Gloria Ferris

This week heralds the yearly Brookside Center Thanksgiving food drive for my community-Brooklyn Centre as well as Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn. Part of the Westside Ecumenical ministry, Brookside Center helps those most in need in our community by stocking a food pantry, resale shop, and supporting people who need to find resources to help them through rough times. Donations of food or cash  can be dropped off directly to Brookside Center at 3784 Pearl Road.

Or, you can stop by The Ugly Broad Tavern tonight for a taco. And, your question is “what does Taco Night at 3908 Denison Avenue have to do with a local food drive?”  A lot, actually. Bring a food or cash donation  and YOU will receive a FREE taco. If you supplement that taco with a cold beer, some friendly conversation with friends and neighbors, and the good feeling you get  from giving you have the makings of a warm and cozy evening in Cleveland.

Forgive me, but I couldn’t let this Ohio misdirection stand without correction.  Got this today from Positively Cleveland.

“Erie” House of Horrors: Ghostly Manor

The castle that is Ghostly Manor. East of Cleveland, near the Lake Erie shores of Sandusky, there’s a supernatural sort of fun brewing. They call it Ghostly Manor and the spooky castle looms large off of U.S. Route 250, on Woodlawn Avenue near Oakland Cemetery…

I read it once. I read it twice. Since when is Sandusky, EAST of Cleveland, US Route 250 cut through my hometown on its way north to Lake Erie.  The place and the idea for a road trip this time of year sounds great, but if you leave Cleveland travelling east you will probably find an adventure you are not expecting.  LOST!!!

ALL ACCESS FAIR:

Walk+Roll Cleveland comes to our neighborhood this weekend with the All Access Fair sponsored by Old Brooklyn CDC and others.  http://walkroll.com/specialevents/details.php?unid=550

The event kicks off at 10 am and winds down at 4 p.m.  For details, i have included two access points.  Bicycle tours, walking tours and much more will be available throughout the day.

BROOKSTOCK:

Shortly after, an evening of musical entertainment will begin at The Brookside Reservation.  This year access off Denison Avenue will be restricted due to bridge construction.  Next year we should have pedestrian access from our side of the bridge.  Entry this year will be off Ridge Road.

http://www.clemetparks.com/events/brookstock.asp

And throughout the weekend, the annual West 44th Street Neighborhood Garage Sale will be taking place.  The small neighborhood nestled on a brick lined street off Denison Avenue will once again, amaze its patrons with the quality of the merchandise and the sellers’ ability to bargain with their buyers.  This sale is a garage sale browser’s dream in reality.  

HOURS OF SALE:

July 18^th and 19th, 2009

10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Just received this email from our friend Dennis, the inventor.

Come see the speakers at Euclid side of Halle
Building during the ingenuity fest   Please forward this to all your friends.

Sent from my iPhone
Dennis All-Tronics
Builders of one of the finest  speaker systems in the world.
WWW.Atssounds.com
WWW.all-tronics.net

He has invented the most awesome speaker I have ever experienced.   Yes, it is an experience-not hearing, not listening, but experiencing.  Everyone I talk to who has head them say it is hard to  describe  to those who have not yet seen them and sat in the seat to hear them.  Kind of like being right there in the concert hall.  And a piano, the sound of a piano at its best if you can’t be there live.

Stop by when you are strolling down Euclid Avenue enjoying the Engenuity Fest!

Each year,  Sherry Perry, the owner of The Ugly Broad Tavern in my neighborhood, Brooklyn Centre, sponsors a series of fundraisers to benefit a local cause.  Last year three tiny children-Ainia, JJ and CC Cintron lost their lives through violence.  This year, in their memory,  Providence House will be the beneficiary of Sherry’s fundraising efforts.  Last year with the help of friends, neighbors, and patrons Sherry raised $3000 for Breast Cancer Research.

This weekend Saturday June 20th is the Kick-off or should I say Kick-ass fundraiser.  Do you love riding your motorcycle?  Do you love playing Poker?  Do you just want something different to do on a Summer Saturday? Do you like bar hopping?  Answer “yes” to any one of those questions and you need to be part of:

 THE Ugly Broad POKER RUN

  Here are the details:  Sunday, June 20th $15.00 per Bike $20.00 per Couple-Last Bike Out Noon (12 p.m.)  Tickets available at THE UGLY BROAD 3908 Denison Avenue Cleveland OH 44109  216-351-9826.

Johnny T’s  Old Route 8

Caddyshack 1429 West 130th.

West River Cafe 24517 West River Road

Froggy’s 22115 Brookpark Road

Be Back to The Ugly Broad by 6 p.m.

This is the annual Archwood Street Fair of renown.* We’ve been having it for so many years now I have to ask somebody else when it all started–I think it was in 1980-something. Originally, we tried to sell a lot of rehab and restoration items as well as antiques, and that is still the basic purpose. It now also functions as a way for all of us to clean house, so it’s taken on aspects of the huge neighborhood garage sale as well. Some of us who don’t live on Archwood actually haul our stuff in the night before. The inventory is usually pretty good.

Further, some entrepreneurs now set up food stands and assorted flea market venues. It’s a real melting pot…Open source. It’s also ideal for bicycles and walking.

The stated hours are from 9 AM-6 PM on Saturday and 10 AM-5 PM on Sunday, and some people stay open a little longer, and some people wrap up early.

This year will also feature some fun, music, and art events.   Brooklyn Centre Naturalists will have a table set up near the action.  Stop by our booth and see how easy it is to become a wildlife habitat.  Buy one of our raffle tickets for a chance to win an incredible basket full of gardening treasures.  Any of you  who attended Earth Fest this year knows how incredible Greg Cznadel’s baskets were.  If you can, check out the joint gardening project of Brooklyn Memorial Church and us.

