Carried back to Cleveland

Cleveland skyline from Lakewood Park

Words you won’t hear from me – I went all the way to Cleveland and all I got was a lousy T-shirt. Cleveland was overrun with T-shirts, each one a point of local pride for its owner. At every stop on a three-day swing throughout the city and its suburbs, people donned shades of tribute to its first sports championship in 52 years.

The town bore a collectively spring in its step, as if this incredibly win scoured away every painful loss and call. Pick your spot and people wore Cavs gear – the museum of art, downtown, Lakewood, Mentor, Shaker Square and everywhere else between. A steady stream of T-shirts and replica jerseys populated every sidewalk. Variations on the championship shirt were impossible to compile, with the gray number the team wore following the game to a simple “CLE” in Cavs’ colors.

Before leaving town, I joined that parade with a simple wine-colored championship shirt, my own bit of local pride raised by victory. The shirts were not hard to find, from department stores to groceries to Drug Mart (for some nostalgic reason, I really miss Drug Mart).

Downtime in Lakewood

Timing of an NBA championship doesn’t hurt. The Cavs won the last three games of the NBA Finals to stun the Golden State Warriors in June (you might have heard something about it), so everyone had a chance to traverse the streets in T-shirts. While the humidity can soar, the summer months somewhat compensate for the long months of winter. Should the other two sports teams ever hoist a trophy, those victories would come in months when the city bundles up for Lake Effect snow. Summer brought us to Cleveland, the hometown I’d not seen since 2009, the longest gap in my lifetime.

Nancy had never been to Cleveland, and I felt we should go when the best weather reigned over Lake Erie. In May when we booked the apartment, championship thoughts were not a factor. No good Clevelander thought it certain until the Game 7 clock burnt through its final seconds. But I wanted her to see the best of Cleveland, not the sudden lake effect snowstorm that can ruin a weekend. We missed a few hot days, arriving to temperatures in the mid-70s.

A frequent visitor on our block

 Our weekend rental dropped us squarely into Lakewood’s dense neighborhoods, giving us run of a first-floor, two-bedroom apartment with a broad porch where we spent many hours. At night the people vanished and the neighborhood became a hunting ground for skunks and the occasional cat.

Upon arrival, we wound through blocks of Lakewood’s historic homes to Lakewood Park, its picturesque public space at land’s edge. The walking path leads to a shore of concrete barriers to dissuade anyone from entering the lake currents. In a few acres we heard a dozen or more languages.

Downtown Cleveland is easily visible, as are power plants in Avon Lake and Eastlake, serving as rough markets for the U-shaped shoreline with Cleveland at its center. We spent a good amount of time with my high school friends Marje and Dru, gallivanting around Lakewood, including stops at Humble Wine Bar and some of the best pizza I ever tasted (fig and prosciutto), then a quick trip back to Lakewood Park demanded by a stunning display of sunset. We had a lot of good times during my years in Columbus -depending on which town got the concert the other did not, I would travel up to Cleveland or they would travel down to Columbus. Ten years later, those memories are still vivid.

The sunsets over Lake Erie were photo-worthy the first two evenings as red and purple streaks sliced up the evening sky, casting fiery touches onto the lake waves. Nancy and I drove back down on Sunday night to again witness the sky on fire. Fireworks rose from several of the east suburbs as we watched the sun escape again.

Afterward we cut over to a new Griffin Cider House on Madison Avenue, an operation that produces its own English-style ciders and complements them with a long list of gins and a few guest taps from local brewers and other cideries. Even as industry fled, Cleveland’s institutions clung to their vibrancy. The orchestra has not diminished, the museum of art runs strongly in its centennial year and Public Square and the outdoor spaces downtown were filled with people. Sure, a casino that holds zero interest for me occupies the old Higbee’s building but downtown malls and department stores went the way of the dinosaur long ago.

