Good morning, everyone. Pardon me while I go off-uni today. What you see in the above photo is a very happy memory from forty-plus years ago on the street where I grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I’m playing a game of “driveway ball” with my neighbor Doug, who has his back turned to you. I’m closer to the street, wearing my old Steelers Helmet Hat. Behind me is my brother’s 1977 Monte Carlo. On the far right across the street is my childhood home. Good times.
Here’s a photo of the house from this earlier this year, unfortunately with a For Sale sign in the yard.
Dad isn’t putting the house up for sale. He’s been renting the left side of the duplex for 60+ years…longer than I’ve been born. And he’s had a VERY good deal on the rent, until this latest owner…the fourth landlord for Dad. We originally had until November to clear out everything from the house, but due to understandable but unforeseen circumstances that I don’t care to get into here, we now have until this Tuesday.
I haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on in the uni-verse, because my eldest sister and I have been busy with the house, and my brother is joining us today. The Wife will be watching Dad at my sister’s house, where he’s been living since he got out of the hospital. So our long, slow goodbye to my first home has turned into a whirlwind of sorting, packing, pitching, donating, taking home cherished items, and dredging up tons of memories. There are so many items to go through, and thanks to my dearly departed mom, So. Many. Photos.
One thing I’ve noticed while going through old photos: I have worn an awful lot of sports apparel at that house over the decades.
Trust me…that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the team shirts and jerseys I’ve had. I also noticed that Mom loved to take pictures of me with either pizza or birthday cake in my mouth.
It’s been 31 years since I moved out of the house for good. We always came back, though, for casual visits and for holidays. Christmas Eve in particular was very special to me, because we’d go there every year for a traditional Polish/Slovak meal. And I loved to see the house lit up, even if it wasn’t exactly Griswold-ian in its appearance.
I was able to snag those red cellophane wreaths last year. Today I probably will take the snowman as well.
Needless to say, this is the house where I developed my love for sports and sports uniforms. This is where I watched This Week In Pro Football with Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier, and where I watched them call NFC games on Sundays for CBS. The dining room and living room are where I played slow-motion football with a little spongy ball, mimicking the slow-motion video from NFL Films. When the landlord hired a truck to plow the snow to the bottom of the driveway, I became Walter Payton leaping over the pile into the backyard end zone. It’s where I took two suction cup darts and taped them to a circular wire with potato netting, then stuck it to the archway and played indoor basketball. It’s where I took a foam rubber “brick” and started kicking field goals over a goalpost made from cardboard wrapping paper tubes. And a few years later, it was the house where I taught myself to kick field goals outside. I’d use my next door neighbor’s garage as my goalpost. Fortunately, last year I was able to recreate that experience.
The #StraightOnKicker hasn’t kicked in Dad’s backyard since the mid-80s… until today!
The landlord wasn’t home, and the neighbor whose garage I used for the goalposts was busy in his house, so I teed up the ball at the place where it all started for me. So good to be back! pic.twitter.com/GchG9AbBKx— Jim Vilk (@JimVilk) June 8, 2023
I sure hope I can do that one more time before we say goodbye to the old place for good. And I’d love to read at least one more comic book on the front porch as well.
By the way, if that wasn’t bad enough, do you want to see what the city did to my old sled riding hill? This is what it used to look like:
Now it looks…like this:
The hill used to separate my old junior high school, and an elementary school. Now everything is making way for the new Cuyahoga Falls High School. The school will extend right up to the new football stadium, which will be where the bottom of the old hill was. All I can say is, they better let me kick on that field! I never set foot on the old field until last summer, when someone left the gates to Clifford Stadium open, and I finally got to kick there.
The #StraightOnKicker has places to go… things to do…but wait…the gates to his high school stadium are open!
I’ve never set foot on this field until today. Couldn’t pass up a chance to kick a field goal here! pic.twitter.com/gjAav51kg3
— Jim Vilk (@JimVilk) August 3, 2023
Anyway, I’m glad I got to go sledding on my old hill right before they got rid of it. I’m especially glad that I got to take my kids there as well.