Yesterday, I read the Plain Dealer article about Smith’s Dairy going “green” and remembered a field trip from my elementary school years.  Today, the same article shows up in the day’s roundup over on Crain’s so I took it as a sign to blog about that field trip. 

Every school had a few-the “special” kids.  In the 1950′s, there were no special education classes that separated anyone from the “mainstream”.  We were just all in it together.  Field trips were always a challenge for our teachers with ALL the  kids because we were a “rowdy” bunch.  The “buddy system” back then was a “must”.

For purposes of this story, “Jimmy” had not one buddy but two buddies.  Basically because two of the boys had a disagreement on whose turn it was to team up with Jimmy.  By now, you know the lead character’s name in this story is not really Jimmy, but the name is inconsequential, and,  it is better to protect the “innocent”. 

At our elementary school,  there was a traditional sequence of field trips.  Kindergarten was a walk through the picturesque town of Shreve and our first trip to the Town Library which was located in the Town Hall topped off with a picnic on school grounds.  First grade was a trip to the train depot, boarding a passenger train for our trip to picturesque Wooster  followed by a picnic and afternoon of play at Wooster Park. 

Second grade was one of the FAVORITES handed down from class to class-Smith’s Dairy in ORRVILLE followed by a picnic and an afternoon of play at Orrville Park.   Needless to say at seven years-old as fascinating as watching bottles being washed, placed on a conveyer belt system and filled with milk, capped, and then, boxed would be– the making of the ice cream was the piece d’ resistance. Each of us would be receiving an individual cup of ice cream to be consumed at the park with our brown bag lunches.  Before we received this treat, we were told that we would need to find our “buddies” and walk through the HUGE walk in freezer where the ice cream was stored for distribution of our ice cream treats

To this day, I believe that I remember How VERY, VERY cold that walk-in freezer was.  No one tarried in that place!  Later, as we sat at the picnic tables eating our lunches and ice cream.  Someone noticed that “Jimmy” was missing.  Everyone immediately looked at the two boys that were assigned to be his buddies.  Both of them thought the other one was responsible for being his buddy, and therefore, NO ONE had been his buddy.  Obviously, a classic example of miscommunication between teacher and student. 

The last time anyone remembered seeing him was right before we walked into that big freezer.   Miss Plantain (another alias) screamed and went to wake up the bus driver for the long drive back to the dairy.  Twenty minutes later,  they returned with a nearly frozen Jimmy in tow.  He had been found sitting on a tub of ice cream patiently waiting for rescue by one of  the Smith Dairy truck drivers.   

We all had to sit through a lecture on responsibility and how when given a task we should follow through.  To this day, I do not how our teachers thought we shouldered more responsibility than they did for Jimmy sitting on a block of frozen ice cream waiting for rescue.

Tim and I stopped by our favorite neighborhood tavern last night for tacos.  Wednesday is Taco Night at The Ugly Broad.  They are Go-o–d. This time they were exceptional.  Homegrown tomatoes added a special taste treat.  Patrons share their bounty with Sherry’s kitchen.

Little Sherry, Sherry and the rest of the crew are getting ready for the annual Halloween Party. Sherry tells me that Little Sherry is in charge.  Each day it looks just a bit more like Halloween. Sherry let me borrow a flyer so that I could add it to my post.

The menu sounds extremely scrumptious with toad’s eyes, eyes of newt, devil’s eyes, graveyard pizza and a sandwich that is “to die for”.

Since the flyer is a bit small.  Here are the details. 

Saturday, October 25th at 7:00 p.m.

And you will just have to attend to sample the ingredients of that sandwich and the other frightening treats.  I’m not giving away any secrets because I sure don’t need any bewitching spells on me this year.

I just read over on RealNeo that Alenka Banco is opening Josaphat Arts Hall and her Convivium 33 gallery to artists this weekend so that the can sell there wears/wares during the Sparx in the City Gallery Hop this Saturday Sepember 20 and Sunday September 21 from 10 a.m. til 5 p.m.

The really cool thing about this wears/wares sale is that you can arrive early at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday pay $5.00 and be part of an exclusive dealer/public preview.  You ask me why should I get up early and pay money when I can arrive at 10 and pay nothing?  I’ll tell you why because ALL of the admission fees will benefit the Max S. Hayes art students (CMSD)  where my friend Mary Beth Matthews is chair of the Art Department.

Mary Beth is an amazing woman who has also found the time to be a founding member of the Women’s Enterprise Network.  We are a group of women dedicated to empowering women of all ages to do what they want to do.

Tim and I have a busy weekend but I am going to be there at 8:30 a.m. Saturday “with bells on” as they say. 

I just received an email from our friend Bill McDermott.  If you have attended one of the Midtown Brews events, you probably have had the pleasure of making Bill’s acquaintance.  A chemist by trade, he is extremely knowledgeable about alternative energy especially, solar and shares his research freely with the Brews crowd and at RealNeo where he has a blog.  He reads extensively and freely shares what he learns with the rest of us.  In essence, he is my newspaper clipper on all things green.

The email was to promote the upcoming Ohio Solar Energy Tour coming our way this October.  Here are the specifics for the Northeast Ohio Solar Energy Tour.  Notice that Bills’ house is one of the featured sites.  His wife and he are also hosting an all day Open house during the tour.  Note that the Kious Straw House is also on the tour.  Next year will probably feature the Shaker Lakes straw structure.

I noticed that there is a combined Wayne/Holmes Tour scheduled for that weekend.  Since those are my old stomping grounds, I must check out the particulars for that tour as well.  I grew up outside the quaint village of Shreve located in Wayne County but as close to the border as possible.  County Road 1 was the delineation between the two counties. 

Who says exciting things aren’t happening in NEO and Ohio? I beg to differ.