We met with my Aunt Ann for lunch at Johnny Mango’s, a nice Ohio City brunch place in Ohio City. We had not seen her since my brother’s memorial, so it was good to catch up with her. We talked about family, travel and the West, with she recounting a trip to see some of the places her father (my paternal grandfather and doppelganger) visited on the Pine Ridge reservation in the 1930s.

After she gave us a painting of bison grazing in Colorado snow, perfectly fitting our living room décor, we debarked for the Cleveland Museum of Art via a circuitous route past the Westside Market, the monolith figures guarding each entrance to the Hope Memorial Bridge before heading down East Ninth Street through a city bustling on Sunday afternoon.

The Cultural Gardens remain one of Cleveland’s underrated public spaces, little pocket parks within the massive Rockefeller Park complex. Started a century ago with the British Garden, Rockefeller now hosts 31 gardens on MLK Avenue and East Boulevard honor the different cultures of Cleveland. As the city’s diversity widens, more gardens have been added, with Latvian, Syrian and Albanian among those constructed in the past decade. The gardens lead to the city’s museum campuses.

The museum of art still basks in the glow of a recent renovation that vaulted the august museum into the 21st century. New and old buildings are connected by an enclosed courtyard with ample natural light. For a moment, it feels like stepping outside, but the air-conditioning gives up its true nature. I won’t waste time detailing the permanent exhibits other than it is hard to hit them all in a day. I remember trying as a teenage and not entirely succeeding.

The exhibits brush the roots of civilization, dip into ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome (stop at the gallery of severed Roman statue heads), then it’s onto canvas from the Renaissance to the 21st century. The Impressionism collection tops most traveling Impressionism exhibits, and from crossbows to its numerous suits, the Armor Court is just plain fun. I could have spent hours in that hall alone.

For lunch we tried Shaker Square, a 1920s-era shopping development built around two train lines. The square was sparsely populated. We quickly found out why - A large minority of local eateries closed for the July 4th holiday, winnowing our options for ethnic food. We enjoyed a fine meal at Fire over several glasses of wine.

The house that we used to live in

 It’s easy for media to resort to Cleveland stereotypes – yes, the Cuyahoga was filthy in its day and what sports show hasn’t leaned on the crushing moments (we know what they are). There are plenty of small industrial rivers still recovering. But the town has never devolved into the cesspit of popular narrative. It has charms from the Carnegie Bridge over the Cuyahoga to Free Stamp to Shaker Square. Its an extremely poor town in places and faces some severe racial divides- we must not lose sight of Cleveland's struggles - but it possesses its own richness.

Even Mentor acquitted itself well on a short visit. Years of bad-mouthed its white-washed suburban nature constructed a vision of a place worse than its reality. The horse pastures still sat opposite the mall and other heavily developed places, while the Garfield house’s 19th century purple hues set it among the Mentor Avenue homes.

First Mentor house, 1982--84

Another house did not look as vibrant as I hoped. The foliage on the Chillicothe Road home, at 12 years my longest residence, was painfully overgrown.

The two trees in the front yard obscured much of the house, including the little brick courtyard by the front door. One tree that my mother groomed to break up the sunlight streaming into my parents’ bedroom no stood taller than the mature one in the middle of the front yard. Branches covered a full wing of the L-shaped ranch.

A side-yard was now enveloped in overgrown shrubs and pines. Maybe it’s just the town in general. Even the Melville's first Mentor house, a rental a few miles away on Little Mountain, sported some wild greenery that overran the picket fence surrounding the backyard.

Boston Mills area, CVNP

 Elsewhere on the trip, shrubbery reclaiming the wilderness fit the surroundings more comfortably. Entering the lush riverscape of Cuyahoga Valley National Park a certain REM song meandered through my skull. The Cuyahoga River that became a national punchline while also pushing passage of clean water laws was much cleaner at its upper reaches in the 21st century.

No natural wonder in Ohio approaches the majesty of Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. Glaciers flattened out this land and millions of years sanded down its mountains. Politics obviously played a role in its conversion from a national recreation area to a national park, but it's better to enjoy the public space for what it offers than to compare it against western majesties.

