The Morgantowner: Cleveland- July 2018

My sister Robin couldn't get tickets to an art exhibit she really wanted to see in Washington, so she offered me and Joe an all-expense paid trip to Cleveland to see the same exhibit. I told her the week of the twenty-third was good because City Council was to meet the third, seventeenth and thirty-first of July, so I would be free. Only a majority of the Council voted to change the schedule to the tenth, twenty-fourth and thirty-first so people could go away over 4th of July. Last year, many of us rode bikes at Morgantown's 4th of July parade and I thought we might do that again. Anyway, we ended up in Toronto on July 4th.

I told Robin that Southern Airways had moved its Washington to Morgantown flight to Baltimore-Washington airport, the closest to my sister's house in Maryland. She flew to us Sunday, July 22nd, on one of the toy airplanes (eight seats total) that Southern runs, and it was generally a good experience. A good Morgantown airport joke was when Robin asked "Do you have to get the car?" and I said "It's right here." I had parked across the driveway in the airport, three steps from the door to the terminal.

Sunday was Tisha B'Av, a Jewish day of mourning and fasting, which Robin and I have never observed, but Joe does, so she and I partied with friends at Mark Brazaitis' house for his birthday and marking the end of the excellent West Virginia Writers Workshop, which I attended last year, but not this year. We adjourned to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Joe could eat after dark, so we had snacks with him, and Robin and Joe played Scrabble.

We left Tuesday to drive to Cleveland, 203 miles to our hotel on the west side. My nephew's wife's grandmother, Nancy, lives in Akron, with her husband Russ, and on seeing that we were heading to Ohio, asked us to come and have dinner with them. We napped at the hotel, and agreed to meet them in Akron. They took us out to the restaurant in the hotel where Russ is a partner on the Cuyahoga River in Cuyahoga Falls. It's a beautiful place built right on the river. Nancy and Robin got a chance to talk about the newlyweds. Everyone else had drinks, so much hilarity ensued.

Wednesday was our day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on the waterfront, near downtown Cleveland. I knew a lot of stuff there, but it was interesting to see it all in one place, and of course my rock and roll memories predate your average American's by thirty or forty years. We spent a lot of time there. In the evening, we found a synagogue on the west side, and explored Birdtown, a now very mixed working class neighborhood full of ethnic churches, where all the streets are named for birds. We also discovered an old-time Jewish Deli, Rubin's, on the west side. Robin had an inexpensive but enormous corned beef sandwich. We looked at the fancy houses on Lake Erie in Lakewood. Our guidebook said to catch the sunset from Lakewood Park. We were there about 8:55, ten minutes early, but couldn't find a parking spot.

We had tickets to the art exhibit, Yayoi Kusama's "Infinity Mirrors" at 1:15 Thuursday. We headed out in the morning to Cleveland Heights, a suburb east of Cleveland, once mostly Jewish, now mixed, but predominantly African-American. I wanted to see The Park Synagogue, opened in 1950 and designed by Erich Mendelssohn, a former teacher at Germany's Bauhaus School of Art in the 1920s and early 1930s, who fled to the United States. We found the synagogue after some searching, took a few pictures and were chased off by a security guard, who was upset that we were on the grounds. Park Synagogue is affiliated Conservative, and they maintain this building and a newer one farther out in the suburbs. Most of the Reform synagogues (our movement) are in Beechwood, another few miles out. Only the Orthodox community has decided to stay in Cleveland Heights, where synagogues are on major streets allowing one to walk to them on Sabbath and holidays. We drove through that area, and also found a commercial historic district with banners honoring Harvey Pekar, a famous cartoonist from the area.

We were back at the museum before noon, just as well, as it was hot and humid outside. We had lunch in the museum, which is two buildings, one from 1909 in a classical style, and a much more modern building of recent vintage.We ate salads in their cafeteria, and since our tickets were timed, we saw photos by Danny Lyons, about lower Manhattan being torn down for urban renewal in the 1960s, and an exhibit of William Morris fabrics and book illustrations, from the "Pre-Raphaelites," an anti-modern group of designers from the late nineteenth century.

Yayoi Kasama is a Japanese-born artist, active in Japan, New York and London. In her early days, in the 1960s, she painted people who went to demonstrations naked. I was disappointed that we couldn't get naked and be painted. The thrust of the exhibit was her "Infinity Mirrors," a series of boxes, maybe six by eight feet. Two or three people walk in, and they give you thirty seconds to look around before they pull you out.. There is a narrow walkway for a few people, and maybe two feet of sculptures on each side, and mirrors. It's amazing. I'll show you pictures at the end of this post.

We stopped at the gift shop on the way out, where Joe bought a polka dot Kasama mug, and we each got a tie, mine in a William Morris pattern, his in a Gustav Klimt pattern. We headed back to the motel before rush hour really kicked in, and napped.

Robin wanted to go to Tremont, an up-and-coming neighborhood of trendy restaurants and bars. We picked a restaurant called "Fahrenheit." I had my doubts, as they had valet parking for seven dollars. I parked two blocks away for free. That might have been a mistake, because, shortly after we decided to eat inside, it started to pour. Anyway, the food was delicious, not cheap, and the service was excellent. I ran back to get the car, and we planned to stop at a cake and ice cream store for dessert. That store was just closing when we arrived, so we found another ice cream place and got carry-out cups .

We headed home Friday. Our hotel took Robin to the nearby airport, and Joe and I prepared to go. We were getting gas at the station next to the motel when Joe's phone rang. Robin's flight to Baltimore was cancelled because of a prediction of bad storms in Maryland. We picked her up at the airport and we all drove back to Morgantown without incident, stopping for lunch at Eat and Park in Franklin Park, north of Pittsburgh. Robin flew out on Southern from Morgantown Saturday.

We miss big cities now that we live in Morgantown. Cleveland has a bad reputation but we liked it there and may go back. Pittsburgh is closer to us and Washington is a very big deal, only getting to Washington involves driving over the mountains, which can be rough.

I travel to many places, often alone. It was great, for once, to have Joe and Robin with me.