Why am I here? I’ll tell you why
Monday, July 31, 2000
"So, why are you coming here?"
She is pretty, with large, brown eyes that suddenly double in size. Her voice is a whisper.
It’s late afternoon. The Indians are wrapping up a game at nearby Jacobs Field. I’m trying to check into my room at a downtown hotel, so I don’t hear her over the hurrahs of out-of-towners; apparently, the Indians are losing. Again.
"Excuse me? What did you say?"
"I don’t mean to be nosy," she continues, almost searching for a way to say something to a man she has never met, "but I overheard you say you are moving to Cleveland. And I see you’re from Washington, D.C., and I was just wondering. I mean, why are you leaving there to come here?"
Miss Pretty Eyes was the first. She wasn’t the last. Since I agreed to accept this job as a columnist for The Plain Dealer, countless Clevelanders—nearly all strangers to me—have asked me the same thing.
"Why are you coming here?"
I don’t like the question. It’s defeatist, a rush to negative judgment that presumes something is wrong with being in Cleveland. Worse, just in the asking, it reveals a native’s insecurity.
I’ve been amazed by the consistency of reactions to my saying "I’m moving to Cleveland." Double-takes melt into incredulous stares. Then, the inevitable.
"So, why are you coming here?"
Yeah, yeah. I read the papers and history books. The industrial revolution ended a long time ago. Iron rusted. Jobs gone. City defaulted. River ignited. Jokes. Guilt. Shame.
Miss Pretty Eyes is embarrassed for her city, maybe even for herself. It’s becoming clearer to me with her every utterance.
"I’ve lived here all my life; never been anywhere else other than on vacation. You were telling your friend that you have lived in other places. I just can’t understand why of all places you would pick Cleveland to live. I would love to live someplace other than here. I told my husband . . ."
She’s on a roll now. I couldn’t stop her from telling me her life’s story, even if I wanted to. But I’m not listening anymore.
I know where she’s coming from. I have traveled the world, and at times have considered Johannesburg and Baltimore home. Deep inside, however, I’m a Southerner. When I think of home, it’s pine trees, slow and drawling conversations, pork BBQ and too-sweet iced tea that come to mind.
But shame is just below the veneer. Some folks back home in Dixie are still fighting the War Between the States, hoping and wishing for a different outcome that would restore the plantation’s glory days. They know it’s not going to happen, but the longing generates guilt and shame.
Get over it. Look to the future.
People from around the world—from Atlanta, Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Hong Kong or even Toledo—are choosing daily to make Cleveland their home.
If I may be permitted a newcomer’s opinion, Cleveland needs a good spinmeister. I nominate Bruce VanWey.
"I’ve noticed something," says VanWey, whose first day in Cleveland coincided with mine. "In the last five or six years, younger kids think Cleveland is terrific. It’s only those people who never have seen any place or who never quite embraced their own neighborhood or community who have this defensive attitude."
VanWey, a 50-year-old dentist at the Cleveland Center for Dental Implants, is as excited about the city as I am.
"I’m coming here from Toledo," he says. "People in Toledo are the insecure ones. They’re always looking at Cleveland and saying, ‘How come Toledo can’t be like them?’ I’m so happy to be here and not there."
It’s all relative. If you must live someplace, this is as grand as it gets. Challenging work. Great neighborhoods. Friendly people. Cultural diversity. What more could anyone ask of a place to call home?
