I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, which they called "The best location in the nation" or "The mistake on the lake," depending on your state of mind. The city once had many breweries, the Beltz, Diebolt Brewery, Excelsior, Forest City, Gund, Leisy, Pabst, Pilsener, Schlitz, Standard, and Stroh’s Breweries. Cleveland had steel mills. It had Republic Steel and Jones and Laughlin and others. The Stockyards once covered over sixty acres, with millions of animals being processed. The Chevrolet and Ford plants employed many people. The city had many European nationalities, Irish, German Hungarian Italian, and Polish families. Cleveland was a great city to live and work in, attracting people from West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.

Now things are different. The old neighborhoods I walked around as a kid are now in decay, buildings falling apart or torn down. Empty lots where candy stores, meat markets, neighborhood bars, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses once flourished broke my heart. The West Side Market remains, but the Central Market is gone. The biggest destroyer was the addition of one additional freeway, the I-90 freeway. So many homes were demolished, and complete neighborhoods were gone in the name of progress. But the city still survives, with new houses and buildings being constructed to replace the old. Even though they are new houses and buildings, there is a lack of character that the old early houses and buildings had. Many schools and high schools are gone from my era of living in Cleveland. All the families either moved to the suburbs or out of state. Some things have improved the new football stadium for the Cleveland Browns, a new baseball stadium for the Cleveland Guardians (Indians), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a popular tourist attraction, and the Good Time 3. Downtown seemed safer and cleaner. The Cuyahoga River is much cleaner and unlikely to catch fire again. Some schools were moved to different locations or torn down and rebuilt. The Metro Park system is more extensive than ever.

I have been gone for 40-plus years, but I feel right at home whenever I return. I still have some family and some childhood friends in Cleveland. I want to move back to the city of my birth. But now that does not seem possible at the moment. There is something that I feel deep inside with all the great memories I had growing up in Cleveland. I always remember the friends I had growing up and what we did together. We played baseball in empty lots and football in the street and walked to Edgewater Park and the Cleveland Zoo. We rode the rapid transit to downtown Cleveland or Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Riding bicycles was so much fun on our banana bikes riding all over the city's west side. The neighborhood I grew up in had wonderful families, all very friendly and kept their homes nicely cared for.

All was not peaches and cream at that time growing up; there were street gangs who just did petty robberies and had their rumbles, but not like the violent gangs of today. I have seen many car accidents and a few children hit by cars. There was a shooting on my street where a man shot his wife dead. This was an odd event for our neighborhood. The good outweighed the bad. I loved that neighborhood and surrounding streets. I wish it were still there, but it is gone. But because I lived a period of my life in Cleveland with so many memories. I can never stop going back to visit, and my dream is still to move back someday and feel the warm summer breezes and experience the frigid temperatures and snow of my birth city of, Cleveland.

Written by: Alvin Rivera