Abstract

Doug Patterson grew up near Columbia in Glenville. He moved to Glenville when he was 8. After school he became the head of an entertainment booking company.

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Interviewee

Patterson, Doug (interviewee)

Interviewer

Gabb, Julie (interviewer)

Project

Project Team

Date

3-11-2014

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

115 minutes

Transcript

Julie Gabb [00:00:01] Alright. We are interviewing Mr. Doug Patterson in Cleveland Heights on March 11, 2014. And Mr. Patterson, I would- Can you please tell me about yourself?

Doug Patterson [00:00:15] What would you like to know?

Julie Gabb [00:00:19] I guess just overall, like your, just in a few sentences, I mean, not a few sentences, I guess like just your biography.

Doug Patterson [00:00:30] Well, I’m an athlete currently. Now I’m a wrestling and a boxing official. Entrepreneur. I work for a cable company and I’m in sales and I have a booking agency that gets involved in booking entertainment. License booking agency. I like to say license because that means you’re official with the American Federation of Musicians, so keeps me pretty busy.

Julie Gabb [00:01:00] So when did you start, when did you live in Glenville? Like what years?

Doug Patterson [00:01:09] I live in Glenville right now. I just turned 64, which was March 9. I’ve been there ever since, in the Glenville community, since I was eight years old.

Julie Gabb [00:01:22] And why did you move to Glenville?

Doug Patterson [00:01:25] Parents. At eight years old, you don’t have choices. You just go with the flow.

Julie Gabb [00:01:31] Was there any particular reason why they wanted to move to Glenville?

Doug Patterson [00:01:35] I had no idea. Back in the days, you didn’t ask questions, you just went. A little different ballgame than it is today. Because you- Why did I do this? Well, you couldn’t do that back in them days.

Julie Gabb [00:01:50] So what street did you grow up in Glenville?

Doug Patterson [00:01:54] On Columbia Avenue, on the east side of Columbia, because you had two sides of Columbia. You had the west side and you had the east side. The west side of Columbia that split off East 105. They went to junior high and high school, they went to Miles Standish and then went to Empire. On the east side of 105 in Columbia, you went to Patrick Henry [now Stephanie Tubbs Jones], FDR, and then you went to Glenville or Collinwood if you push further.

Julie Gabb [00:02:30] What school did you go to for elementary school?

Doug Patterson [00:02:33] Columbia.

Julie Gabb [00:02:34] And how was, can you explain how your experience Columbia was?

Doug Patterson [00:02:41] Well, Columbia, back in them days, you met everybody because they came from all over the area, different ball game. Back in them days, you walked to school for a long distance, yet I lived close to the school, but everybody else had to walk in the school and we were pretty active with our teachers. Very [inaudible]. I was safety guard at, crossing guard at Columbia, but I also became a yard guard. That means stopping kids from doing crazy different stuff, doing yard play. You report them like a security guard. Back in them days too, they taught you banking. What they don’t do now. They taught you how to try to save money in the bank, if you ever had money. And most of the time, a lot of people didn’t have none. But you have some people that was living well off, and while everybody else is putting a quarter or fifty cents in the bank, they were putting like $5 and $10. It was like, wow. But we still all got along, so it didn’t make any difference what it was. We all got along.

Julie Gabb [00:03:45] So were they teaching you banking in, like, elementary school?

Doug Patterson [00:03:47] Yep. Putting money into the actual banking account. I try to remember which banking, who it was. But was it AmeriTrust? Back in them days, I think it might have been AmeriTrust, but they taught us banking. They taught us banking from the fourth grade. No, let me see. Fourth? Yeah, we were doing it in the fourth grade. You put money in the bank, so they always tell you to invest into your bank, and we was in the fourth grade.

Julie Gabb [00:04:20] And were you a yard guard as well as a crossing guard when you were in elementary school?

Doug Patterson [00:04:27] Pretty popular. I was advantageous then. I was in the band and I was in plays. And you had a couple guys that we all ran together. And as we grew up, teachers look for us for guidance as leaders, and I like that kind of situation to kind of be a leader type person. People look up to you, and it was very important to keep that image. There’s a couple of us we ran that playground. You straighten it out, or we was going to get you and report you to teacher. And we wasn’t worried about you jumping on us because we had you in check. So you had the little clique of guys around you, so you kind of became popular. And I like that authority to keep people together because my parents always taught me that.

Julie Gabb [00:05:09] Was there any memorable experience as being a yard guard when you were younger?

Doug Patterson [00:05:17] Yeah, when we had to break up fights and people see us coming and people like, oh, here they come. It’s almost like the military police in the military. They see us, they’re gone, really. Now, back before that, before I moved on to Columbia, coming from another area, and it made me change, and that’s probably why I changed. Columbia, where they had bullying back even there. And I had a guy I was so afraid of in the second grade. He kept me out of school the whole day, and he really wasn’t nothing. For some reason, I didn’t want to fight him. From that point on, that didn’t happen anymore. You come to me, you better bring it. So those days, those people didn’t get bullied as much, but it was bullying going around in them days, and that was the experience. I couldn’t believe he was chasing me around the schoolyard, and I wouldn’t even go into class. That was crazy. I looked at it now, I was like, man, I can’t believe he did that. I let him do that. And then when you check him out, it was a little different ballgame. You’re only going to do what you let him do. So then back in there, the girls were a little differently then because you had to wear the longer skirts and you got into plays. I kept myself so busy in the sports, they have time to get in trouble, because by time you come from rehearsal and practices, you’re too tired. And then you couldn’t play if your grades weren’t up, and then you couldn’t play if you didn’t go to church. You didn’t go to church that day, you ain’t playing on the game that day. So now you go to Sunday school. Cause you want to play in the game. And we were, the guys at home, we were pretty good athletes. I mean, we played football. We beat the team so bad that we actually had to play the parents. People like, what? We beat them so bad, we had to play the parents, cause the regular teams our age could not. We beat them like 72 to nothing, 100 to nothing. And people were like, wow. We were calling plays like, okay, John, this guy coming on my right shoulder, we’re gonna run a 42 buck, and what we gonna do is come back and Mike, you block ’em and they like, huh? Usually when you play football, you just hike the ball, you go this way, you go this way and throw it. We didn’t do that. We set up plays, and we were, we would go to other schools, areas and playgrounds to play them, and couldn’t nobody beat us. And we were fast. We were good athletes. We could fight pretty good. So, you know, we had it a little differently. If you was in the clique, fine. But if you wasn’t in the clique back in them days, they go try you. To answer that question. A while ago, you asked me about a situation to bring up. I remember a situation. This guy had just moved on the street, and we always had bullies. And this bully, you hated to fight him. Cause if you fought him, you had to fight him for five days, and you didn’t want to fight him. Cause if he beat you, he gonna try to kill you. And if you beat him, you’re gonna have to keep fighting. So it’s better. Don’t even do it. But this one guy had moved on the street, him and his brother, and we were playing football on the street. And this guy always starts up. He brought the guy over to me and said hey. Cause back in there, they called me Lil Butch, fighting cause I was little, still little. He said, this is a new guy on the street, he could probably whoop you. I was like, I don’t know that. I don’t even know the guy. He said he think he can whoop you. And the other guy said, yeah, I can whoop him. I’m like, you don’t know if you can whoop me or not. You don’t even know me. And the guy said, see, I told you he could whoop you. I’m like, how are you gonna say he whooped me? He don’t even know me. And why is he talking about whooping me anyway? I don’t even know the guy. Yeah, I, but you, I don’t think you beat little butch. I’m like, I don’t even know the guy. I’m not even gonna get involved with that. He said, I can get. I said, you don’t know that. He says yes I do. We end up getting in a fight. He lost pretty bad. And from then on, he didn’t want to start nothing with me. And then his older brother, oh, I know a good incident. And now you got me bringing up stuff. Back in them days, they had what you call no friend dippies. Now, what that means, people always, we didn’t have any money, so somebody had some money. My parents always gave me money because I always worked in the summertime, I worked for the school. I had a garden. I like to keep money in my pockets. I always found a job, so I always had money. But you have some other kids didn’t have no money, and they was always begging. So we came up with a thing called no friend dippies. That means if you have something, if somebody want to ask you for them, if you say no friend dippies, they can’t ask you for it. So as soon as you get a candy bar and every time I work little part time jobs for the grocery stores or whatever, they never had a job. I always work cleaning up houses. Hey, Miss John, Julie, you gotta, what about your house is dirty mind me cleaning up? Oh, shovel your snow. We did something to keep money, right? So this guy named Tiger and his brother one of the reds I beat up, I told him I like, uh, I had some popcorn. I was sitting in the chair like I’m doing now. And he came on. I said, no friend dippies. He said, man, forget that. Give me some. I’m like, no friend dippies. I ain’t gotta give you none. I was about maybe 9, 10. He said, I want some popcorn. I’m like, no friend dippy man. You heard me. Give me some popcorn. I was like, no friend dippies. Get away from me. He got over me. I’m sitting in the chair. He put his knee on my elbow and he came down. He’s like, give me something. I said, no. He’s like, whack. Popped me in the face. I was like, ah, I gotta kill you. We never got in a fight cause I didn’t wanna fight him. Cause he was crazy. But that’s the incident. I never forgot that. And they laughed, they laughed, they laughed. They still never forgot that. And this guy was a little guy. He was littler than I was, but he was a bully. And to this day, he’s still a bully. And you see him now, people thought he was a big guy, but he’s a little guy. And he could fight very well, but stayed in trouble. He went, took the wrong path. But that was an incident that I remember. It hit me in my face like that. One last incident. These guys always try to make you fight somebody. That guy didn’t try to get you to fight. So we were like, you know, we tired of them bullying us. How come you guys don’t fight? Oh, we friends? No, but I know you friends, but Larry probably could kill you. You can’t kill me, Larry like, shit. I think Larry can take it. Cause Larry’s fast bully and you always bullying people. That’s probably why you ain’t never messed with him. We winking our eyes like, okay. And Willie like, yeah, I’ll kill Larry. And Larry like, you don’t know that. He’s like, yeah, payback. And we just agitated. And they got into a fight and we laughed so hard. We finally, finally got them to fight. I think Larry won too. But then Larry had to fight Willie all the time. Cause he was the kind of guy you had to fight five of time. If you beat him the first time, you got to fight him again. You beat him a second time, he might leave you alone or make it a third time. But if he beat you, he gonna try to kill you. So you don’t want to fight a guy, you gotta fight all the time. That’s gonna beat you down. And if you beat him, you’re gonna keep fighting. Cause he ain’t gonna give up. Some people didn’t want to fight him. Cause they didn’t want to keep fighting this guy. Every single take you come outside, he stepped on your, ready to fight you, you know, so, like, oh, man. He used to go in the backyard, and we go in the backyard and that them days you have parties. You have where you got red light and blue light. You go to the party, the parents go home. If he see a girl he like, he taking her from the guy or whatever. We like, Willie, please. We trying to have a good time. I like her. He’s what? What? That guy? He’s a punk. I’m going to get. He would go take her. I had a girlfriend I like. Well, he said, I like her. I’m like, okay, you can have her. I don’t like her no more. Go ahead. I didn’t want her. Not Willie. Cause he gonna fight you for it. We having a party, and he gonna take this girl and this guy gonna try to do it, get fighting. I was like, oh, gosh, Willy, stop, man. We having a good time, everybody got a good girlfriend. Why do you gotta start a fight? He said, cause I want her. I’m like, oh, man, here we go. And he starts fighting. So we start hiding from this guy. He is always. We go places, we take off, and here come looking for us. Him and this guy named Larry Richard. Can’t forget that. Larry Richard, he fought everybody, always want to fight. If we got somebody back in them days, you came out of neighborhood, you better be able to fight. Cause we’re gonna try you. You know how to get the thing where the person gets behind you and get down, and we talk to you, and he’d push you over the guy and then jump you. They did this guy named Michael Compton like that, and he’s still today. He lives in Dallas. And last time I talked to him a couple years back, he ain’t never forgot that. He said, I said, you was new to the neighborhood, and Larry wanted to see what you got. And Larry used to bully me so much. His mother really liked me. And she said, leave him alone. I like Larry stop. Leave him alone. She said, I ever catch you messing with him, I’m gonna get you. So every time you mess with me, I said, I’m gonna tell my Hazel and he’ll stop. I’m gonna get you one of these days. So one day I was like, you know, you just get tired of getting bullied. I said, you know what? I’m tired of you bullying me. You ain’t doing it no more. He said, what you gonna do about it? I said, I’m not gonna let you bully me no more. He pushed. I beat him up, and his brother laughed at him. You let little butch beat you up? I didn’t come outside for three days. Cause he was waiting outside. I would go through the back door because you beat him up. And finally I’m like, I’m tired. And I went into him. I don’t know where I got that strength from. And he was a big dude. I beat him up in a doorway. I went. I was like a whirlwind on him. And his brother laughed at him. That next day, he was at my step for three days in a row. I had to go out the back door, go to school late. He, back in them days, you better be able to be it. So, that’s cool. I got you laughing. I’m laughing about it now. We tell, when we get together, the guys, and we pretty close, and we laugh at stuff like that now. But back in them days, you got your group, you got gangs. Back in them days, we try to stay neutral, but you got gangs on both sides of us and all over the place. If you weren’t in the gang, they gonna beat you up. But we were like, we ain’t getting in the gang. You ain’t intimidating us. We decided what we want to do. You ain’t. So we had our own little clique, but we didn’t have no gang. We wouldn’t get into all that crazy stuff. But we weren’t gonna let you mess with us unless you outnumber us. And sometime they outnumbers, like, 30 of them is only five of us. Different ballgame now. Even then, we trying to fight them. Let me show you something. [Patterson briefly walks away from microphone] We all play sports, and we became friends. See where I hang together? See how we all together? Even as we grew up, we all hung together. Even the guy that started some, that little guy back here? That’s the one that hit me in the (face). But you see, we play sports. See how, we see some of the same guys in the same pictures? And to this day, we’re almost like that now. And everyone that back in them days became all those guys, either their coaches or their officials or their teachers, like me being a referee or the other ones are coaches or their officials or they’re school teachers. We all took our skills and became athletes, cause we were good, and we were winning, we were winning championships in every sport we went. We were good athletes. And our kids took off this to a little certain extent. We were winning awards, from swimming to basketball to track to football to baseball, we were good, and we were always in championship. You had to play to beat us. I mean, we didn’t win everything, but we, you figure in nine years, we went to the championship seven and won six or five, whatever, five out of seven. In football and in track, we was fast, so we all learned to support each other to the. Now, today, I still can call someone passed away, but they respect us in school because you had to get that respect. If you didn’t, you had nothing coming. The coolest people back in them days are the ones right now be asking you to loan them a dollar. You the most muscular guy in school now you look like a frail. You were the most popular in school. Now you got nobody to talk to you. You were the fastest in school. Now you can’t hardly run. You had all this stuff back then, but now you ain’t got it all because the way you did your life and took advantage of it. And the ones that were humble, we’re the ones that are loaning you money now. But back in them days, you was all this. Now you’re not. Like I said, Leslie, back in them days, he was quiet. So when you told me, Leslie, I’m like, Leslie? He wouldn’t even talk. He ran track, but he ain’t never talk. He was quiet to us. We wouldn’t even mess, we wouldn’t even deal with him. Cause we’ll beat him up. He was too timid for us, you know, we were like, man, he ain’t hanging with him. He can’t hang us. But now he’s outgoing. He’s part of the Glenville alumni, which I used to be part of. And he’s pretty active. It’s a different ballgame now. He’s really shocked. He’s playing golf and making money. And them smart people, that’s how they are right now, you know? So.

