Maybe it’s your advanced age, maybe it’s the pandemic and its distortion of time, maybe it’s the speed with which things happen in general. Whatever the case, things that happened in Cleveland very recently feel like they happened in another lifetime and not just a few years ago. In our minds, these events belong somehow to another generation and not modern day Cleveland. Take a trip with us.

The Cleveland Flea It wasn’t all that long ago that a weekend stop at the Cleveland Flea was on the social calendar of everyone in town. Ages ago, right? Even the sniping and Flea gossip that followed before it all came to a halt feel like another lifetime ago. Credit: Scene archives
Having to ask *which* Happy Dog you were meeting someone at When did the Happy Dog in University Circle close? Feels like sometime around 2005, or maybe the 1990s, but it was 2018. 2018! Credit: Scene archives
Tuning into 90.3 for local NPR When did that local public radio station shuffle happen again? We can’t even remember, but the preset is still there for 90.3 and it bums us out every time. Credit: Ideastream
When Hingetown wasn’t a thing yet For all we know, and there’s no possible way to find out for sure, Hingetown has existed for decades. Certainly feels that way. Credit: Google Maps
Hearing Doug Dieken on Browns games The legendary, the one and only, the best Browns color commentator, departed his perch at the end of the 2021 season but it feels like 30 years ago. Credit: Photo by Emanuel Wallace
City Block LOL. If Bernie Moreno’s ill-fated political career feels like eons ago just consider the plans for City Block that were going to transform Tower City into a blockchain HQ. Credit: Scene archives
Edgewater Live Remember when the Metroparks threw great big awesome parties at Edgewater with bands and food trucks and assorted fun? A pre-pandemic joy that won’t return. Credit: Cleveland Metroparks
Akram Boutros having an untarnished reputation ahead of his departure from Metro It’s only been a few months, but it feels like a few years since the former Metro CEO was set to receive a standing ovation from Cleveland as he left the hospital system. Credit: City Club of Cleveland
Shopping at Brooks Brothers and other Tower City stores Cue the meme: Back in my day we shopped at Brooks Brothers at Tower City. Sure, grandma, sure. Credit: Mark Oprea
Hearing John Adams’ drumming at Progressive Field RIP to the legend, whose drum was last heard at the stadium in 2019. The games, simply, are not the same without him. Credit: Photo by Erik Drost/FlickrCC
The Lola/Greenhouse Tavern era of East 4th St. Remember the Michael Symon and Jonathan Sawyer era of East 4th? Sure you do. Hard to believe Lola and Greenhouse only shuttered their doors in 2020. Credit: Lola Bistro FB
Riding the Mean Streak Sure, it was a jostling experience, and sure, it was closed for maintenance half the time, but hell if we didn’t love the Mean Streak. It feels like a different era of Cedar Point but it was only six years ago that the amusement park closed it before making it a new hybrid ride dubbed Steel Vengeance. Credit: Jeremy Thompson/FlickrCC
Enjoying a beer and a shot at the Ontario One of the great downtown dive bars. It was only four years ago that we were downing corned beef sandwiches and budget beer there before Dan Gilbert shut it down. Might as well have been 50 years ago. Credit: Doug Trattner
A Daily Plain Dealer Wait, they used to print that thing every day, you say? Credit: Scene archives
Seeing a show at the Cleveland Play House Hard to remember now that it was only about a decade ago that the Cleveland Play House was still a going concern before the theater company decamped for Playhouse Square. Credit: Mark Oprea
Ordering in the cafeteria line at Sokolowski’s Memories of pierogi and salisbury steak are still flickering in the minds of Clevelanders, but they’re getting dimmer by the day and feel like a remnant of a bygone era that feels further back in the day than right before the pandemic. Credit: Edsel Little/FlickrCc
Going to the Cleveland International Film Festival at Tower City Boy, talk about a blast from the way past. Or, 2019. Credit: David Simpson/Cinema Treasures
Cleveland’s Amazon HQ Bid The great hilarity that was Cleveland’s earnest and wildly underdog bid to lure Amazon’s HQ to the city feels like a relic but it only happened in 2018. Credit: Scene archives
Mayor Frank Jackson Remember that guy? He was mayor in 2021! Credit: Emanuel Wallace
The Kip Sax There’s no easier way to feel like ages have flown by in the blink of an eye than to look at the rosters of Cleveland’s pro teams but the ubiquitous Kip sax was an era unto itself and one that wasn’t all that long ago. Credit: Emanuel Wallace
Hearing the dulcet tones of Fred McLeod RIP, Fred. Credit: Cavs
Standing in line for an hour at Melt in Lakewood when there was only one location Melt recently announced the closures of two locations outside of Northeast Ohio which made us remember a time when there was only one grilled cheese outpost and people would stand in line for hours to get a table in Lakewood. Credit: Scene archives
Playing games at Side Quest It feels like ages since the Lakewood gem closed, doesn’t it? Credit: Scene archives

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