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.