Julie Gabb [00:18:49] So you said earlier that when you were in Columbia Elementary School, your football team played against?

Doug Patterson [00:19:02] No, our street team. It was a street team that we played against everybody. Just guys in the neighborhood. We, we played against everybody in the neighborhood. We just played them. And we beat them, bad. Because we kind of play organized football with a team and we were winning all the, the trophies and all that stuff. So we took that skill, and when we played as a team, we still did the same thing and we were winning championships. So when we play other schools, I mean, other street clubs and streets, we took that same skill that we had from the teams that we played on. Even in baseball, we were good. We were winning championships in baseball, tracks, women, we were pretty good. So the people that I grew up with now, other people, I didn’t know about them, but we had our own little clique and that’s how we are. And everybody ended up being cool and doing something with their lives. Most of them, you got some of them like Willie, you know, Tiger and them that went in the wrong direction. But the ones that really play sports, we didn’t have time to get in trouble. We went from season to season to season playing something. We ain’t have time to, by the time you get home and stuff in the evening time, what you gonna do? Back in them, your parents will let you go somewhere as long as you came back home safe. Cause we used to come back in late at night. They ain’t battle us cause we didn’t do nothing. Got a couple of them did stupid stuff, snatching pocketbooks and robbing people. And every one of them did that stuff went wrong or their life went wrong. Got it caught up with them. A couple of them got killed. Police shooting at them, robbing something. Hit him in the thigh, hit him in the head and killed him. Twelve years old, 13. Richie, the brother that I beat up sneaking over the woman got shot in the mouth, died from pneumonia. The ones that did dumb stuff, it cost ’em later on in life. So the ones that went in the other direction, they all pretty successful now.

Julie Gabb [00:21:03] For Glenville High School, what sports did you play when you were in high school?

Doug Patterson [00:21:07] Wrestling. I didn’t play any other sports with them. I was going to play football with them, but I had won a scholarship, what you call Outward Bound, which on a survival course for two months. And they sent me to Colorado for the summer to be able to survive and live with different other nationalities and different other financial people. So we all learned to live together. And you always had somebody that thought they were better than somebody else. And I was pretty tough. And at the end of the course, they wanted me and this guy to fight. They wanted to see who’s going to win it. I was on the wrestling team. So when I came back to Glenville to play football with them, they told me it was too late because I missed the summer. And I was kind of teed off. Cause I’m like, but you sent me on a scholarship program and I wasn’t here. And I’m in better shape than probably most of you guys. Being in Colorado, that altitude, and we climbing mountains and eating rational food and we doing survival courses and ran into a mountain lion up there. I’m repelling off mountains. I mean, we eating dog food and going on survival for three days with no food, no water to see us how we live and watched it. I’m like, in the military so when I came back to me, I’m better shape than your guys. You should have gave me that break because of representing the school. But they wouldn’t. Shall say, I never played for the school ever. And I played, played muni ball. And that’s how I ended up with muni ball. Never went back. But my brother played for the school. He’s the first 10th grader that started at varsity at Glenville. And they never do that in the first year. You don’t come that until late in the season that you got better or you did that in your junior year. He did it in his freshman year. Started off first team. I was like, wow. But then he wouldn’t, didn’t, he didn’t do it. He made the team, and he didn’t do it. He preferred to play in the band. He was in the all city band. Saxophone. And they were good. Cause Glenville, back in them days, we were ranked number one in the city and number three in the state as a band, marching band. We were pretty good in that sport. Only thing we wasn’t good at back then was football, and… I would say football. Basketball, we was okay. Track was always good. Football we wasn’t. Baseball, we was pretty decent. But basketball, they weren’t that good. And you know what in football, they weren’t that good. They’re good in football now. Back in them days, they wasn’t good in football. Always been good in track.

Julie Gabb [00:23:49] Were there any rivalries in high school between other teams?

Doug Patterson [00:23:56] Between other high schools? Glenville and Kennedy, because they built alike, and they built one year behind each other. When we went to the new Glenville, Kennedy was built the following year, and it built exactly like Glenville, except for everything is opposite. The gym was on one side, our gym was on the opposite side. They cafeterias on this side, our cafeterias on that side. That was the difference. But the school’s identical. And it was a rivalry because that’s where we used to talk to the girls. We didn’t have any money, so we used to catch the bus from Glenville to get all the way up to Kennedy to talk to the Kennedy girls or John Adams, because we felt those girls had a little bit more money and they had a little bit more class to them. Our girls that we felt fought like we did, and they were rough as us. So we would catch the bus to go across town to talk to their girlfriends, and then we end up getting in a fight because the guys out there thought they were so bad. I mean, the guys out there with the Kennedy girls and Adams, in them days, they had money. So the guys out there had their nose stuck up and they didn’t treat the girls right. We were more like, man, you ain’t treating this pretty lady right. Shoot, I’ll treat her right cause we from the hood and this lady is pretty and I’m a gentleman with her, right? And these guys were stuck up like they are now and they didn’t treat the lady’s good and the girls were like, we like them hood guys cause they treat us like what, girl, you know, they treat us nice. So now these guys want to fight us. Wrong, you do not want to fight us. Coming from the hood, can we beat them up? It be 20, it be five of us and we beat them all up. And then they go get guns. Cause they couldn’t fight. Just like now they can’t fight. They wanna, they couldn’t fight. You cannot beat us fighting. You might wanna give it up. And we treat your girls right. That’s why Willie took that girl from him. And he said, I’m taking her. Like, Willie, come on, man, we trying to enjoy this party. I want her. I’m gonna get her. Smacked the guy pushed him to the side, he got the girl cause she started talking to him like, oh, man. But they pull out guns. But we always liked Kennedy girls. To this day, Glenville guys like the Kennedy girls. They didn’t like the Collinwood girls cause the Collinwood girls, which is close to us, we were very competitive in sports. They were rough as us, and cursed like sailors so we didn’t like them. We liked the Kennedy girls they got money and dressed nice and look cute and, we like them. Warrensville, John Adams. Back in them days, John Adams and Kennedy battled, but it was mostly Glenville. And then Shaw. So we was competitive with them schools but mostly Kennedy. Always to the day out day, Kennedy. I even see Kennedy people now. Kennedy. But we liked your girls. To the day, it was Kennedy girls, not Collinwood. Some of them got to, but most of them Collinwood girls were rough. East Tech, East High like, them girls curse as much as we do. And drinking, we ain’t trying to get them. Not us. I don’t know what other guys did, but the group that I hung around, we want the Kennedy girls. To the day. Most of us, I went with Kennedy girls. That’s what we like. Kennedy. Kennedy, not the guys. The guys are chumps. But we were rival, in sports, real bad. Glenville and Kennedy. To the day, it’s still that same way.

