Arthur Charles Scott

As I told you, Joe, our number on Dorchester was SK(yline) 2-4745.

I think our number in Cleveland Heights on Wood Rd, across from the newly built Severance Milliken Elementary School, was Ev(ergreen) 2-0061, though that might possibly been my friend Rich's number, who lived a block away.  We moved to Shaker mid-7th grade, which landed me in the also freshly-built Byron & then to Shaker High.

Just don't ask me where I put my keys 20 minutes ago . . . 

Art

Alan M Cohen

Skyline 1-2016. We had one line. If you got a busy signal you called back n

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

I was Skyline 7.... Can't remember the rest. Betsy

Joseph G Blake

Great stories. I love the party line story. Very funny. My father's family had this big Edwardian farm house in Ontario. My father's eldest sister lived there in an Edwardian museum down to the large picture of Queen Alexandra and her grandchildren, a famous print of that era. 
Aunt Mary kept the house unchanged after WW2. No electricity. She had a windup phone that reached Central and you asked for your party. Then Bell Canada replaced it late 1950s with a party line. I do recall my other aunt Loretta listening in. Nothing was new to her.

We always had big phone bills because most of the business calls were all long distance even when to the next coubty. Now you can call almost everywhere with no additional charge. 
I am happy to say these phone bills were deducted for tax purposes. 

I hang the keys in the car in the garage so I know where they are. They are on a Kenyon College lanyard from my daughter when she graduated. I hang that around my kneck when I get out of the car while on errands. I probably look like Paddington when he arrived in London from Peru. 

Joe

Craig Miller

Telephone numbers aside, how's your recall on your very first airplane ride. My 1st and finest as a ten year old was Island Airlines from South Bass Island to Sandusky. A ten minute ride on a 1929 Ford Trimotor, by golly. One of the few still air worthy. All 12 seats were full, and the aisle had a lot of 2x4 lumber. The pilot told me to sit in the copilots's seat. "Just don't touch anything." All totally illegal by today's standards, but heck. What a thrill ride.

Joseph G Blake

Ah good questuon as well.

Spring 1959 for my first trip to Washington DC

The year before my Canadian father took to Ottawa and the Canadian parliament. 
Also a beautiful city but in a very different way. 

Toni London (Landau)

Cheryl Kushner (Lane)

LOngacre 1-0347, and it was a party line with the elderly couple who lived upstairs in our two-family house on Menlo.

Bonnie Beran (Franks)

Cheryl, our number was LOngacre1-0348! 

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Joe~

My first plane ride was at the advanced age of 17, in 12/64, from St Louis home to Cleveland for Freshman year Winter Break from Wash U.  Margie Perlberg and I clutched hands and giggled hysterically as the plane took off.  And I think we were served a full meal en route, by stewardesses, not "flight attendants" - ah, those were the days!

Joseph G Blake

I love the stories. 
Craig, do you recall the business that had the jingle Garfield 1-2323.

I recall the jingle but not the name. Maybe I should try it's modern version with 216 added. 

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

I remember way back in my brain. I can even hear the jingle. But that is it!

Craig Miller

Hello Joseph and all,

The number belongs to Home Corporation. They have been, for many years a home improvement, roofing and siding company. Today their number is 216-421-2323. If you look at the numbers on your smart phone, the "4" is "G" and the "2" is "A". So, the number has held, all these years.

The big battle back in the day was the the new vinyl siding. It beat traditional wood siding hands down and even the new aluminum siding which could get creased and pitted. "Vinyl is Final".

....and then, it was time for Ghoulardi.

Alaina Weisman (Zachary)

GHOULARDI!!!!  Papa ooh mau mau!!!!! The drink, that dreadful concoction at Manners Big Boy got you a plastic mug with his image on it! Of course I had one. I also had a standing Friday night date with Ghoulardi where my snack of choice was tuna on rye with a big slice of red onion.

Years later, as a professional actor in NYC, I ran into Ernie Anderson at my agent's. A privilege to tell him how much I adored him and his wacky show.

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

My husband knew Little John on Ghoulardi at Ohio State.  I remember meeting Little John a few times. 

Joseph G Blake

This may be apcrophal but I heard Andersen was annoyed that he got the late nught Friday slot. So he invented Ghoulardi hoping it would fail. Well it made him famous and more. He was really tough on Dorothy Fuldheim and Parma. 
Some may recall a book called Crooked River Burning which combines a fictional story about a girl from Shaker and a boy from Kelly's Island. The book provides great profiles of major figures in Cleveland between  1948 and 1970. Dorothy Fuldheim was one of them along with various mayors of the era and the infamous Shepherd case. Ghoulardi did not make it.

