LeBron Who?

Does summer bring out the nostalgia in anyone else but me?  There is something about the warm weather that makes me think of the 'good ole days.'  They really weren't all that great, but being responsible for no one but yourself did have its advantages, especially when you didn't have any homework to tie you down.  I still feel that bit of freedom here in the summer, for various reason that I won't bore you with.

Back to the nostalgia . . . I've been wanting to do some hometown posts, so here is one about some of my favorite (and not so favorite) childhood places and the memories behind them . . . long before anyone ever heard of a certain prodigal son.


One of my earliest memories was the excitement of going to our small kiddie amusement park.  We probably only went once or twice a summer, but it was quite a thrill.  There were actually a couple of these in the area, that catered to young children.  Unfortunately, they are long gone.

 

Another very early memory was riding the wooden, single file escalators at the department stores downtown.  As a kid, I thought they were super creepy!  My grandmother enjoyed shopping downtown, while my mother only ever went to the malls.  Grandma worked at one of the stores as a gift wrapper when she was younger.  My first job after college was as a manager for the same department store and I trained in their downtown location.  Of course, all those department stores no longer exist now. 

 

This place scared me to death as a youngster.  It was the Goodyear Airdock, which we infrequently would pass on the way to somewhere else.  The massiveness of this structure probably creates megalophobia in a lot of people.

 

However, the blimp was a welcome sight as a child, and we were fortunate enough to see it rather often.  Here it is, flying over my hometown.

This is our beloved Civic Theatre.  For some unexplained reason, the only field trips our school ever took was to this theatre to see the ballet every year.  A snoozer for me, but the ceiling was (and still is) magnificent.  It is an atmospheric theatre, with twinkling stars and drifting clouds.  The lobby was designed to resemble a Moorish Castle.  It was built in 1929 and my Dad used to see movies here as a kid.

File this under 'Kid Who Was Easily Amused.'  This is a local metropark that I would BEG my Dad to drive us to, just so we could splash through the ford in our car (which was not a Ford).  Now, I live in fear of flash floods that will destroy my car, but back then, WOO HOO to drive through some water.

 

I couldn't do a hometown post without mentioning food.  This is the pizza shop where we always ordered our pizzas, back in the day when there wasn't delivery.  It was my first pizza.  In those days, all we ever ordered was pepperoni, but I loved the way their small slices of pepperoni would curl up around the edges and get crispy.  Surprisingly, they still exist, and in the same location.  Some things are just too good to die.