That’s Cleveland content, for my peeps in Ohio.
Daniel Stashower (The Beautiful Cigar Girl) has a new book out: American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper, about the Cleveland Torso Murders.
He also has a good piece up at CrimeReads tied to the book and his family history in Cleveland. I had no idea he was a good Cleveland boy.
I’m probably going to wait to buy this one, but that has nothing to do with Mr. Stashower, and more to do with the fact that I’ve read a fair amount about Eliot Ness and the hunt for the torso murderer. That includes a good write-up in Bill James’s Popular Crime and (I think) the original version of In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland’s Torso Murders.
On the lighter side, Field of Schemes has a good piece up on the quest for a new Browns stadium:
As I’ve said before, FoS runs a little left for my taste, but the one thing we agree on is opposition to giving money to sports teams.
(For the record, my Cleveland relatives who are sports fans informed me that they have given up on the Browns this year, as they are completely disgusted with their handling of the Watson debacle. I think this also means I can make jokes about the Browns without feeling guilty.)
This is stretching the definition of “Cleveland content” a little bit: Cedar Point is about an hour from Cleveland, but that’s close enough that a good number of Clevelanders go there. Anyway, Cedar Point is shutting down the Top Thrill Dragster coaster.
The Top Thrill Dragster gained fame for reaching speeds of 120 mph in just 3.8 seconds…
At the time it opened in 2003, it was the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. But it was later eclipsed by the Kingda Ka ride at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey.
The coaster had been closed since last August, after a woman was badly injured. Top Thrill Dragster entry on Wikipedia.
I worked with a man whose stepdaughter was a former worker at Michigan’s Adventure, an area park attraction, that was bought by Cedar Point. She moved up to management, and moved to Cedar Point in Texas and was quite high up in management, the last I knew.
Cedar point was where my senior class trip went, but I didn’t go. I had a girlfriend who was younger and she wanted me to stay in town with her. We ended up married for 11 years and 3 kids, so I guess it was the right call. I got my 3 biological kids from that marriage. Friday will mark 30 years with my present wife along with 2 adopted girls. And I am still crazy about her so that was the right call as well.
I don’t know if you are familiar with the book by John Ross, Unintended Consequences, but I read is a couple of years ago, from a pdf file that someone had sent to me. The thing is, I had my computer, a chromebook, die on me, and lost it. I just found the same thing on my own, and so downloaded it, and will read it over the course of this week.
Yeah, I think you made the right call both times.
Just out of curiosity, did you ever go to Cedar Point (or Kings Island) with the kids? When we lived in Ohio, I don’t recall us ever going to either one. Which seems strange, because you’d think that’d be an easy outing for people with kids…
(I do remember us going to SeaWorld once when were visiting my grandmother et al. I also remember it being more fun at that time than it seems to me like it is today.)
I am familiar with John Ross and Unintended Consequences but I haven’t read it. Yet. I also know him as the guy behind the John Ross Performance Center .500 Magnum which I kind of want.
Someone said recently that Mr. Ross had passed on to the great shooting range in the sky, but I haven’t seen what I’d call a reliable and linkable report of that.
We never went to Cedar Point, but we did go to SeaWorld, in Aurora, with my second wife and our 3 youngest kids. We often did Michigan trips, to places like Irish Hills, and other smaller parks. We also went to a park in Ohio, using free airfare we got from my wife’s knowledge of airline procedures, and getting things from the other travel we did. Once, we went to Florida, just she and I, for 5 days and 4 nights, with hotel, rental car, and round trip airfare, for the low 300$. She was a traffic coordinator for my shop, when I was working as a shipping and receiving worker. That is how we met, and then she left that job. She also went to college and took some classes for being a travel agent. When we adopted our 2 girls, she stopped working to stay with them.
I think that Mr. Ross has indeed passed on. I read some other people discussing it. The book is VERY expensive, to purchase from Amazon. That is why it is only due to being able to read in from a downloaded .PDF file that I read it. It is worth reading, if you get the time.
I forgot to mention, that once my wife and I actually went to Florida twice in the same winter, due to the great deals she got. She was never that sold on Florida, since she loves the winter, but I am not very crazy about it. I spent my working life making steel, so I am used to being in the heat. We went on a bus trip to Martha’s Vineyard last spring, to celebrate our 30th anniversary. Airline travel is pretty much done for us, with the problems that are involved with the industry. We may change our minds one day, but the days of ultra cheap travel via the air are over, I think.