That’s the home screen on my phone. One of my top five favorite photos. There you go, Phil…you always complained that I never showed you my kids. There they are! And here I am at the top of the hill in my 50-year-old Houston Oilers ski mask:
This coming Winter will be awesome, as all Winters are, but it most definitely won’t be the same.
hey Jim, sorry about the recent events with your childhood house. I appreciate all the joy you give with your posts. I am a teacher that works with kids who have experienced a lot of trauma, and spending 10 minutes of my day reading a uniwatch post can give me peace and joy to get through a work day. Once again thank you for all you do and hope theres some peace in your situation
That’s tough, Jim! I hope the happy memories ease some of the stress. I grew up in Kent and know the feeling of watching your hometown change dramatically in ways good and bad. Thinking of you and your family!
The last time I drove by my childhood home, that I now live about 45 min from, the owners were flying a Cubs banner on it. A CUBS BANNER?!?!? IN A SOUTH SUBURBAN CHICAGO VILLAGE?!?!?! Desecrated the location of so many cherished memories: throwing a rubber ball of the front facade of the house. Riding a mini bike into the neighbor’s fence. Half court shots to the hoop on the garage (half court being the fence at the mid point of the driveway. Climbing down the HAM radio tower that was right outside my 2nd floor bedroom window to hang with my friends all during the night. Pet graveyard behind the garage. Playing “running bases” with the two corners of the front yard grass being the bases.
I will be burning it down, as is rītuālis de jure, to honor a former White Sox abode. :D
I know this is hard on you Jim, but it sounds like you are cherishing memories, and that’s a positive tact to take.
Enjoy your time off :) I’m originally from the Quad Cities area (on the Mississippi river between Iowa/Illinois). I live in Mississippi now (about 5 miles from Tennessee/15 miles from Alabama). The first time my wife and I traveled back there, she noted the differences in the style of houses. I was amazed and didn’t realize it until she said something. Many of the houses back in the QC area were built when there was a “one car family”. And, there was a drive-way along the side of the house which led to a garage that was behind the house. That is not very common here in Mississippi. AND, most of the houses are brick and have no basements. Guess that is due to being a high clay soil content.
I do miss the view of our house that overlooked the Mississippi River when I was growing up. The sledding was great down the hillside from our house. Waiting on the school bus when it was -10 was not so great LOL
Steeler fan from Ohio ugh. Sorry about your childhood house but ugh.
Sorry about the childhood home Jimmer. That’s rough and it’s a shame the new landlord wasn’t more flexible. My son grew up in the Falls after his mother and I divorced. Great working/upper middle class town. I know losing landmarks like the sledding hill suck but the school district was in dire need of new facilities. Didn’t realize Clifford Stadium was going to be replaced. Lots of memories of watching my son play football there in middle school and then four years marching in the 176 member Tiger marching band. My father still lives in my childhood home. We’ve made arrangements for it to stay in the family. It’s the only home my father ever really knew and I have an overly sentimental attachment to it. An outsider would never know the bricks on the back of the house have chips due to me imitating Dennis Eckersly or Len Barker or the heartbreak of watching Red Right 88, the Drive and Fumble in the living room.
Always loved the Tiger Band!
I lived within earshot of the high school. On Friday evenings my neighbor Doug and I would toss the Nerf ball around out in the street. It always was a special treat when I’d catch a pass by the telephone pole (our goal line) at the same time Falls scored (which wasn’t often). I’d imagine they were playing the Tiger Rag for *my* touchdown.
Close to halftime, I’d bike up to the parking lot, watch the band through the fence, then go back home.
I hate to hear this for you, Jim. It’s tough seeing the reality of all these changes. My childhood home was torn down years back. The sparing times I return to my hometown I still drive by the lot the house sat on to reminisce. Both my parents are gone now and it’s just me that remains. An odd thing.
