Cleveland Rocks!

Wednesday afternoon, July 28, 2010

Yesterday was more than awesome. Cleveland is one of the coolest places I have ever been, and I never thought I would be saying that! The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had way more than I could ever see in one day. I just made sure I scoured the Bruce Springsteen stuff in minute detail and then looked at all I could after that.

We parked in a garage right beside the stadium and then walked down to the Hall of Fame yesterday morning. We walked through 4th Street East, an alley way where several restaurants have set patio tables out and decorated the entire street with beautiful flowers and plants. I loved this area. We saw countless small restaurants, sandwich shops, pizzerias in the downtown area, too, but none of them were close to the Hall of Fame. We had to eat pre-packaged catering sandwiches there, but we were so hungry by the time we were able to eat that I just didn't care what it tasted like. Downtown Cleveland is really cool, though - the buildings are beautiful, the pier is unbelievable, and the stadiums/arenas are right beside each other. I totally loved it.

Back to the Hall of Fame.... It is the coolest place I have ever been. Floors 5 & 6 were dedicated to the greatest poet of the common man in our time - Bruce Springsteen. I thought I was going to cry when I headed up the staircase between the two floors when I saw the lyrics to "Thunder Road" written on the walls there. I had those exact same lyrics written on the back of my notebook in high school. The most amazing part of the displays, though, was the endless train of writer's notebooks. He allowed the Hall to show (under glass, of course) pages upon pages of his writer's notebooks!!!! I looked at the first drafts of countless masterpieces. It was like watching the genius at work. I kept saying that I wish my students could see this. I even saw spelling errors in his first drafts. I wish every one of my students could see all the times he crossed out words, passages, even entire stanzas. I saw where he changed words to make the line more succint or more vivid. For instance, in the first draft of "Born to Run" he changed "This town tries to rip the bones from your back" to "Baby, this town rips the bones from your back...." I could use that as a diction lesson in a heartbeat! And it wasn't just Bruce. I saw the same pattern in the rough drafts of Lennon/McCartney, too. If any of my students are reading this, you have to know that the greatest writers edit and edit and edit. I wish they could have seen it.

I don't have enough time to describe all we saw. I didn't even have enough time to see it all myself yesterday. Let me just say, we watched a really cool movie with clips from all the Hall of Fame inductees; I listened to several excerpts from the 500 songs that changed history (3 of Springsteen's, 1 from LL Cool J, 1 from Elvis Costello, etc.); I saw countless costumes. Oh yeah, Wanda G, if you read this, I have to tell you I saw a REAL Elvis jumpsuit. And Johnny Cash's bus. Too much to recount. I tried to educate Jordan and Joel as much as I could as we went along, but they were less interested than I had hoped. Maybe something stuck.

After we left the Hall around 5 pm, we headed to the stadium. Tuesday was Kids Fun Day, so the boys got a chance to play wiffle ball, throw with a radar, etc. They loved it. We had incredible seats - right down the third base line. Everyone at the stadium was so friendly, and I had a perfect view of Derek Jeter and A Rod. I learned one fact - the people in Cleveland LOVE them some Choo. He had an awesome game, though. A Rod didn't hit homerun #600, but I recorded each of his plate appearances just in case. I got some hot photos of DJ, too. And a couple of CC Sabathia for Jordan, but I was more interested in DJ.

When the game was over, and the Indians won, the place went wild. They played the theme from The Drew Carey Show, and we all shouted with everyone else, "Cleveland Rocks! Cleveland Rocks!"

And I now believe it.