Julie Gabb [00:27:11] So was the rival, the sports rivalry, based off of what you were saying?

Doug Patterson [00:27:16] It’s based off of your school look like ours. And it also was Shaw, because Shaw had the same color as ours, red and black. And you copied our colors, whatever. So Shaw was upscale between Glenville and Kennedy, Shaw was in the middle. You got Glenville, Kennedy, then you got, no, Glenville, Shaw, then you got Collinwood. What about, no, Glenville, Kennedy, no, Glenville, Shaw. Then you had Kennedy. So with Glenville, Shaw, and you moved up to Kennedy, Adams, Warrensville, out in that direction, Shaker. Collinwood was under Glenville. If you look at expertise, as far as the classification of people and the way they living was. Shaker was kind of tough because them people back in them days, because you had the ratio by stuff in there, it’s mostly caucasian then. So we really didn’t talk to a lot of Shaker. Shaker to us was way up above our head, so we didn’t. And they wouldn’t allow us in that community as much. Upscale was, Adams a little bit, Kennedy a lot. Warrensville, you on the borderline going up there, back in them days, in the early days. Because it was mixture. And then the people from inner city started moving out towards Kennedy, Warrensville. And then the Caucasian then moved out into Chagrin Falls and Chardon. They got the heck away. Why now in the Glenville people were starting to move out there and get away from the hood rats, because that’s when the riots started. And now we got the riots. You got, now you got the gang wars between the gang rivalries in school, the Devil’s Disciples, the Hell’s Angels, Progressive Gents. The Delamores, We Delamores got the girls- They all fighting, but we right in the middle, and we ain’t joining no team. You got blackouts, you got breaking into stores because of the riots, what happened. That guy laid behind the truck. We was up there when that happened, and we walking down the street going swimming, and all of a sudden we’d seen people breaking windows. We like what’s happening? They just hit. Rolled over that guy that laid himself down under that tractor, Stephen Howell. And that’s when the riot started. Now you got military people with tanks and jeeps going down our street with blackouts, and they ride in breaking windows and all kind of stuff. Martin Luther King, that’s when they was doing all kind of stuff. Blackout, it would be pitch black out there stealing stuff. We were doing it, too, to a certain extent. Run in the house, got clothes you were selling. And that’s when you had drugs and normal stuff that was happening. And some of the people got caught up in that, because that’s the way you survived. That made you outcast you went in that direction. They wouldn’t let me do it. When I tried to do it they like, no, you? No. That ain’t you, get out of here. And we wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t let me get involved with that stuff. And I ain’t want to anyway, but they weren’t gonna. Me and Jimmy, some of they like, no, you guys ain’t getting nothing. No, you guys are cool. And they wouldn’t let us do it. It was almost like protecting us, but they did it. They couldn’t see us do it. We wouldn’t, in our little clique, they hang together. We weren’t trying to do that stuff. I mean, we tried some different thing, but we didn’t get carried away. Like Larry and Woolie and Tiger and all them guys. Then nowadays, Larry’s not even allowed back in the state. Woolly, I heard he got married down in Columbus, trying to change his life. Tiger, he still wouldn’t do right, stealing. Wouldn’t even trust him. Come in your house, he’s supposed to be a friend. He’ll rob your house or set you up. Them kind of guys you had, you couldn’t watch him. Try to steal your girlfriend. He’s supposed to be your friend, but he don’t care. He gonna try to take your girl if he can. Me and his brother, the one I beat up, we was always hanging together and we always, you go with one girl, I go with the sister or the friend. So he invited me and his sister invited me to a party and said, I’m gonna introduce you to my sister, Angela, I never forgot Angie. And I went to meet her I said, oh, man, she’s class I like that. So his brother Tiger came. So I’m a gentleman. I’m like, how you doing? Tiger said, what’s up, b? She’s like, ooh, I love him. I was like, what? I’m a gentleman and this guy a dog. And she ended up going with him. But their life ended up like that because he didn’t treat her right and now to today, I found that’s how she is. Because she went with her boyfriend, they broke them, she went with the brother. What’s wrong with that? Well, I went with this other girl, and Tiger, I’m telling him, man, take her. I gotta do something. So I can’t take her there. You take her there. So she was like, I said, I was playing hard to get with her. He said, well, you didn’t like her. Like, I was playing hard to get. So he ended up dating her. I’m like, wait, that’s a flap. So until the day she see me, I outta beat you up cause you let him. No you did that, but you didn’t wanna talk. But I was playing hard to get. But you got stuck with him. That’s just what you get. So I didn’t trust him with, that song, with OJ, Backstabber. That’s how they were back in them days. They didn’t care. They smiled on your face all the time. They want to take your place cause you’re doing okay. You got some of the guys versus snobby, and we just beat them up. Because you was taught them days to be able to beat up two or three guys. Head up. You were small. But I knew being small, the first thing a big guy gonna do to me is what? He’s gonna grab me. He said he little, I’m grabbing him. Wrong. Cause I anticipated that when you grab me, it’s over. That’s what I was waiting on. It’d be better for you to stay the distance and box. But you grabbed me, I was taught, I took wrestling. I’m like, oh, he’s done. He grabbed me. I got him. I pick him up and slam him and stuff. We were kind of strong back in those days, but, all our guys were pretty good athletes, so we were cool.

Julie Gabb [00:33:29] So, you were saying earlier about witnessing an event occurring in a riot. What riot was it? Glenville’s?

