REVIEW AND UPDATE

REVIEW AND UPDATE

I started writing this blog about eight years ago.  My goal was to capture my memories of life growing up in East Cleveland during the 1940’s and 50’s.  Since then I have written about my two neighborhoods, (Shaw/Plymouth and Caledonia) and my three schools, (Prospect, Kirk and Shaw).  I also wrote several essays about how we lived back in those times.

My original thought was that I should preserve those memories to pass them on to my children.  That was prompted by the death of my parents and many of the older generation in my family.  I then realized that there were no more people for me to ask about how things were back in the day.  I wasn’t sure if anyone, including my own children, would be interested in my memories.  However it turned out that readers have hit on this blog over 40,000 times in the last 8 years, an average of about 5,000 per year.  There have been months when there were 900 to 1000 hits.  That was when some professors had my blog on their reading lists.  I also had the opportunity to lecture about East Cleveland, its past and prospects for the future, for a class at Case Western Reserve University.

The interest in my blog has been very gratifying.  Many of my readers are from my generation and they have told me how my experiences were just like theirs.  I have gotten to know many readers who are 10 or more years younger or older then I, who also had similar experiences growing up in East Cleveland.  Some of our landmarks were different over the years but the changes were gradual.  For example, there was no Royal Castle at Taylor and Euclid when I lived there.  The folks who remember the Royal Castle probably don’t remember Hoffman’s Malt shop across the street on the North side of Euclid Avenue.  The landmarks changed but the general character of the neighborhood stayed the same.  The sad thing for most of us is that almost all of our landmarks have become vacant, vandalized or empty lots.  Thomas Wolfe is famous for saying “You can’t go home again”.  That is true in the literal sense for those of us who lived in East Cleveland.  But we can go back in our memories. 

The success of this blog is just one manifestation of the great interest in East Cleveland among those of us who lived there during the 1940’s 50’s and 60’s.  Additional evidence of that interest is the fact that there are two successful Facebook pages devoted to East Cleveland as well as a Shaw High page.  Just look up East Cleveland on Facebook.  There is also an active Shaw High Lunch Bunch, which hosts lunch meetings three times a year in May, August and November.  Over 200 Shaw High graduates and those who attended Shaw during the 1930’s through the 1960’s attend those luncheons.

As long as my memory holds up, I will keep writing about my East Cleveland experiences.  I urge all of you who read these essays to make comments. Please include some of your own memories of East Cleveland.  As a matter of fact, many of you have made very interesting comments and I urge everyone to read them.  They appear at the end of each section of the blog.  If anyone has an extended comment, which you would like to share as a separate posting, please contact me at rcd2@case.edu.  You may also contact me with general questions about the blog.