Her first 10 years on the planet, and mine

Bob Hope, who grew up in Cleveland Heights (and whom I didn't meet that time in 1959), was a minority owner of the Cleveland Indians from 1946 to 1986, which included the seven years Woodie Held played for the team, and lived in Cleveland Heights, starting in 1959.
This month marks my elder grandchild’s 10th birthday. That’s a big deal. I can tell she’s feeling pretty grown up, and, I mean, her age is in the double digits now, so she’s practically almost 20. Well . . . halfway there. But a lot closer than she was 10 years ago, which seems like nothing to me now.
It doesn’t even seem like much time has passed since I turned 10 myself. (Until I try to recall everything that has happened since.) I remember Cleveland Heights in 1959 well.
On my 10th birthday, I got my first new bike, a black Schwinn from Pee Wee’s Cycle Shop, which was right around the corner from my house. I lived on Belmar, near Mayfield, and the store was on Mayfield, in the short block between Belmar and Eddington. Pee Wee’s later moved to Coventry Road, and eventually to Lee Road, diagonally across from the entrance to Cain Park (where there is still a bike shop). Pee Wee—actually Marvin Rosenberg—died just this past June at the age of 98. For many summers, later in his life, he could be seen volunteering as an usher at Cain Park.
Speaking of Coventry Road, in November 1959 a police raid that became national news took place at the Heights Theater (in the building that later became the Centrum, and which is now used by a Christian church and a hookah bar—and, while that’s true, you can still insert your own punchline; just don’t use “Holy Smokes!” because I’ve already claimed that).
The Heights Theater, which had opened in the 1920s, became a so-called “art theater” in the late ‘50s, which meant that it presented foreign and independent films. That November, the theater ran a French movie called Les Amants (“The Lovers”). A short scene toward the end of the film included a briefly exposed woman’s breast. Someone complained about that (I wonder if that person is still around, to see movies today), and, believe it or not, Cleveland Heights police raided the theater, confiscated the film, and arrested theater manager Nico Jacobellis. He was tried before a panel of three judges and found guilty on two counts of possessing and exhibiting an obscene film. He was fined $2,500 and sentenced to the county workhouse if the fines were not paid. The conviction was later affirmed by an intermediate appellate court, and in January 1962, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed that the film was without redeeming social importance. However, in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-2 decision, reversed Jacobellis's conviction.
And speaking of Cain Park, 1959 was the summer that the facility experimented with offering nationally known entertainers, including Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, and Johnny Mathis. At 10 years old, I wasn’t interested in seeing any of them, so I didn’t attend those shows. However, my parents, driving down Superior Road, one Saturday morning that summer, after shopping at the Heinen’s on Taylor Road near Cedar, saw Bob Hope standing at the entrance to Cain Park on Superior, stopped their car and said hello to him. I was sorry I had missed that opportunity, though the trade-off would have been having to go shopping with my parents.
Another missed opportunity that summer was playing catch with Cleveland Indians' shortstop Woodie Held, which he did with kids on his street, Rydalmount. That year, 1959, a very good year for the Indians (they were fighting for first place all summer, till the end of the season, when the Chicago White Sox took over for good), was Held’s first year with the team. In his seven seasons with the Indians, Held hit a lot of home runs, especially for a shortstop, which, back then, was not, generally, a position for power hitters. That was also an era when professional athletes lived in communities like Cleveland Heights—unlike more recent times, w
hen they seem to prefer newer houses and apartments and condos on the far west side, in cities like Rocky River.
That baseball season was also when I collected all of that year’s baseball cards. In fact, when I was 54 years old, I decided to sell my cards. I was driving down Mayfield, and saw a card store with sign in the window that said they did appraisals. I went in and told the guy that I had a lot of baseball cards, including the entire set from 1959. He said, “So, then, you’re 54?” I said I was and asked him how he knew. He said, “Everyone has their cards from when they were 10.”
My granddaughter, at 10 years old, doesn’t seem to be collecting a lot of any one thing. Except, maybe, friends. And years. I think they’ve all been good so far. And I really hope that never stops.
David Budin
David Budin is a freelance writer for national and local publications, the former editor of Cleveland Magazine and Northern Ohio Live, an author, and a professional musician and comedian. His writing focuses on the arts and, especially, pop-music history.