Doug Patterson [00:33:36] Mm hmm. We were right in the middle of it going to the swimming pool when it first happened. And they were, cause the Caucasians were coming through the city and they were throwing rocks at themc through the windows to the car. Like, what’s wrong with these people? Why they throwing rocks? The guy got ran over. That’s when it got started, right there on Lakeview. And we were right, going right up the street when it started. And from then on, blackouts, breaking in stores that we wanted, stuff that we wanted before we couldn’t get it, we got it there. They were going on Giant Tiger. Back in them days, they had that store called Giant Tiger going in and steal all kind of football equipment. We had a whole team’s equipment up in the attic, everything. And back in them days, you know, you go into going to a store with old shoes, you come up with the new ones. Cause you done took the old ones and put it in the box. Used to do that kind of stuff. Had new shoes on, old shoes in the box. And eventually they gonna get hip to that. We did have parties. And you go to a party, you end up fighting. Cause you got the parties at the school. Little parties back in their days. And these are called red light, blue light. We used to have a game called Cootie 21. You find a girl, you can do whatever you want with her. To a certain extent that she let you. Or they play hide and go seek. We call it Cootie 21. Some people call it Booty 21. And you call them and you have fun. You know, we stayed in our little clique. But everybody, if you like somebody else’s woman. One guy went away to the military, and everybody was on his girl. But they can’t do no more than what she let them do. Everybody was on her, but she let everybody do that. But they supposed to be his friends. And I could not, I didn’t do, I’m like, I ain’t doing that to this day. I don’t do this stuff like that. But Tiger and them, yep. Yep, yep. They only. She’ll let them do it. They gonna do it. Mm hmm. They didn’t care. They gonna do it. But they can’t do no more than the girl let them. And back in them days, you go on to jail, you go into the military I’m gonna meet some fun, whatever. But the riots were, man, the fighting with the riots. And you got these jeeps and tanks on the street in the inner city. That was, I ain’t never seen no military in the middle of the street like that. They got the military hats on and say get in the house. I mean, we were teenagers then. We was young kids then. You know, we used to hang at the pool room all the time. Because that’s where our pleasure was. Shooting pool. Getting high and shooting pool. Go up there and shoot pool, get high. As we got older, when we were younger, we played sports. The ones that hung on me, the ones up on the St. Clair that was close to Glenville. Cause Glenville moved. It was on Parkwood in the inner city, on a side street. And they moved up on St. Clair to the major park. Back in them days, they were a little bit more mature cause we were younger and they didn’t fight as much. The gangs came right during the riot. And you better get on the gang. It was about 12 or 13 gangs that everybody decided to get. Little club and gang, and they would fight. We stayed in the middle, one’s I hung with. Cause we, like, we got too much class. We ain’t gotta get in that. You gotta join one of these gang. You gonna go with them? We not going with nobody. We neutral. We might go who winning that day? Our older ones, they fought. But the ones my age, I’m 64 now. We didn’t. We didn’t get into much of that fighting, but we did get involved with rioting and stealing, yeah. Cause if you didn’t do something like that, they were gonna punk you out. And we used to play games between each other, pick out teams with the older guys. Ten on this side, ten on that side. The older ones were older than us. They like 13, 14, we like nine and ten, something like that. But they might be 15, 16, you go high. If we catch one of you, we can beat you the way we want to. That’s the kind of game we play. So if I caught you somewhere, you on this side, the older one, they used to beat you down. They beat a guy so bad, he broke his arm. And we were all friends. But they catch you, they can beat you. So it was like, okay, you got two tomorrow. You know what I used to do? I used to go home. Got like, forget that. And then I come back outside, just when it’s over with, y’all couldn’t find me. I was out here somewhere. But I went home, ain’t gonna catch me and beat me up. So I used to go home and I act like I was hiding. Cause they look everywhere for you. And back in them days, they had what you call seven B flat. So when you went from elementary school to junior high, they could beat you just like a birthday, you know, when your birthday comes, they can get you the lift. When you went to the 6-A back in them day and went to the 7th grade, junior high, they call you a 7-B flat. If they catch you coming from elementary, junior, they jump on you, beat you up. Or initiate you, wherever they want to call it, because you’re flat. So when you became a flat and had them sign your autograph book back in days, they sign autograph book to the younger people. You better watch where you walking because somebody said, that’s a 7-B. Here they come. You, like, take it off, cause they would beat you. Yeah, back in them days you had all kinds of stuff, you know. But, um, I’ve been in the Glenville area for a long time. Glennville board of directors, I was on the Glenville board of directors, the Glenville festivals, when it first started with Mayor Mike White. I’ve been on that festival as the field director and executive director of the Glenville Festival, where we got 10,000 people, and this is our 37th year this year, I think, 36, 37. So I’ve been with them for every year except for the first year. And we started in the backyard. And then we’ve been doing it ever since with Mayor White. And they still do, and every other festival copied. They made adjustments and they switched off. But we the oldest festival, and they, they got their personal preference based on their neighborhood. Some things they got better and developed better off of what we did, but we try to stay with the same tradition. A lot of national artists came up through the Glenville Community Festival, which is the oldest festival, and the most respected festival. Even though you got the Fairfax, you got the Buckeye festival, you got the Lexington Parkway festival, you got it all over there. But Glenville, they know. Even a kid, they know the Glenville festival. And that’s what people be waiting on every year. The Glenville festival, you got them all over the place, but they remember the Glenville no matter what. Come back a long time ago, Glenville was like, you know, segregated. So you had Metzenbaum and all numbers going, because during that time, people were down on Cedar and Hough. And as you got older, parents branched out a little bit more. And then the Caucasian and Orientals moved out. So the African American move in. Then they started moving out, out to the suburbs like Kennedy, Warrensville, and Shaker, like they do now. And everybody, and now the rest of them are starting to come back in. Because you got them big houses on Bratenahl and down on Pasadena and Drexel and all that stuff over there in Glenville area. Go over there now. Big gigantic houses. People didn’t take care of them because it passed on from generation to generation. But there was some big gigantic houses. So you knew them people had some money. Cultural Gardens, all that stuff. By me, being under Glenville development, I learned about all this stuff. Them houses were gigantic, and they were people that had money. Back in them days, we lived on Kinsman, so that was ehh. And then you moved to the inner city. Your inner city was Quincy, Scovill. That’s what most parents grew up on. Central. And then they tried to get better in their life, and they moved to the Glenville area a little bit. In Collinwood there, if you go over there, look how little houses are. Very little, small houses. South Euclid ehh, nice neighborhood. But then they have a lot of big houses now. But along Lakeshore and all that stuff, those are big. Cause people didn’t go that direction towards the lake. It was more in house up the hill. Everything here is up the hill. Kinsman and all that stuff. That’s where everybody was at, except for the lower-income people, was Hough, Cedar, Central, Carnegie. Down in those areas where they redeveloping. And back in those days, down in Superior and stuff like you had a fight to come in them neighborhood, those were hood rats. And you come in them neighborhood, them guys got their hats on backwards, cigars and hat cocked. You come in those neighborhoods, you had a fight. And them girls will curse you out. So Glenville had a little bit more clash than that. But we didn’t bother them too much. And Glenville area was really a good seed where everybody came from. Because what happened when they built the schools in Columbia, everybody grew up in those areas. O. W. Holmes, and some of them schools up in there. Stephen Howell, it was like that. And then when they graduated, they all took elementary and they split. Got Glenville, John Hay, Collinwood, East Tech and East High. They all stayed in the same neighborhood. And Shaw, unless their parents got more successful and then they moved out towards Warrenville and Shaker. But most of them elementary school. We all grew up together. And that’s why everybody kind of know each other and have a big reunion. Cause we all kind of went from elementary and they went a little further out. Depends on what side of town you went to. Cause walking from Columbia 105, walking to Glenville on St. Clair was a good walk. Kids don’t walk that far no more. They wanna ride. And we had to walk in snow and blizzards and all that stuff. And we didn’t miss all them days. And if you were late, you got paddled in the boiler room. You can’t hit kids anymore. They like, we play football and you mess up a play. The coach say, assume the position you had been bent over kicking your butt, you can’t do that. now they call it brutality. If you late for school. Back in them days, everybody was tardy. They put them in the auditorium and they took them in the room and gave all of them spats with them holes in it. You can’t do that now. You were late, so you didn’t want to be late. Cause you didn’t want to get whacked. You would get to school. You see people run down the street trying to beat that bell. Cause they knew they gonna get stopped by the, and I think they did that on purpose. They set people there, up, you late. So you see people [Patterson mimics running] and you go in an auditorium, oh, might be about 30 or 40 people in there crying about why they were late. They wasn’t hearing it. You getting whacked. And they heard it. They didn’t just [Patterson lightly claps], they like who-pow. You can hear the “Ahh!” And you got some of the people supposed to be so tough, right? I’m like, you punk. “Don’t hit me, my parents don’t hit me” well, we’re gonna hit you today. And they whack them good. The guys, the girls got detention. They didn’t whack them.Guys got whacked. All the ones that spoke so tough. They cried like a little baby whenever got ready to get that spat. You know what I’m saying. So you get embarrassed. You didn’t want to be late. Cause you don’t get a spat and whine like a little punk. And everybody hearing you supposedly so tough, and they show their colors. Oh, you know, some of the guys gonna suck it up. And they get outside. We caught you. What are you talking about? Mm hmm. You’re a punk. Cause you couldn’t be a punk back in the day. They would punk you. That’s why I said, we didn’t even deal with him. He was like, sit down, you’s a bookworm. You can’t even play sports with us, but then they end up being fast. But you wasn’t tough. You tough?. You weren’t, no, you wasn’t street tough. It’s a difference. Cause back in them days they used to teach you in junior high boxing in school. They don’t teach it no more. They had boxing classes in school. And this one guy named Reggie, oh man, I can’t forget that one. He wanted to fight me so bad. And we took a box and said, well, we just doing like this. And he’s like, yeah, I want Patterson cause he think he tough. Like come on, punk. And they would teach you. He’s like pow. Hit me in the nose and all that, ahh! I’m gonna kill you. Take these gloves off. We gonna street fight now. They like, no, we boxing. He was like, I’ve been wanting to do that so long you thought you… To the day, well he died but I wanted to beat him so bad. That’s why I never took up boxing. I’m like, no. Ain’t nobody hit me in my nose like that again, so I’m a referee. I ain’t let nobody hit me. I better break it up. But I can fight.

Julie Gabb [00:46:29] And so you were saying earlier about how people would have to walk to school. Was that in high school that they would get tardy?

Doug Patterson [00:46:38] It was junior high and high school. They got you. You late, you getting a spat, guys, I don’t know what they did with women, girls out there, I bet they did detention, but the guys got it whacked hard. But they got it in elementary school, too. You still got whacked. You got the paddle and they had holes in them. But Mr. Zabinski and them they used to whack you and they get you good. Pow. They come all the way back. Oh, God, you can’t do that kind of stuff now, that’s brutality. But they, man, they wasn’t playing with that. Mister Clary and them, they still know them for that kind of stuff. Mr. Williams, they know them for, they were famous for hitting people like that. They were famous and nobody wanted to mess with them. And I think they enjoyed it. Cause they had a reputation. Mr. Clary gonna get you. Oh, man, Clary don’t play. He gonna tear you up. That’s how they were. They didn’t want him to whack you, so you didn’t want to do it. So you try to straighten out. So they have reasons for you not to do bad. Nowadays, they give you reason and they try to talk to you all the time instead of threatening you because they can’t even handle the people at home. And you got kids raising kids, you know, you respected your, and you probably hear this story before. You respect your elders next door. They tell on you. You respect them, Miss John. Now you tell them somebody might blow up their house. Kids now, you fight somebody. If it’s close, we gotta fight one more time. You go down the hole. Down in the hole. That’s where you fall at after class. Oh, the fight going on after school. You know, that kind of stuff. They beat you. If it’s close, we gonna fight again. You beat me the next time. We gotta go for the third time. But if you beat me bad enough, I ain’t fighting you no more. We cool. And once it was over, y’all was cool. You can’t do that nowadays. They killed you, now you don’t beat them up, they gonna… It’s embarrassing for the young kids now to get beat up. And the guys are laughing at them. You know, kids now, they laugh at stuff that, to us ain’t funny. But now they poke fun at you. They beat you up and now they punk you out. Now you wanna go shoot the other person. Cause they don’t beat you up. And the other guys are teasing you. Different ballgame. Back then you fought, it was over with. You lost a couple times, you lost pretty bad, you were done with it. Y’all cool now. Well, you beat him in y’all respect, like that guy Rensher, we were cool after that, but he wanted to fight. But I went into him, but he didn’t try to shoot me or nothing like that. Like they do nowadays. Willie would do stuff. He’d go in there in the basement and shoot crap. And he throws seven. He said, it slipped out of my finger I’m gonna take the turnover again. They were like, what? He said, I’m gonna take my turnover again. We like, oh, God, here we go. How they gonna take your turnover again? Well, he hit my arm and I threw a 7. Willie, come on. Really? We in these people’s neighborhood on Hough and these guys territory, and you’re gonna shoot the dice again after you went out and you gonna take a turn over again? Okay, we gonna have to fight. And we know fighting. And that’s why we avoided him. We avoid him and Larry Rentry. We avoided them like the plague. We already act like we didn’t go. And they say, hey, wait, here I come. We like, oh, here he comes. Let’s get out of here. Yeah. This guy like to fight all the time. Yep.

Julie Gabb [00:49:50] With Glenville, you said that, you mentioned earlier that you were at the old Glenville?

Doug Patterson [00:49:55] I was the last graduate at the old Glenville and then went to new one. We were the last year, ’68. And then they went to the new Glenville. So I was the last 10th grader at the old Glenville. Less went to the old, which was on park when they turned into FDR. My class, ’68 was the last class at Glenville. 10th grade. It moved from, it moved into January and that’s when you started. We came over that September at the 10-A, cause back then, you had 10-A and 10-B, and we went 10-A, and then we did 10-B at the new Glenville. So after the spring break, we went over to the new school.

Julie Gabb [00:50:37] And what was different from the old Glenville versus the new Glenville?

