Folks,

I found this website a couple of weeks ago and immediately enjoyed news about Cleveland from people who seem to care about the city.

I'm a born and raised "Clevelandite" who departed the city some time back.  I've been concerned that I am out of touch with the city and its residents as I read this site.

Growing up there, the trains rolled in.  So did ships.  Factories, machine shops, foundries and mills hummed and fumed.  The stockyards stank!  Downtown, banking and legal businesses thrived.  The schools had discipline and taught.  The rec centers served large masses of kids from big families.  We played sports at Clark Field, Brookside and Edgewater Park, among others.  The city was a kid's back yard.  If you didn't have bus fare for the old CTS, you just walked through safe neighborhoods.  Schools like CCC, CSU, Baldin-Wallace, John Carroll, Ursuline, Dyke, Hiram, Kent, Oberlin, CaseWestern and others were renowned.

It was a "Can Do" city with "Can Do" people.  Is it like that now?  Do people develope  their talents to chart their futures anymore? 

Did you know that in the 1920s that Cleveland led the WORLD in patents granted?  Do you know that the Winton automobile was built on Detroit Avenue?  Do you know that the national air races were held here because Ohio was a center of flight development?  The first man to fly in a motorized plane,  to orbit the earth, and to walk on the moon were---OHIOANS!  Halle Berry, Traci Chapman, Arsenio Hall, Joe Walsh, Drew Carey, Debra Heaton, Paul Newman, Bob Hope, et al.------are all-----from-----Cleveland!!  Do you remember when Cleveland was an important world center for corporate headquarters (Eaton, Diamond Shamrock, Sherwin Williams, etc.)? 

Do you remember when almost every main West Side intersection had a real retail district with neighborhood department stores?  Take a look at 25th and Lorain, 25th and Clark, 25th and Denison, 65th and Detroit, Denison and Lorain and other intersections and you can still see a few buildings left over from those retail centers.  Who remembers the Osh Kosh on Clark Ave.?  The Boston store on 25th?  Giant Tiger?  Castle Music?  Let's not forget the great neighborhood movie houses--the Lyceum on Fulton, the Garden on 25th, the Variety, the Capitol......

Let's close with a little Richie Valens:  "Yo no soy marinero.  Yo soy capitan.......Por ti sere, por ti sere."

("I'm not a sailor.  I'm a captain....For you I'll be, for you I'll be.")

Come on Clevelanders.  Get up.  Do it for yourselves.  What are we waiting for?

Greatboldworld