Category: Uncategorized

Mini Milestones Even though I passed the halfway point in terms of number of streets a few weeks ago, there was still a sense of accomplishment finishing off the “M” streets today. I am now halfway through the alphabet, and with X, Y and Z having no streets at the end, I only have 10…

Start a Garden to Live to 100? Merl is an interesting street. It follows along a route just north of the railroad tracks intersecting with 9 different north-south streets. Some of them are quite busy (like Bunts and Nicholson), while others are quiet dead-end streets. I had previously walked 8/9 of the crossing streets (Nicholson…

Archaeology McKinley is one of the few streets in Lakewood that starts north of the Interstate, crosses over the highway, and continues as a “Lakewood” street south of the highway. I walked the street during the morning commute, and there was a steady flow of traffic towards the McKinley entrance ramps to I-90. While on…

Movin’ Right Along It’s funny how my mind works. I don’t listen to any music as I walk my streets, but I often sing to myself (usually out loud) when I have a song pop into my head. If I don’t know all the lyrics I will then change over to whistling. That happened to…

Homecoming Mars Avenue will always have a special place in my heart. After graduating from college, I lived in apartments in Shaker Heights and Brooklyn before purchasing my very first home on Mars Avenue in Lakewood. It was the summer of 2000, and Amy and I were looking for a place to raise our expanding…

Spin Cycle I have put a lot of miles on my 1970s tandem bike over the last few months, and I could not have done it without Spin Bike Shop. I was lucky enough to find my green beauty at an estate sale in Bay Village a few years ago, but it was in pretty…

Where the Wild Things Are I love our two cats (shoutout to Goomba and Katniss), and I grew up with some really great dogs (Honeybear will always be my favorite). However, there is something magical about observing animals out in the wild. There were a few weeks last year when a fox was roaming our…

An Open Concept Today was the last of the three adjacent “Cliff” streets in Lakewood (I walked Erie Cliff and Forest Cliff a few months ago). The street impresses right from the start. There is a stone-built castle wall rounding towards the entrance to the street from both the east and the west. Two large…

Wide Open Spaces When I turned off Clifton and onto Manor Park, the first thing I noticed were the enormous tree lawns. I’ve heard that the city owns our tree lawns, and if that is the case then half of most of these front yards are part of our municipality. I snapped a picture looking…

Vacation Preview? As I jogged up to Maile, it felt like the first day of summer for me. It was the last day of the school year for Lakewood, and the sun was shining brightly. That mood continued when I arrived at my destination, as I heard a resident jamming to Don Henley’s “Boys of…