my family treated it like some useless leftover from another era. Five years later, the bank was the first place that didn’t.
The bank teller’s hands stopped moving on the keyboard. She looked at her screen, then at me, then back at the screen. Her face had gone pale. “Sir,” she said, …
THAT BANK SHUT DOWN IN THE EIGHTIES,” my father scoffed when Grandpa handed me the old passbook at my wedding — but I went anyway, and the manager… came out from behind the teller station with another executive at his side, both of them suddenly much more formal than anyone ever gets over a worn little bankbook. It was just after nine on a Cleveland morning, the sky pale over the lake, the downtown office towers still coming awake behind their sheets of glass. I stood there in work boots and a flannel shirt, holding the same blue passbook my grandfather had placed in my hands at my wedding while half my family treated it like some useless leftover from another era. Five years later, the bank was the first place that didn’t. Read More