Within this river lies a resurrection story paired with history from Indians to pioneers to modern conservation. Much like those western landmarks, advocates who championed Cuyahoga Valley Park made their care for a unique space deserving of presentation. Like most park sites, the ancient history plays into what drove settlers to this site. From here Indian cultures that traded across watersheds. While the Cuyahoga empties into Lake Erie, an eight-mile portage from the river headwaters leads to the Tuscarawas River, a tributary of the Ohio and the cultures of the Mississippi.

Old lock near the present-day beaver marsh

Pioneers would construct the Ohio & Erie Canal; its 41 locks, three aqueducts and 37 miles of navigable water would tie Akron to Cleveland, a better system than the time’s rough wagon roads. Eventually the canal would stretch across Ohio, tying Lake Erie to the Ohio, but railroads would soon render the system obsolete. The Towpath Trail is a beautiful public space, a flat bike and hiking path that follows the old canal, again tying Cleveland to Akron. The beaver marsh once housed an auto salvage yard before the return of lodges and dams spurred a cleanup.

At the Boston Mills visitor center, early 20th century mill buildings have been repurposed. A nice display illustrates the canal boats and includes rib from one of the original craft. It’s a culture that was so critical to early 19th century commerce but forgotten as the railroad arrived.

Take a picture here, take a souvenir ... Cuyahoga

The Boston Mills buildings sit near the scenic railroad line and the river, where a small army of kayakers swept through its brisk currents. We had a nice lunch of sandwiches and sides from Trail Mix, a small store housed in a vintage building. A series of picnic tables and patio furniture filled the wooded lawn outside as columns of cyclists pedaled by. For all the people using the park, it never felt crowded. Highway bridges soared above portions of the valley.

In the marsh, we spotted no actual beavers, but the bullfrogs croaked away, a snapping turtle lazily guarded a shallow gap in the lily pads and a wide spectrum of birds cruised throughout the marsh. Like most national parks we left with a sense that we had more to explore.

CVNP incorporates numerous metro park, city green space and state holdings, so there are any number of trails and restored homesteads beyond the narrow strip we covered. After a cookout at Marjie and Dru’s apartment as the rain hastened in the early evening, we joined the parade. Clifton Boulevard hosted its annual parade that morning, but by 9 p.m. the entirety of Lakewood flowed toward the lakefront.


Thousands of people surged into Lakewood Park, clouds blunting any sunset impact as the Lakewood High School rock band journeyed through multiple rock favorites with a heavy emphasis on violin. The inclusion of Europe’s The Final Countdown hinted at imminent fireworks, yet they continued for several more tracks before the rockets illuminated the sky.

After 20-plus minutes of eye-popping fireworks, the same crowd surged back out. Saying goodbyes to Dru and Marje, I hoped we would not go through another seven-year drought of visits. Nancy and I stopped for a nightcap at one of the neighborhood bars around our rental. The corner bar is something I really miss.

With the rest of the country back to work on Tuesday, we turned the corner from our rental for a final stop – Tommy’s Pastries. We spent 20 minutes in the Hungarian bakery as the owner/baker proudly outlined all his wares. We left with some breakfast croissants and numerous fruit-filled delights for the eight-hour ride back to Nashville. These were all new experiences in the place where I grew up.

I think of all we could have hit – the natural history museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a drive past the west suburbs along the lake, the house from A Christmas Story, the Old Arcade and many others – but Cleveland has too much to experience in a single visit. Travel writers from coastal publications try to sum up Cleveland in a few hours, but they always miss the richness and nuance of culture here.

We had already bid good-bye to the giant porch of our rental and the quiet neighborhood around it. Cleveland and its environs will always be home, the deepest roots I know. I really hated rolling out this time, knowing it might be years before I returned. I find something worthwhile in every place Nancy and I visit, but immersing ourselves in Northeast Ohio brought back the best of the place I knew first.

The Lake Erie sunsets are hard to beat.