Thanks for all the pics of your childhood neighborhood. My mother grew up in Chardon, OH not far from Cuyahoga Falls. I got to visit it this summer for the first time since I was very very young. Was a special trip.
Thanks for sharing Jim. It was a Gift for your family to be able to stay in the same house for as long as it did, even though this sudden move is so so hard.
At the same time, this is part of life. I helped my grandparents move after 50 years in a house in New York. The difficult process of packing can be cathartic, being able to go through old memories whose meanings are captured in objects/memorabilia.
I hope there are some moments of joy for you and your family.
Love the Big Teen!
Just as a heads up, that SEC graphic is wrong. Mizzou wore plain black pants last week. The stripes unfortunately disappeared.
Photo evidence here: link
Fixed. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this story Jim. I’m sorry you have to go through this, and with such strict deadlines. Permanently leaving a place with so many memories attached is really hard. At least, on a positive note, there’s the fact you will forever be able to relive many of those memories through the photos taken by your mother.
Sorry to hear about the stress Jim.
On a brighter note New Era has brought their version of the Helmet Hat back and they are much better quality!
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Jim,
As go memories and nostalgia, I think I was, in a way, blessed to move around a few times. I left childhood homes when I was 5, 9, 12, and 17. Those times are so far back that they only connect through time. Unlike what you’re dealing with this weekend in the here and now. Research tells me that all of those abodes are still standing, and except for taller trees and maybe a missing swingset, everything’s as it was. Even the old sledding hill (not nearly as high as I remembered it).
I don’t know if the current kids create glorious venues to kick field goals alone, sled, play stickball, and make up games like your driveway ball. (We had a game called hall ball–the unique shape of my mom’s and my one-bedroom apartment let one kid defend the goal (the bathroom door with the shower curtain as a back net) while the other charged through the living room at full speed and launch a rolled up ball of socks like a team handball player. The goalie had to clear the ball back into the living room for the play to end. A loose ball meant a fierce scrum to take possession, score or clear.)
It’s one thing to leave the memories in the past. It’s another to have their home suddenly yanked away. Good luck with the logistics and the emotions, Jimmer.
nice post today jimmer.
i know many hate barstool here but this is a good read about losing the
family house from jerry thornton
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Loved seeing your night football in the second pic, Jimmer!
Best of luck with the move, that stuff is never easy. Moving almost six decades of stuff is hard; sifting through the memories is even harder.
Did Cuyahoga Falls High poach the Mizzou logo?
Yes, unfortunately.
The old tiger was so much better.
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Love it Jim, you could take all your pictures and mix them with my mine from western PA (Ellwood City) and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Good stuff Ms
Good, good stuff, Jim. Gone but never forgotten. Good luck to your Dad.
(I’ll pretend I didn’t see the Steeler stuff.)
Mr. Vilk, I enjoy your columns. I’m sorry about the stress & understand the feeling on the memories. The music group The Pretenders did a song called “My City Was Gone” in the mid-1980s that had Cuyahoga Falls in the lyrics. Not sure if you knew this, maybe it resonates with you. I believe the lead singer Chrissie Hynde (?) was from Ohio.
Not only was she from Ohio, Jim found her old house and documented it on Uni Watch!
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I’m not sure an NFL kicker would have the Jimmer’s accuracy if they had to kick straight on? the straight on kicking is a lost art. I’m sorry about the house, it reminds me of the house in the classic A Christmas Story.
I can’t even drive by my childhood home. I hate what the new owners did to all the landscaping my dad, me and my brother did. Most of our long time neighbors still live there. It was magnificent. If you ever decide to part with your blow mold snowman, let me know. My husband and I have approximately 50 blow mold snowmen we display at Christmas – many from our childhood, but we always add to our collection.
Thanks, everyone!
You forgot to shoe the PAC2 units!!
Show the Uni’s.
Very sorry to hear that Jim!
This is the “house” I grew up in (Bella Rouge) – my parents bought the building in 1998 and sold it in 2021:
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And this is what the new owners did within a month of buying it:
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