I watched a Christmas Eve church service the other night from an Orthodox church somewhere, I believe to be, in Russia. It brought back memories of my misspent youth in Cleveland. Art, my best friend since the second grade, was called a mad Russian. He wasn’t Russian, His grandparents came over on “the boat” from Latvia which, back then was one of the Republics of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR. He and his whole family are very proud Latvians not Russians but they do however worship in a Russian Orthodox church namely the St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
I used to occasionally go to church with Art and his family just to see the inside of this great building. When riding on the bus from downtown Cleveland back to Garfield Heights, you could see this grand onion domed structure across the Cuyahoga River valley sitting on the near West Side. It was so different that I had to see more of it.
To quote Wikipedia “Because the Russian Orthodox Church still observes the Julian calendar. Dec. 25 on the Julian calendar corresponds to Jan. 7 on the Gregorian calendar, which America and most of the rest of the world uses. Currently, each day of the Julian calendar occurs 13 days after its corresponding day on the Gregorian calendar.” Now I remember their calendar being one week behind. I first went to church with Art and his family on Easter Sunday. Up to that point I, the good Baptist choir singing lad that I was, hadn’t even been into a Roman Catholic church. They were handing out branches of pussy willows in the church. I asked Art what was up with the pussy willows and he whispered back something about there are no palm trees in Russia. OK, what does that have to do with anything. He explained that on his Church’s Julian calendar this was Palm Sunday and being there are no palm trees in Russia, the Russians traditionally pass out pussy willow branches and so I went back to church the next week to see what other surprises were in store.
Things really heated on Russian Easter. There were several huge Russian priests with long black beards ranting in Russian and swinging very large incense burners slightly over our heads. They were dousing all of the people with holy water, this was a show I would have paid hard earned cash to see and it was all for free. One of the priests, at one point, sat down in a chair holding up a portrait of some saint in his lap. Then people started to line up to kiss the person in the picture. Plus the view, I couldn’t get enough. I was a fixture there in that church for high holy days for the next few years. Without warning, people would drop to their knees onto some kneeling bar so I would follow suit not to piss off the Russian congregation. Then without any apparent warning as I was down on my knees, they would all rise up and sit down in the pews. Nothing in my Baptist background had prepared me for this.
As I sit here in front of my keyboard I start musing about why I ever left Northern Ohio but then I remember. I remember the cold and the blizzards. I remember the miserable Cleveland Indians and the Browns who when I was still there were the dominant force in football and now are such losers that the only way they can go to the Super Bowl is if they buy a block of tickets and charter a Greyhound Bus. I remember the steel mills closing one after another and I remember White Flight making the downtown of Cleveland, the place where I went to play hookey and spend hours in the huge Cleveland Public Library.
The only time I now go back is for a wedding, or more so these days, a funereal or to see my sister and then visit with Art and drink more beer than we used to. Cleveland, to me, is now like New York. It’s a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there, ever again.
The first day of snow is very special. It has always had a wonderland effect on me. The second day is still kind of nice but not so much. On the third day, I am starting to get fed up with the, not so, inconvenience. By the fourth day, I am climbing the walls. I want to go home! Home where when it gets down to 55 deg. F everybody, including me, starts bitching about how cold it is. After a few minutes, I start my weather mantra. I start humming while saying Cleveland. Suddenly, I smile, and say to myself “I could be back in Cleveland.” And all is again right with the world.