Doug Patterson [00:50:41] Old Glenville was old, antique. And remember at that time, we were there when we were there in ’68. Well, not ’68, but ’65, ’64, ’65. You had older people from old classmates in old Glenville. The one that had Metzenbaum and some of them old, you know, the caucasians. Back in them days, it was, you know, predominantly Caucasian than African American. And it was making the switch over because you still had some caucasians that moved out and it was mostly African American, but they were the older, more mature type one. And then when we came to the new Glenville, it was more up tempo, more high tech like they got nowadays because the world started to move because you got new technology, new building, new design. The other one was like old school in the basement, in the hallways, walls would crack, you know, like it was old, different ballgame there. It was more, everything vertical. Walking up all these vertical steep steps, like dungeons type stuff. But you got in new Glenville, it was like everything on three floors spread out, wider. New wall, new ceramics, different ballgame. The old school like you need a little crunch, clap with these old wooden desks and all. You know what I’m saying? It’s a little different than we went to new ones. Like, it’s like when you back in them days when you get to go to school you couldn’t wait till the summer came over because you got new clothes, new school supplies, new crayons. So going to New Glenville made us feel that way. You know what I’m saying? Going to a new school, new technology, new desk. Look at this cafeteria. New technology. You got the big cafeteria. Instead of this little crunchy classroom, you got the new lines that you get into. Look at the gym. The new floor is bigger compared to this old wood floor. We went from one exchange to the new one. That was a big change. I ended up spending another year out of school because when they went to the old Glenville, to new Glenville, they lost my records. And I was going to quit school. Because they couldn’t find the school grades from the old school to new school. So when I got ready to graduate, they told me I couldn’t graduate cause they couldn’t find my records. So therefore they said, you don’t have enough points to graduate. And I’m like, bull crap. He said, we lost the records. I like, I had a’s and b’s. You could go to my teacher. Cause I did, for real. I said, I’m not going back to school. I quit. My mother said, you ain’t quitting. I’m like, I’m not going back to school. I graduated. Why didn’t they give me my thing? Well, son. And so I go talk to the principal. He said, son, you can either quit now and you never get your diploma and your job. You know that fatherly talk. Cause my father died when I was 17. After I came back from Colorado. I was young and he died. And you can go all your life and not have a diploma. But I went to school, Mr. Glenn. I went to school, Mr. Lawson. I graduate. You need to finish this off. But why I gotta do that? Show you how life changes. They taught me. They’re going back to school. I met the kid’s mother. That next semester, my three kids got parents. If I done went back to school, I wouldn’t have had them. Cause I would have never met her. I met her that next semester. I mean, even though we ain’t together now. I would have never met her, period. Cause I’d have been gone. So my life would have been completely changed. A month before school ended, they found the records. I was way over, but I’m still glad I finished. I was way over. I had to go back to school and go with my brother, who was behind me. We graduated together. I still got the picture right there on the table. We ended up graduating together. But I should have been gone. But I could have quit, and I didn’t. But I almost did. They had to go bring me to school a bunch of times to talk me out of it. Nowadays, kids probably would have quit. Heck with it. I ain’t going to school. But my parents, everyone’s like, look, you heard what he said. But I graduated. I know, but are you gonna quit? Are you gonna go ahead and toughen it up and figure it out? You’re a tough guy, Doug. You can handle this. You’ve been doing good in school. If you’ve been doing all that talk, and it got to me, I’m like, all right, I’ll be on the wrestling team. I’d say. But when they told me they found the records, man, I was so pissed off. And I told my kids today, now, I said, I wouldn’t have met your mother. But you know what? Things happen for a different, because you and my children now and me and them get along very well. Even though the mother remarried, my kids, you see them pictures of my daughter and all them right there, we still tight. Anytime they have something, they call me. My daughter’s airline stewardess. The other one’s a teacher at Cleveland State. My son got his own company, and they’ll call me daddy, daddy. And we real tight. Even my grandchildren, if they know I’m coming, they ready. Granddad coming? Cool. So I’m grateful for that. When it comes down to it. I said, your mother, I was young. She got pregnant, and we had to do. I didn’t want to get married. I was too young. I was only 20. I ain’t know what the heck would happen, I didn’t have no father, so I didn’t have no guidance. I just did what I thought I needed to do as a guy. And back in them time, guys were dominant over the wives. They ain’t like that no more. But back in them days, that’s all I knew. Cause I seen my father be dominant with my mother. But my mother’s sisters, they were dominant women over their men. Me and my father wasn’t putting up with that. Cause my mother tried to no, I’m running this ship. My mother’s sister ran their ship with their husband, and they just sit back. But they were more successful, to me. Could the mothers handle the stuff? But. So I was trying to run it like our new dad doing. And that was hard on the wife. Cause she was only 17. She got pregnant, got pregnant again, and her family started dogging her. You’re 17, 18 you got two kids. Get one kid, one on the way. I said, look, I’ll marry you. I’m tired of you people dogging you and dogging me, and they ain’t talking to you. I wasn’t ready to get married. Did I try to get out of it? My mother like, nope, you marrying her. But, mom, I ain’t got the ring. We got ring for you. I don’t have the piece. We got one. That was a forced marriage. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I just turned 20. Why get married? Really? Well, you. You the one that went to bed and did that, then got the kids. Now you need to man up. Here we go again, manning up. So I got married. Didn’t know what I was doing, but I did it. But I did it again. No, I went a different direction. I didn’t want to get married. I had stuff I want to do in life. That’s so I’ll be telling my kids, don’t do that stuff until you know what you want to do. I wouldn’t have did that then I had things. I was just trying to find me at that time. I had to stop everything. I wasn’t even working. I broke up my ankle playing semi pro football. Couldn’t walk. I was on disability welfare and stuff. Like, I couldn’t work. Tore my legs playing football. Cause I thought I was gonna turn pro, which I felt pretty good. Just made the all star team, go pro. I said, man, feed my family. Didn’t happen. Broke the ankle, couldn’t work, didn’t have nowhere to stay. My aunt said, you can stay with me. I’m like, why y’all finding all these remedies? Cause I’m like, I ain’t got no place that you can stay with me. You can stay upstairs. Your aunt got the third floor. Y’all can stay up there, I got a ring for you. We got a minister. Oh, man, they really had me in there. But back in them days, guys wouldn’t marry girls like that that fast. That’s why you have all them babies without the fathers. I didn’t want to do that. Cause it put pressure to me on her and this. And she still don’t realize that. Ex-wife. But she gets mad cause I don’t pay her no attention no more. I’m like, you remarried, so I don’t pay you no attention. The kids be like, mom, that was 30 years ago. You still got the grudge against him. I’m like, I was young and didn’t know what the I could do. But now pay her no attention, so now she’s mad. I speak to you, speak to your husband, I’m cool, that’s done, you know. But back in them days, people were having babies all over the place. And they wouldn’t two, three, four baby different women. I ain’t never had that. I can only come with one person. Back in them days, they weren’t doing it like that. I got buried by Susie, Cindy. I got friends now. I got 13, 14 kids. They say don’t see them all. They got different mothers. Back in them days, that’s how it was. Cause you had a lot of children back in day, you tell a kid, a woman today that had ten or twelve kids, she look at you, are you out of your mind? Right? They ain’t thinking about no ten or twelve kids now. Back in them days, it wasn’t nothing. My mother was 13, back a long time before that was back in them days with the Glenville. They had a lot of babies. Four, five, six. I had three. So that was a lot. Nowadays you tell a woman, I want ten kids, you want what? Where these kids are now? I don’t think so. They might have three or four. My son got four. Mothers, already got two and got one. They like, we’re done. But back in them days, people were just having babies, babies, babies. Getting high. c-cokes was the main thing back in them days. c-coke and marijuana, coke a little bit, they couldn’t really afford that. But c-cokes and drinking syrup, you can afford that and everything. Back in them with down highs, people being like feeling like that, throwing up, drinking heavy liquor and like stuff like that. That’s how they fought. You drink that liquor, you fighting. People get delivered and drunk and now they ready to fight. They take c-coke, he had some c-coke. They were selling them in school. And they want to talk a lot. But back in them days, with c coke and acid in the eighties, seventies, that’s when you have Funkadelic shack and Rick James and all that other stuff. Stuff out there. They were taking all that George Clinton. Back in them days, that was acid. People be high on purple haze and all that stuff. In the Kent riots, back in them days, people were getting high like that. They were all messed up. And I know you’ve probably been hearing that they were c coke and acid, acid, marijuana. Them is only a nickel. Acapulco gold. Now you eating up everything. Cause you got the munchies. You could afford a $5 bag of marijuana like that. Back in them days, c coke, two or $3, get some acid and get real high. Couldn’t afford coke, too expensive for the people. Upper echelon. If you can get a hold of something, you appreciate it. And if you get hooked. And then they start shooting up to get higher. Because they start wasn’t satisfying them, you know. But that’s why they fought a lot. Cause they drunk, they couldn’t afford that. So they brought liquor. A lot of BYO parties. Bring your own booze. A lot of basement parties. They call red light blue light. And people charge you to come in the basement, have a party and get drunk. And they wait to fight. They cut the lights off. You got red and blue lights down in the party room. So back in them days with the Glenville people segregated together. They grew old, they separated out. Other schools got built. Most of the people knew each other pretty well, especially Glenville people. To this day, Glenville people know each other very well their parents and they respected each other. And they know each other right today. And they said, why are they so close? Because they all started at elementary together. And they went circle line. But they end up coming back in. They went out from elementary, went like this. Because the junior highs took you this way, this way, and then. But they circled back into high school. So the same people you had in elementary school, you went to junior high out here. Either you went to elementary here and then went to this other elementary, or you went to elementary here. You went to Patrick Henry, you went to Empire. Now they became rivals. Track, Patrick Henry vs. Empire and then all sudden, here come David, Harry Davis. The two of them in the Glenville community, threw a monkey wrench, was here. So now you got Empire. Patrick Henry, and Davis. Those are the three rivals in track. And when the track meets over, they fought. Track was over here. Empire, come over here.Davis came over here. Patrick Henry, right there is at their track. So when the Empire walking back home. Cause they didn’t have buses like these team buses they got now you walk when a track meets over with your uniform. Davis, walk that way as you walk at home if you won. This part right here, before we want you come to that cornfield. It’s on. You win we fighting. They fought right there. And that going through Stephen E. Howell, right through the park. So Patrick Henry track was right here. Empire, go this way. Harry David, go this way. So when Empire goes this way, Patrick, sit right here. You fought, we meet them right there. And we fought in that little cornfield. But they’re the rival track. Those three schools, Audubon and Addison, all them over there. We didn’t see them that much. Cause you go nowhere. This is a little circle. Patrick Henry, Empire. Davis first was Patrick Henry, empire. Patrick Henry empire, Patrick Henry. Empire. They just rivals. Patrick Henry empire, Patrick Henry. Glenville. Remember when the streets split when the school came. Here’s. Here’s the school. Everybody in elementary, then they split like that. But as they got older, what did they end up right back there. That’s why all the parents know each other. That’s why all these people know each other. That’s why they say they end up right back in Patrick Henry, in Glenville. And then Collinwood was over here. So some of them went to Colinwood because they was up on this end. They moved over. And so we still knew the commonwealth. We didn’t deal with them. Glenville people stayed really Glenville. That’s why they have all these Glenville alumni balls now. Other people try to copy, like East Tech and them, they try to have alumni. They didn’t have it like Glenville before. And everybody at Glenville, you see all the people that know each other for 50 years at the reunions, and they all still close to the day, like even less than them within those five years. Now, you got the old younger ones now a little different. And when they had a little picnic, they got two different picnics. They got the old school picking up from. And they all went to class and they end up breaking apart. Bimbo, who used to fight all the time. Now he can’t hardly walk and be talking all that stuff. He’s like, man, somebody beat you up, you can’t hardly move walking like this. They used to bully people. Bimbo, pretty. They had name, bimbo pretty, red roll fighters. You had to park right there on terrace, and they had a party. And it’s the same on people, about a thousand people. And they all know each other. They go right in the hole they do every year, him and Melvin. And they broke up and they split. Cause Bimbo said he didn’t want to do it no more. So when he didn’t do it, Melvin, them took over and they put the party on top of here in East Cleveland, actually. Then Bimbo wanted to do it again. Melvin didn’t want to do it, so they split. Now it’s a split. The ones down in the whole old Glenville or the old school hood rats down here. The other ones, like us, were more up here to a certain extent. And that means when the newer ones came up here, Bimbo and his classes in ’67, ’66, ’65, they all down in here. And the ones that came out little after that, still thugging, but the other ones moved up here. So what happened when the other ones moved up here to Forest Hills, they bring in their kids with them. So they’re the new Glenville. The ones just graduate. 2012, 2011, 2010. They were coming to this one, not this one right here. That’s their parents and grandparents. They ain’t trying to deal with them. They came up here because some of the parents were still up here. But they, even when they had to park right here, they went on this side and they said, we’re gonna call all our young people and we’re gonna be right here next to you guys in our own tents while you main guys out here and the thug rats were still down here and I don’t even hardly go. And you go down there, you see all the thugs, all the ones within the gangs, they’re down in the old one. And they started back up and it was packed. And they bring in their kids, but they bring in their kids from the hood rat part. These up here to move. That’s a little bit more sophisticated. More like Leslie and them. They ain’t going down here. Cause they would punk him out. You see what I’m saying? He didn’t fit that he was the one. They would bully him and jump him. So he didn’t hang with that. He wasn’t in the gang. He was more of the new breed. Old school, still old school, but a new breed. He’s up here and his- And since he’s doing well, if he had kids, they’re more ephylon up here, too. Because his kids ain’t going down there in the hood rat that still get high and still be smoking with everybody around right here. Ain’t no smoking. Ain’t no get high. We got the kids up here. Ain’t no doing that down here. Do what you gotta do. And they didn’t care. And the kid just as bad. Hat on backwards. You can see old people, the old hustlers, all pimps and all them at the old one, you can go down there and you remember there that you looked up to, there was hustlers. They had that old one. If you wanted to see all the old ones that were hustlers. And they spoke in. So popular now they can’t hardly walk. Ain’t got no teeth, ain’t got. They down there then the ones you go down there, the ones back in 63, 62, 60, they ain’t coming up here, that’s too fresh. 68 some. Some of them come up here a little bit, they move. They just want to see the old ones, they might go down there, but they really ain’t trying to do that. They gonna go back up here. Cause they like, ain’t trying to deal. Ones like that. They ain’t trying to deal with that. They really up here now and then they try to get this and go. But that old one, they. They still draw my grandparents. And you see them people, that was thug rack. When you see their kids and they got them stories, they got them gang, them old fighting women, they all marching. Them people, they all down here. That they still do it after they took off for two years, Melvin took it. They come running over here. And the people here didn’t go and support that. Because they were like, that’s out of my element. I want to get high. I want to do this. We can’t do that up here. Down here, we can do our thing. So they stay down there and they don’t bother them. And they all know each other from old school thugs and crackheads and dice shooters. They all down here and they know each other. And the police, like, whatever, let them kill each other. But they don’t. Up here in Cleveland, height, they be on you like 40 going north. You make a wrong move and you park your car the wrong way, they towing you. You know what I’m saying? They getting you up here, you better not do nothing wrong. And they be on you like 40 going north. Don’t park your car here, don’t do this. Stop the festival. Move them cars. Down here. Who gives a heck? They park and double park. They don’t care. They all know each other. They cool down here, up here, different people. Back in the days. And by me being so much involved with Glenville, different stuff. I’m in the middle. But they respected me because I didn’t play. Me being an entrepreneur, running a company, and I do events, special events for places. And usually when they do the event, they, like. I said, no, Patterson was going to be here running it. And now he running. It’s cool. Cause I make sure it’s coordinated. It’s like I’m getting ready to do a big gospel event. That’s why I was running late. I went over to the field to design it, and that’s part of my staff when I did my other shows. So, in fact, when they do stuff up in here, I bring my entertainers for this one. I don’t bring them too much for them. I just let them do their thing. I go down there and they. Some of them will say, man, I wanted to rob you so bad because you always had money. I said, I would have whooped your little butt, too. The young ones talking that stuff, now young got older, they’re in the fifties. One of them told me, he said, man, we was going to rob you. I said, I should get you now from even saying that. You know, talking that crap, you ain’t gonna do nothing, little Mikey. And then you got bigger than me. Yeah, we was gonna rob you. All this time, I’m thinking the little dudes that looked up to us and all the time, he said, you always kept money, and we always wanted to rob you. Just never got the opportunity. And I said, man, I’d beat you now. He’s like, bring it on. I said, you don’t want to do this. Cause I kill you’re little butt. But we left alone. We speak now. But now I know he said that I won’t give him an opportunity to be in that position. We speak. I never forgot what you said. And they try to invite me to some of their stuff. Cause they had their parties. No, I wouldn’t mingle with it. The lady friends that I deal with is not gonna go to them thug parties. They would talk, what, you bring me to this then? Women were rough because I was dating a woman. I took her one time, she said, oh, God, she went to me. Like, man, them women be about to whoop each other’s butt. I said, I told you that’s how they are. Why you bring me that? I want you to see what I grew up in. She said, okay, well, you don’t have to bring me no more up here. She was cool. I’m cool down there. Oh, no, it ain’t going down there. Them guys look old and rough and look thuggish. And I said, that’s the way they grew up, they were the hustlers. That was the popular ones. The crap shooters, the dice shooters, the pool hustlers, the girls, the hustlers on the corners and all them that’s down there, ones up here had more class. They ain’t gonna do that. And if they did, they was a little bit more incognito with it. Down here, they ain’t give a heck if you knew it or not. Man, look at that ho hand. You know, the guys talk, they go, hoya, man, everybody to get that, man. She down there, not up here. Cause them guys weren’t dealing with that. Leslie and them up here, the other ones down over here, I can go either way. Cause I’m neutral. You don’t bother me. Cause as long as you don’t say you respect me. Cause they respect me as I walk here, they know me. And I see some of the guys. And you still look nice, man. Yeah, I never went in that direction. I never got in them drugs and be high with, no, that wasn’t me. I didn’t want to do that. So that’s the Glenville era now, the Glenville era. Different ballgame. Can’t have their parents have passed away. Now the kids either got the house, ain’t got no money, into drugs, stealing and doing all kind of dumb stuff, robbing people. Parent people are scared of them. Different ballgame on 105. Them houses are getting vacant because they can’t pay for them. They’re getting foreclosed. Community development owns some of the houses. They can’t pay the rent. And they got a lot of abandoned houses and people moving away cuz they’re scared. Drugs right next door. You go tell them, they know. You tell them they might come up in, kill you. So the older people either dying out or they’ve been there for a while, they leave’em alone, Miss Johnson or whatever like that. But most of them either died out and the kids got the houses, ain’t taking care of them. And the houses are going down because they can’t. They ain’t taking care of them. They ain’t keeping up with the property, they’re not keeping up with the building maintenance. And so they get abandoned, they move out. Now, it costs too much money to fix it, tear it down. That’s how Glenville is now. That’s when I was in Glenville Development Corp. I learned that stuff. Different ballgame over there now. A lot of abandoned building. So the festival, what brings everybody back to Glendale festival, which I used to be the executive director, which happens every once a year, 2nd August, 2 week in August, the community comes back, and people come back over, and they see all the old people again over on 88th street. It used to be on 110th. Then we moved down to 88, and it’d be packed, and all of them come back together. And that’s why we try not to do a lot of national act, some national act. But usually we try to use local people in the community as much as possible. They do a Christmas party for them, which was nice at Corey Church. So they try to keep it community wise that Mike started in. Like I said, it’s 37th year.

