I see my Cleveland story in scenes.
Outfielder Manny Ramirez smiling as he hands me back my hat, which had blown into the outfield at Jacob’s Field. My first sausage sandwich — soft roll, sauerkraut, brown mustard — from Frank’s Bratwurst at the West Side Market. Bruce Springsteen commanding the Gund Arena crowd.
2014 is especially vivid. A writer from Ohio University, I took an internship at Cleveland Magazine.
My first assignments had me tasting rum with Stefan Was at Porco’s Tiki Lounge, slugging domestics with Harbor Inn's Wally Pisorn, sitting on the floor of the City Club during a speech from Mayor Frank Jackson and concocting a monstrosity of a hot dog in front of a disgusted-but-used-to-it Sean Watterson at Happy Dog.
Not too shabby.
More importantly, that summer I ran into a girl from my high school science class, by then a nurse, at a baseball game. A few weeks later, she stood in white scrubs on the rooftop of the Cleveland Clinic as I professed my love in front of the skyline. Seven years later, that expanded downtown shimmered from the roof of the Ariel International Center. This time she wore a wedding dress.
Do you fall in love with a city like that, or is it just part of you?
In his feature this month, Mark Oprea writes: “Place shapes a person so exquisitely that stepping into their realm is like entering their spirit."
In the story, Oprea hikes his immigrant grandmother's homeland to find closure after her death. The tale of longing, loss and redemption is personal yet universal — the type of story this magazine has told so well since 1972.
These stories, these people and these places define what it means be a Clevelander.
As your new editor, I look forward to telling these stories — your stories — as well as guiding you toward the places where you'll create new ones.
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