Craig Miller

Ghoulardi didn't make it, probably because he blew up half the TV studio on Friday nights.  I couldn't believe the chaos he got away with. "Cool it with the boom-booms". And yes, he was relentless with "La Dorothy". A shining light (my teenage POV)  in Cleveland history that TV producers and lawyers were happy to see fade away.

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Totally unrelated to Ghoulardi, but still related to our collective Shaker Heights heritage, I'm sharing this NYT Magazine feature on the two last actual Shakers in the world today - in Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/magazine/shakers-utopia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.K04.68cD.nTu6iMpcsBcu&smid=url-share - This link is "unlocked" so should open for anyone interested in reading...  or skimming... or looking at the pictures!  Described as "one of the longest-running utopian experiments in America".  Quite fascinating to me, anyhow~

Joseph G Blake

Thanks Dana. 
Good article.

I recall hearing about the last Shaker 30 plus years ago. Cynics thought he wanted the money. Apparently not. 

The other well known utopian community was the Oneida Communuty in New York. It's legacy is both Oneida, NY and the Oneida Silver Company. You may have older pieces from your grandmother which were produced under the name Community Plate. 

Lauren Brahms (Resnik)

Bonnie Pollack

Thank you for remembering me on my birthday!

Hope you like your new neighbor.

Best, Lauren

Stewart M Flate

Chuck Fuer was a good guy, so may he rest in peace.

Joseph G Blake

Dear All,

It is that time of the year when most of us start celebrating the various holidays at year end starting with Thanksgiving this week and then Chanukah or Christmas and then the New Year. This year Chanukah starts Decemberr 25. So let me be among the first to wish the best of the season and the holidays you observe. 

A few memories. Friday November 22 was the 61st anniversary of JFK's assasination. It too was a Friday. The year book photographer took my picture and used it in the year book that day a few minutes before we knew what happened.

Not long go I was thinkng about all the poles and signs at major intersections now. This is especially true if the intersection also is a RTA rapid stop. Sometime in the late 50s I recall they installed traffic lights on Van Aken. Until then we used stop signs. The stop signs were yellow then with a little Shaker person at the bottom.  Then they adopted red and the Shaker person disappeared. Traffic today would never allow that for long.

But the intersections now seem to have almost too many signs and arrows or am I just getting old and confused? Do not answerr that. I think I know the answer.  See you all for our group 80th in 2026.

Happy Holidays,

Joe Blake

Alaina Weisman (Zachary)

My very funny Aunt Nanny saved everything. Over Thanksgiving in Cleveland, her daughter, Andrea Bloch Vederman, gave me a pile of things. This was from 1961 Byron Jr. High. Henry Slater, the Latin teacher, directed us in Life with Father and we all had to dye our hair very red. What a thrill. I also got to faint onstage. Very sexy. I became a redhead for all of my career until going gray. Neil Glazer, Scott Fields and me from '64.

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

What a great memory!

Joseph G Blake

What a great photo. Thank you Alaina and Aunt Nanny. To date it is stil the longest running non musical production on Broadway with 3224 performances or over 400 weeks. 

Someplace years ago I think I read it opened in Cleveland before NYC but I could not find that link just now.  I recall laughing heartily because sometimes the dialog in the play between Mother and Father reminded me of some discussions between my parents when my father fully retired at 80. Suddenly they had expenses they shared and discussed. Before that they never discussed money unless it was a major project for the house like a kitchen. Mother had a very good allowance for decades and my father never questioned what she did. She paid all the household bills etc. His  business expenses were of more interest to the IRS than my mother, So I found the debate about who was to blame about a broken teapot in the play like my parents in retirement. The movie featured William Powell and Irene Dunn, an incomparable pair for the roles. 

Of course the play may be said to be why Father had to be baptized. The family firm on Wall Street eventually merged and became Tucker Day Anthony in 1942 and eventually disappeared into Royal Bank of Canada in 2001. 

I almost named my youngest child Whitney after the son in the play. But I did not want to have confusion with the actress and later the singer both named Whitney Blake. 

Alaina, I am sure you were better than Irene Dunn as Mother Day. 

Joe