Humans of Cleveland — Lee Clarion

When an autumn chill finally blew into town this past Friday, we decided to beat the cold by heading inside one of our favorite downtown lunch spots, Gardner's Market. The restaurant is beloved by Lee students and local community members for its blackberry lemonade, delicious sub sandwiches, novelty candies and homey, old-fashioned ambiance. While we took a few minutes to thaw out and browse, we also had the chance to talk with some of the staff who call Gardner's home.

"How long have you been working at Gardner's?"

"I've been working at Gardner's since October 8th."

"Do you go to Lee?"

"I went to Lee, I started in 2005 and I'm taking a bit of a break while I get my finances in order."

"What is the hardest thing you've ever had to do?"

"The hardest thing I've ever had to do? I previously worked at an assisted living facility, and working with the elderly and seeing them decline, it just ' in the year and a half that I was there I made some really good friends who were kind of on there way out of life. [That] made it really hard to have that friendship and want it to continue to grow stronger, knowing that the person you're friends with is growing weaker every day."

"Do you have a favorite memory from working there?"

"I'd have to say, one of my favorite people ' well, HIPPA law doesn't allow me to actually name her. But she [was] a night owl, so she would come throughout the day and sit down and have a cup of coffee, and we'd joke and gib. I played around with a little wood working, so we would talk about the idea of me redesigning a cane for her. She was just a really good person to get to know ' Seeing her, whenever her daughters came around, we would always be picking on her to use her cane ' and that was fun. She understood that [the power had not shifted], but that she was going to be taken care of [now] instead of taking care of people, and she did that really gracefully."

"Did you learn any good life lessons from that experience?"

"Living. Living. There's a lot of people there that you don't realize are actually over 100 years old ' and the idea that there are more than just [everyday] problems like 'I don't have the money to go back to school right now', was helpful. The idea that that's not all that's in my life you know ' tomorrow is another day, and the day after that and so forth. I learned not to let individual situations become my biggest problem and I'm trying to see things in a bigger scope."

"What's your name, first off?"

"Gamaliel Chapman."

"That's an unusual name. Where does it come from?"

"It's in the book of Acts, actually. It's Hebrew."

"Are you from the Cleveland area?"

"No, I'm Lee alumni. I'm from Knoxville."

"What did you major in?"

"Music business. I finished school and then wanted to get engaged, so I had to work to pay off the ring and this place hired me right off, so I've been here for about a year."

"What's something that you're really passionate about?"

At this point, his boss walked by.

"Uh...Gardner's Market!"

Boss: "You're re-hired!"