Julie Gabb [01:15:45] Were you a part of,the whole neighborhood? Like, neighborhood, maintaining, I guess, street clubs back in the sixties?

Doug Patterson [01:15:58] Street clubs?

Julie Gabb [01:15:59] Yeah, things like that.

Doug Patterson [01:16:01] I didn’t have to get involved. We play sports too much. Sixties. I was only six to ten years old. So back in them days, in 18, 17, your parents ran everything. You just. You were just there. I ain’t know nothing about none of that. We didn’t care. We’d go to school, go dating, go play sports. That’s all we did. You had the parents to deal there because a lot of places had a lot of after hour places back there. A lot of after hour joints, gambling at night and all that stuff. That was back in the ’60s and ’50s.

Julie Gabb [01:16:31] Where did you go for pool halls, gambling, things like that?

Doug Patterson [01:16:36] Right on the streets. The nightclubs over there, Midway and Tia Juana. All of them was out there. Cause your parents went there first. And as you- My name Darlene on them right there. Riley’s Pool Hall, Playboys, Inglewood. They were all right there. And then you go, Chuck Brown’s on Superior. That’s Chuck Brown, Playboy Riley’s, Inglewood. Leslie didn’t come to that. They didn’t come in that area. You see what I’m saying? He ain’t coming down in there. Cause they were punk him. He didn’t hang in there. That was not his- He’d go to a rec center and play pool. You ain’t coming out in them pool halls at all. They would stick you up because you had to. Hustlers, like I just told you they was. They didn’t reason to stick me up because I was mingling with them, and I ain’t let them look. Make me look like I was gonna let them do that. As much as he said they wanted to do, they didn’t try to do that because I wasn’t the one. They used to rob each other and be friends the next day, buzzing them and Bud Banks and them robbed them, and they were shooting poodle. I was like, man, ain’t no way they would have robbed Leslie. They would have stuck him up. They would have set him up to rob him. Trust me, he wasn’t coming down there in that kind of environment. He rather go to a major pool hall. Well, like at a bowling alley or rec center. But he wasn’t coming from neighborhood Poland. I mean, pool halls in the inner city. He ain’t coming down in that stuff. They would get him. And then you had Inglewood, and you also had Arlington. He might go to Arlington. Cause they kind of know him a little bit. He might have got away with that, but on 105, no, you won’t come in on that one. I couldn’t see him doing that.

