BOOMER BOULEVARD:
LEE ROAD, CLEVELAND HEIGHTS

 
I’ve spent many hours on Lee Road, and I’m going to spend another hour and half there on Saturday, May 2, when the Klezmer Guy Trio performs at Heights Arts, 2175 Lee Road. We’ll play klezmer, Motown and swing, interspersed with spoken word.

Here’s a “spoken word” (in writing) . . .

Boomer Boulevard: Lee Road. I attended Fairfax School’s Grandparents Day and told everybody my grandchild was “Jim,” as in Gym. I didn’t have a grandchild back then, in 2012. I watched my wife, Alice, then a phys-ed teacher, lead a class. She wore a mic like Madonna. Alice was not a roll-out-the-ball gym teacher.

After the grandparents’ event, I walked by the Lee Road library and wondered if I should submit an application for the library’s board of trustees. I had already filled out the application but was worried it might have been too flippant, so I hadn’t submitted it. I had used the word “libe.” (Later, I did submit the application and got rejected.)

Classical music blared outside the Subway at Lee and Meadowbrook Boulevard. Must have been a crowd-control thing.

At the Lusty Wrench, Sam Bell, the owner and chief mechanic, told me he drove less than 1,000 miles a year. I asked, “When did you start hating cars?”

Sam said he used to like cars; he said he once drove 160 mph from Baltimore to Chicago in college. Apparently Sam liked the idea of cars, but not actual cars.

Tim Burdick, a woodwind repairman, worked next door to the Lusty Wrench, on the second floor of the Douglas Building. Tim had a $350 mouthpiece lying around. “It’s Frank’s,” Tim said. “Frank” as in “Franklin Cohen” — the then-principal clarinetist of the Cleveland Orchestra. I tried the extra mouthpiece and took it home and ran it by the musicians in Yiddishe Cup. They couldn’t hear any difference between Frank’s mouthpiece and my own. Keyboardist Alan Douglass said I didn’t sound in control with Frank’s mouthpiece.

I planned to meet Carlo Wolff for dinner at Marotta’s. Carlo was a jazz critic who had become a reporter for the Cleveland Jewish News. I wondered how Carlo was fitting in at the paper; he’s Jewish but “not very Jewish,” he told me. At the dinner he reported he was doing fine at the paper.

The epicenter of Lee Road is — you know this — Stone Oven. Yes, I go there; it’s my obligation as a baby boomer. I got in line in back of Ray Lesser, the editor of the Funny Times. Ray had recently turned down some of my funny stories. I didn’t bring that up. I took the high road!

Carl Goldstein — a Cleveland Heights landlord – went to the Stone Oven every morning. I promised I would start hanging out there with him. But I never did. Every morning? I’m just not that social.

The “Lee” in “Lee Road” comes from a farmer named Lee. I learned that fact on a local-history walking tour. Other farmers included Silsby, Taylor, and Dille.

Here’s a bit of immaterial Lee Road music history: the first time I saw a live professional band was at the Stardust Ballroom, which was in back of the Cedar Lee Theatre. I was in junior high, at a bar mitzvah party, and the bandleader was Morrey Seaman. Maybe he was playing “Stardust” at the Stardust.

Have you ever noticed how Cleveland Heights High grads like to reminisce about the Cedar-Lee neighborhood? Even more than I do. That’s their nexus — the Cedar Lee Theatre and what used to be around there: Mawby’s, Meyer Miller shoe store, Earth by April. A Heights High grad, Jimmy Sollisch, once told me he learned almost everything in life by selling shoes at Meyer Miller as a teenager. Meyer Miller’s co-owner was Cuppy Cohen.

There was a pool hall next to the Cedar Lee Theatre: Wally’s. Who cares about Wally’s? Not me. People who grew up in the Heights care about Wally’s. I grew up in South Euclid and don’t care about Wally’s. Let’s talk about Mayfield Road in South Euclid . . . the Cream-O-Freeze, Warehouse Beverage, Alesci’s. (No, different story.)

If you stand on the glass-enclosed Heights Library walkway over Lee Road, you’ll see a fair amount of life pass by. Nothing too monumental–- no gigantic moving vans or rock-star buses, like you might see at the New York Thruway overpass at Angola, New York. But give Lee Road some leeway. It’s got some life.

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CONCERT INFO:

The Klezmer Guy Trio performs 7 p.m Saturday, May 2, at Heights Arts. Admission is free with ticket(s). Tix are available here. Donations are accepted. Seating is limited. The Klezmer Guy Trio is Tamar Gray (vocalist and Fairfax Elementary School music teacher), Alan Douglass (keyboards) and Bert Stratton (clarinet and spoken word). The show is a mix of klezmer, Motown and spoken word. A variety show, sort of.