[geodeticman.5]

PART 2 - old file Belated B-day present to Wes Steel ! - more Cleveland memories to share...dubious if good, 2 long, but its a present - no complaints ! lol

'ere ya go: part II retro-actively past yer birthday - hope it was a good one:

Wes, great review ! The Home of The Rock-and Roll Hall of Fame Lives !

As a fellow Clevelander ( I grew up there 1958 - 1975, If you count the move

out to N. Olmsted when I was 3; still a suburb of Cleve., Dad worked at LERC,

now Glenn Research Center, out in BrookPark - the Fed complex NASA , and also

some days out to PlumBrook - wonder if that reactor is still live?) and

finished my senior yr of High School in our new location for home out in Estes

Park, Colorado; I "townied" there a couple years after High School and worked

to save money and traveled; got that bug out, finally went to CSU, then met

Merry in Estes, married for life 28 years ( you might not have been around when

I posted about my loss of Merry, don't think so...)

Anyway from a fellow Clevelander, excellent job on the review. I appreciate it.

You know, as a Great Lakes State, and Cleveland being a waterfront City on Lake

Erie, I recall TWOTEF being A VERY big song there when I went back to visit,

Summer after High School graduation in '76. What with Cleveland mentioned in

the song, I doubt that made MUCH difference, It was just real big for like 6

months as I recall. Do you mind mentioning what part of Cleveland you are from

(if you are) ? &if so, do you remember North Olmsted ?
Home of "The Eagles" - our team , not the band..... We were: 'sports-wise', in

the Southwestern Conference - I ran the 1/4 , pole-vaulted (badly...), and ran

cross-country in the Rocky River Valley alot,which I understand is a State-Park

now, or something bigger than what it was when I ws a kid - a metro-park system

city park - all 75 miles of it horse-shoeing around Cleveland (The Diamond

Necklace Trail).

Other Cleland area (mostly suburbs) cruisng with friends in the "plush-chamber

vans" - with black lights, sea-faring-eqsue fishing-nets strung in the ceiling

with those weird blown coloted glass balls...., shag carpeting, the mini-

fridge, bean-bag passenger chairs (I'd roll back head-over-heals when Frank

would "nail it" lol....., and 'South-side Johhny and the Asbury Jukes' playing

on the 8-track, along woth Gordon, The Boss, Aerosmith, PinkFloyd, Van

Morrison, Cat Stevens, and Led Zeppelin.... , cruisin, hanging out at 'Cyrus

Erie West' when we were 16 ( pretzels and soda) , and a 3.2 that was named

after some big pink pig ? Porky's ? LOL I can't remember,

Sunday; friends, summer cook-outs down in the Rocky River Valley; charcoal lit,

"The Rascal's Sunday song" playing on a car-stereo, tossin the pigskin and

frisbees with the dog and us "motor-heads" all parked out on the grass radial-

style- hoping to impress the 'chics" driving by lol....oh the cars....polishing

the wash, rinse and wax with a $20 chamois. My car was the '70 GTO 'Goat' Judge

edition, 400 autmomatic with a shift kit, painted forest green metallic with

silver-metallic hood raised 'rocket' ; fully driveway 'built', ( no rotisserie

-style state-of-the-art ground-ups on a 5 yr. old car anyway on tomatoe-

picker's agricultural minimum wage ...lol) - anyway that 'goat' had an after-

marjet "1/2 race-cam" - 580 lift 260 duration if I remember right) - so it

woukd still idle at stop-light w/o dieing, and I had Holley Double Pumper 650's

x 2 on it, headers.


Here are a couple of 'locals' blasts from the pat that might or mght not still

be there, you tell me:

* Terminal Tower (our 3/4 scale Empire State Bldg.) that had the "rapid

transit" electric mass-transit trains converge down in the sub-basements of

that very-spooky-to-a-little-kid-train "basement" . Man some of the train cars

looked 'so old', many off to the side; off the tracks - Like the yellow Shaker

Heights ($$$) train cars, and - just a bunch of what must have been before the

uniform rapid transit authority, previously each suburb of Denver , i.e.

Shaker Heights, Berea, Parma, etc. seemed to have OLD cars of their own off to

the side of the tracks, each decorated different, very colorful when new I am

sure, lot of Ferous-red (rust! duhh ) ones, but they looked to be WWII-era....

do you know if *real* trains went throught the terminal tower besides just the

electric Rabbit Transit ? -

And I recall the 'mysterious' Easterly end-o-the-line shown on the map in the

trains as : (what was it, Wynsor, Westvacott:Chilicothe, something unusual

sounding and it started with a 'W' I think-- - I know ! - it ws 'Willougby -

the Edge of the World to a kid"

-but I was REAL little - I thought "Rapid Transit" was pronounced "Rabbit

Transit" until I was about 5. The whole system did not get out to WASP'y North

Olmsted at all, I recall we had to drive to Fairview Park to get on board to go

"downstown" - that was a BIG deal when I was 3 - 5. So NOW i hear the Terminal

Tower is converted to a SHOPPING MALL inside where the trains used to

come....,multi-floored... what happened to mass-transit ? My old High Scool

Friend Frank who's now moved south of Cleveland (he was in Lakewood) out into

the south of Brunswick area, but still drives into Cleveland for big jobs -

high-steel and wood millwork both - last time we talked - he was VP of the

Cleveland Labour Union - the Joiners- - think. He said it was the best way to

ensure year-round work.Old High Scool girlfriend is an att'y in Brunswisk now,

too.

He did a lot of the retro-fit of the terminal tower ---- turned - mall in th3

lower 8 floors or something. Dand it the East end of the line on the rapid

transit is going to drive me crazy....the name ofthe town is on the tip of

my tongue.... and as a 4 year old, seeing the electric-litmap inside the train

as we road through huge, vasr areas of junkyards and steel works refuew - which

I here are gone now and paved over and subdivision and all...but at 4 yrs old-

looking at that map, lghts blinking for the upcoming stop, like '68th st

station' etc,or 'Berea', etc. seeing that LAST town I'd otherwise never heard

of, must have ben another 30 miles or so down east along the waterfront of Lake

Erie. seemd like it had to be the EDGE OF THE WORLD to me....lol.