Julie Gabb [01:18:26] So how was Cafe Tia Juana?

Doug Patterson [01:18:30] Cafe Tia Juana, that’s where you have all the famous people come. Elliot Ness. A lot of famous people came back in them days. Cafe Tia Juana. And I, before I- My grandparents- Not my parents, my grandparents. You had a lot of celebrities coming there. Duke Ellington, they all- Leo’s Casino, where everybody used to go to, that was famous, where they started entertainment. Peaches and Herb, all the famous- Stevie Wonder. All them people came. Smokey [Robinson], all of them came to Leo’s Casino. Temptations, Al Green. That was on Euclid. That’s when it started. But Cafe Tia Juana was the old hanging spot for the old swingers that was famous back in them days. And as they grew older, as I got older, they tried to come in there, and I was 18, 19, I was still coming in there. They let me come, and I wasn’t old enough. Even in pool hall, they would let me come in at 19, supposed to be 21, they would let me come in because they felt I was cool. Me and the pool owner, the owner, Jim Riley, he was like a second father. He really respected me. I had a lot of respect when I came out. So I got a chance to go through a lot of different things that know me. They ain’t gonna let other people go to. But Cafe Tijuana, oh, God, that’s where all the hustlers hang out. All the pimps and hustlers hang out. Cafe Tia Juana. And there was another one up there, Dearing’s. And it was two other ones up there that I saw the parents hang in there. As we got older, the parents, of course, faded away. And then the older ones, like now at 70, 69, they hang up in there. 72 years old. Now they hang at Cafe Tia Juana. That’s the most famous set right on the corner in Massie. Now it’s torn down. The church right next to it, Cafe Tia Juana. You heard about that one, huh? The older ones probably told you about that. Got less that know about that. They were too young. The Cafe Tia Juana? Yeah. All the more people hanging out. I used to go in there and I was younger. Sit back in the back and watching all these old hustlers.

Julie Gabb [01:20:44] What did it look like in there?

Doug Patterson [01:20:46] Small. Wasn’t big. Dark. People just sit there and had their drinks. Cause back in them day, people drunk, heavy, they weren’t in. The older people drunk, they weren’t running them drugs like kid teenager back in, they were drinkers. That’s why they had a lot of BYOB. Bring your own booze. You go to a party, you bring your own liquor, pay to get in, you bring your own stuff and drink. And they have a band and they charge you. And it’s set up to give you ice and pop. But normally they were drinkers. Midway. All them drinkers. My parents used to go to all that stuff and they were gamblers. My parents was gambling. All night long, they held them gambling….[Patterson’s phone rings and he answers] [Patterson speaking to Gabb] You sure you wanted water, pop or juice, anything?

Julie Gabb [01:22:48] I’m good, thanks.

Doug Patterson [01:22:51] I’ve been in that area so much. I know my ex-wife and my girlfriend is like, do you not know anybody? We was in Mexico at the airport. I said, Joan, she said you lying. I said, what’s up, girl? What’s up? What the heck? Dominican Republic. Mike, what you doing? You lying. We in Dominican and you still know somebody. What the heck? I never been nowhere with this man that he don’t know somebody ever. We went to Detroit. Byron, what you doing up here? That guy right there would come up to… Columbus. You know somebody in Columbus? You know somebody? I have never. We’ve been all over, everywhere. He knows somebody every city. How well I know him from Cleveland. What? How do we. We in another country and you speaking people to the airport. They say that all the time. I do know a lot of people. That’s because I’ve been so many events as a promoter in events. Usually they go to event, I’m running it, so they know me. When they ran Motown talent search in Cleveland, I ran the Motown talent search. They usually do 225 auditions. I did 350 in one day. They were standing in line. Try to get on Motown, March of Dimes, American Heart Association, United Negro College Fund, American Heart Association. I ran all that stuff. So I know the people. And usually I’m the coordinator. The festivals, all these festivals. I used to run all these festivals. New day and Hough, eleveth day caucus, Glenville this and that. Buckeye Festival, Fannie Lewis Festival. I ran all them festivals. So when I just did this gospel show. When I went to do the gospel show and I went to the permit. To get a permit. They usually take about two weeks or so to approve you. They improve me in 20 minutes. They usually want you to do six months out to even do a thing. They did me in four and a half months. You got it? You gonna do it? Cool. Put the date down. He already know what to do, which I do. I’ve been doing it for so long, so it been interesting. And I know the Glenville community very well. Since I was on the board, they put me on the board of directors. I used to be the second of the director of the Glenville Festival. That means I’m coordinating everything. I work for a sound company. I’m the one. Every time they have a special event, celebration, 200 down. When the city celebrated the 200th anniversary. I coordinated a lot of that stuff. People know me from there, from here. Wayne Dawson, channel eight. Channel eight. Ford, Cavs, Indians, Browns. They all know me. I send them entertainers. I send them something. They’ll call me and they’ll say, if he’s running, I’m cool. He don’t play. No, that’s why I broke up with my wife. Because you said, you too technical. When I’m running a business, I don’t have no wife like that. Unless we working together. If you don’t agree, then if I don’t agree with you, when I get home, we gotta argue. But it was what you said was wrong. And I wasn’t gonna take your side just to be taking your side. And Mike had a question that made more sense than what you do. Because we gotta do it right. And since I didn’t take it, you got an attitude. And I got to take this home. So now I’m not going to work with you on no more events, period. Now you pissed at me. So now, as you try to go back with me. I don’t want to be with you, we don’t broke up four times. You keep doing the same thing. I can’t get technical, not when I’m running business. I was taught separate, personal and technical. Separate them. And my daughter. That’s the same way she is. You don’t play. I don’t do that. I do a boxing match. A friend of mine came up to me and said. I said, little man, I’m get ready to referee your son’s fight. You okay with that? He said, you gonna referee? You gonna call it like it is? I said, all right. I’m just telling you, no, I don’t look at him being your son. I’m looking at him being a person up in the ring. His son is getting the mess beat out of him. And he told his son won at the end. I said, little man, no, he didn’t win. He said, if you say he didn’t win, I’m cool. He didn’t. He was getting beat up and the guy was hitting him and you couldn’t hear down there. But I’m up close to him and I’m hearing all the. So when I stopped, his son was like, okay, cool. He didn’t argue. Usually when they argue, they think they won. He was like, all right, man. Man my son was. No, your son was not little man. He lost. I don’t care. Me and you. Cool. Your son lost, period.

Julie Gabb [01:27:33] You were saying that you coordinated events and all. When you were a child as well as a teenager, did you go to any concerts in Glenville?

Doug Patterson [01:27:42] All of them. Well, we didn’t really have a lot of concerts in Glenville now. They had the front row theater, but that wasn’t in Glenville. We didn’t really have no concerts around here. But I used to run these nightclubs. They used to have that. Everybody went to, like the Mad Hatter and all them. Everybody remembers them back in them days. That was the club to go to. I used to run the clubs. I used to be the MC.

Julie Gabb [01:28:05] Where were you the MC at?

Doug Patterson [01:28:07] All the major clubs, like Vel’s. Vel’s is the most popular club. You probably should have heard of Vel’s 100 times. I used to run Vel’s when they had the Cotton Ball and everybody wear all white. I used to do the parade for them. I set up a parade so the Cotton Ball queens would get on the parade motorcade and go around the city. I set all that up. New day in Hough. They built Lexington Parkway. I designed the parade for Lexington Parkway with Fannie Lewis. I used to work with Stephanie Tubb Jones. We used to do all the concerts and the man had her in Vel’s. And then I did the Motown talent search for Vails. And people know me for these shows. I do. That’s why I know all these people. They’ll call me like, Vel’s is the most popular club. Everybody know Vel’s. You say Vel’s, everybody. Vel’s. Oh, man, that was the bomb there. Don Scott, who ran Vel’s, he died three years ago. I never forget this. He said, I’m getting ready to go to Africa, me and my wife. And I need somebody to run the club. He’s drawn over a thousand people and he said, it’s only ten people I would let run Vel’s while I’m gone. And I don’t know the other nine. I only know you. I know you run my club well in hand. Can you take over for me for the weekend? I like it. You want me to run Vel’s. All these people in this big establishment. That’s when he said, I said that and that’s when he said, it’s only 9, 10 people that I’ve been knowing. I don’t know. Another night. That made me feel pretty good. Run my club and I ran it the whole weekend. And then they offered me to run the Motown talent search.

Julie Gabb [01:29:54] What time was this?

Doug Patterson [01:29:55] Around when I ran Vel’s or ran the Motown talent search. Back in 1995. Somewhere in there. I used to do shows with Janet Jackson, Prince, Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson, Rick James, ICMC, all them shows. So I kind of knew all the artists and what to do. I worked for a sound company, so I know lighting, Dramatics, Temptations, Patti LaBelle, Anita Baker, En Vogue. I know all them people. It’s in. See the shows. I walk into a concert now and they know me. Me and my brothers before they died. They know us pretty well. They know me pretty well. They’re like, you cool, you got it, whatever. You’re straight. I just ran into. Something just happened the other day. Oh, they had a thing at holiday on Rockside. And I’m the new booking agent for the Kinsman Dazz Band, which is from Cleveland. And when I walked in, they like, oh, it’s on now. You got him in there? Okay. He’s cool. I’m glad I had a reputation. They just called me when stuff is all messed up, that’s how I learned to do it. Things all messed up. They called me the last minute and I had to come in and coordinate, redo everything. Levin and Grecos, a three hour parade. They called me less than a month before the parade was restructured because the guy that was running got sick. And they tracked me down to come in and recoordinate it within three weeks. You talking about a two and a half hour parade. I had to restructure everything. Cause I. The way he did it. I didn’t know his wedding. I ain’t trying to do him. Cause I can’t do him where he had it. Because you can give me the basic idea, but I ain’t running. I don’t follow people’s ideals. I do my own. I’m always the originator. This one last thing. Some years ago, a long time ago, I went to Heinekens and told him I wanted to run a TV show. Now I went to channel 19. Well, before I went to Channel 19, never mind. Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about Glenville.

Julie Gabb [01:32:07] I was wondering, did you ever face any racial tension growing up?

Doug Patterson [01:32:14] No, cuz I never looked at stuff. My. My best friends, when we was working at Cleveland, business owners, they call it the three amigos. It was a white guy, me and a Japanese guy all the time with my three buddies. Two nowadays, Rick Fugo and him, his wife and him. He said, I’m his brother from another mother. I never had that problem, ever. Cause I was usually, when I worked for a company, I was usually the only black. So we always became friends. I used to manage area temps. I used to run Crestmont Cadillac. I used to be the only Blacks. And two black skin. And that’s the ones I had the problem with on my own people. But I never had problem with that. We were always cool. They see me and they’re like, what’s up, man? Even today, I ain’t got problem with that. I never. Other people ran into it. I never had to deal with it. Because I was always. Even when I worked with Cleveland business consulting, area temps, because I was calling companies, Cleveland state professors and all that stuff, working with the sound companies. March of Dimes hired me over a Caucasian person that they had for 20 years. They liked me. They fired him and hired me. I like, wow. I never. Because I never looked at color. I don’t recognize that. I don’t recognize it today. I just recognize how you treat me. I’ve never ever been that direction, ever. I don’t see that other people have to a certain extent, yeah. Cause you grew up around it. But I never had problem with people. I was always cool with people. I never. I didn’t treat people like that. Treated how you treated me. And most of it was cool. I go to all these parties. My ex wife used to work with WNCX radio station, so we was around a lot of Whites, that’s all. We went to the party and they all say, bring me back and bring us back in there. We never had problems with that. I don’t have it today. My White buddies and all them, they’ll call me up, hey, Patterson, what’s up, man? Come and hang out with us on the wrestling teams. I went to the banquet of the day. It was 70 referees, and I’m the only Black guy there. And I spoke when I came in. I don’t. I’ve just been blessed not to run it. Don’t deal with that. When I deal with the celebration 200 down at the flats. When I bring in all them gospel groups, I had all kind of gospel Singing Angels, Catholic choirs. I ain’t had no problem with that stuff. I never had a problem with people, period. That’s why I probably know everybody, and that’s probably why Leslie said, call me. Because I didn’t know Leslie that well in school. He was more Leslie going over there, you can’t hang with this. But I guess he respected me enough to say, call me because I didn’t hang with him in school like that. I sold him some cars when I was at Crestmont, but I didn’t. He thinking, I’m a thug, but I’m selling Cadillacs. I ain’t that much. That’s all them in there. It’s Cadillacs. So I never, you know, I’m saying I never went through all that stuff, so I didn’t understand why they would, why they gone through it. I like, all my friends are like, I don’t have problem with that. In fact, my friend, why you? I like them better. You can. They cool, Rick and it was cool. I go over their house and go spend a night. They’ll come over here. Every time I do a show, they show up. They be the only black in the audience. They right in the audience. They didn’t care if I invite them. They know they were safe. And my friends liked them. So we all get together. They like cool.

Julie Gabb [01:35:35] I had a quick question that I just remembered. The Glenville High School mascot was the Tarblooder. What does a Tarblooder mean?

Doug Patterson [01:35:46] A lot of people had that interpretation. Fighting tar and blood. Back in those days, you fought until you bled. It’s blood. Tar was back in the slavery days, where you tar and feathered. Somebody just kept on going because of the emblem is a robot. Like. And the Blooder was the blood and you fought until you bled and you still never gave up. So Tar-Blooder. Never gave it up. Blood, sweat and tears, they called it.

Julie Gabb [01:36:24] What?

Doug Patterson [01:36:24] Blood, sweat and tears. Got some people. What the heck is that? Tarblooder? You get that all the time.

Julie Gabb [01:36:31] Yeah. Yeah. Another thing I was wondering. Have you ever heard of the term the Gold Coast?

Doug Patterson [01:36:41] Yeah. That was 105. Cafe Tia Juana and all the clubs. It was full of clubs up on 105. It wasn’t all them churches. It was all clubs from St. Clair all the way down to Euclid. And Euclid down there was a Gold Coast too because they had them clubs on Euclid. 105, 107. It was all nightclubs up there. Movies and nightclubs. They call it the Gold Coast. All the clubs.

Julie Gabb [01:37:11] Was there any residential areas in there?

Doug Patterson [01:37:15] Nope.

Julie Gabb [01:37:19] So it was like, so the boundary. Where were the boundaries?

Doug Patterson [01:37:26] It stretched from 55th all the way to 107th and Euclid. All them clubs right down. That’s when you call Leo’s Casino. Red Carpet Lounge. And all that stuff was up in there. Peaches and Herb. All of them. Ashford and Simpson. All of them used to come through there. Yeah.

Julie Gabb [01:37:54] Did you see any acts at Leo’s Casino as a teenager?

Doug Patterson [01:37:58] Mhm. Yeah, Peaches and Herb. It was some other- I’m forget that. But I remember Peaches and Herb. Al Green. Yeah. I didn’t see him at Leo Casino. I. When I went to Leo’s Casino, I really don’t remember a lot about that. But I remember Leo’s casino. That’s when Smokey Roberts and all them came in there. All the famous acts from Motown came to Leo’s Casino. That’s the most famous. You said Leo’s casino. Your older people know Leo Casino, red carpet line. Now they know Leo’s Casino. All of them came through Leo’s Casino. Period. Our parents, everybody came to Leo’s Casino. After all the acts came in. All your major acts, Sammy Davis Junior. All of them came to Leo’s Casino. Little small club. They had a little small stage. They all came to Leo’s casino. Bobby Womack, all of them. Leo’s casino.

Julie Gabb [01:38:47] What was the most memorable performance you’ve seen at Leo’s Casino?

Doug Patterson [01:38:50] I don’t remember a lot of things in Leo’s Casino. I know they came through there. I really didn’t remember. Nobody came through Leo’s Casino. But I deal with a lot of act. But it’d be like Public Hall. And I had Rick James and Prince and all them. I was dealing with all those guys. Gap Band, Isley Brothers. Like, all them people. I was telling you about. I deal with all them. Michael Jackson at the Michael Luther van Droves at the airport. Michael Jackson was at the stadium. Prince was at Coliseum when he first came in. Cause they had called me and we was gonna try to do Rick James. I didn’t like Rick James. I was emceeing that show. I couldn’t stand that guy. And they- He held up a show for one hour because he wanted all white towels. We had yellow towels, beige towels, green towels. He wanted all white. One hour before the show. Downtown on a Sunday at five o’clock. Really? The stores closed at six. Where are we gonna get two dozen white towels at? He held two shows. We had to go all the way to Randall Park Mall to try back then to find the towels. He held the show for hours. They think it’s us. It was him. But anyway. And then he’s up there. I’m the coldest thing in the world, ain’t I, y’all? They like, yeah, yeah. I’m this. And I’m like, oh, God, can’t stand this guy. But, uh, when they first introduced Prince, I never remember that guy. Will told me, he said, man, it’s a new guy. He’s a hot audience. He’s coated in Rick Tang. I’m like, what name was Prince? I like Prince. Who was that man? You hear this guy? And we had him at the Coliseum. Purple rain at the Coliseum. And the Coliseum in Coliseum was cool. Cause I sold Wayne Emery his Cadillac that owned the Cavaliers with Jim Chong when they won that thing. And I was real cool with the Coliseum. They let me come to all the events. And then I did after party with Prince, with the O’Jays. My mother came up there. I’ll never forget that. Yeah.

Julie Gabb [01:40:41] How is Prince live?

Doug Patterson [01:40:43] He’s powerful. You know how he is. He’s powerful. He’s little energetic, little bunny, you know what I’m saying? He’s good. He’s good. Nice personality, too. Rick James was butthole. Patti LaBelle was nice. Aretha Franklin was nice. Lita Baker. All them people was cool. Rick James and Ramsey Lewis was buttholes. Some of them, Fantasia, all of them.

Julie Gabb [01:41:17] Switching gears. Did you ever see Malcolm X or MLK speak back in the ’60s?

Doug Patterson [01:41:34] Well, I’ve seen MLK speak, but on TV, only not in person.

Julie Gabb [01:41:45] You said earlier that, look back in the beginning of the interview that, for you wouldn’t be allowed to play football if you didn’t go to church.

Doug Patterson [01:41:55] Church, was that that Sunday you didn’t go to church that Sunday, you ain’t playing.

Julie Gabb [01:42:01] Was it because of your parents?

Doug Patterson [01:42:02] Both. The coach and the parents? You didn’t go to church. It was more the coach. You didn’t go to church, you ain’t playing. And we were winning championships, and we didn’t want to miss. Mr. Ash, he’s like, you ain’t no church, no Sunday school. You ain’t go- You ain’t playing today till we went Sunday school. [What church did you go to?] Cory, on 105. Everything was around Cory. I was on the swim team of Cory. Everything around Cory. When we do the boxing now, I do boxing at the festival. I bring the boxing. They want to do Cory. Cory’s a big church. But then you got a whole bunch of them down there. Greater Friendship and all that stuff. Up on 105 Glenville, Charlie Goodman, he used to be a thuggish thug thug. Now he a minister, one of the biggest thugs. He would be down in the hole. He still might come down and know the guy, but he’s a minister now. Albert Robinson, all them thugs. They all pastors, Brother Banks, Pastor Thug, Granny thug, Pastor Bobby love, not Bobby Love, Greg love, thug, Pastor bruh, bank thug, Pastor Dexter, thug, Pastor Pukloo, thug pastor. All them guys are thugs. Bad thugs, bad, bad. And they all pastors now. And I still don’t trust them. I ain’t going to that child guinea. No, ain’t going to none of that stuff with them. They still thugs to me. But bank wasn’t the biggest thugs. Stealing everything. Been in jail for years. Come on. When you want to be a minister? Yeah, whatever. You be telling me to come to church. I’m not putting my name with you. With Mikey Suggs. Oh, no, no, no. Hawkins and them. Oh, no, I don’t. My name filled with nothing with you doing. Mm mm. Thugs.

Julie Gabb [01:44:05] So did you know of any families that were ever denied housing in Glenville?

Doug Patterson [01:44:11] They did what?

Julie Gabb [01:44:12] Denied housing. Wasn’t any of that…

Doug Patterson [01:44:18] I didn’t. I didn’t run across it. Did they tell you to interview this lady named Lillian Pyles or Margie Pyles?

Julie Gabb [01:44:24] Yes.

Doug Patterson [01:44:25] You interviewed Lillian already? Uh, what was it? Margie.

Julie Gabb [01:44:29] Margie. I’m actually scheduled to interview her tomorrow.

Doug Patterson [01:44:32] They know everything. They- The other side, they Empire on patch. If you bring my name up, they got. And they call me Antonio. That’s my middle name, Antonio. Oh, you interviewed him? Yeah. She knows a lot, too. Her and Beverly child and Lily and him. They from old school. They’re gonna tell you some inside stuff, especially her sister Lillian. They can tell you some stuff. Because she was popular. She was a head. She was a homecoming queen. She was popular. She’s still popular. And she give events. It be a whole bunch of people. But she, she the one that ain’t gonna go down here to that party. She gonna go up here. You see what I’m saying? She class. She right around the corner off of Monticello. Yeah, she’s up here. Her and Beverly child was tough. That hang together then the ones that put five and $10 in the bank while we only put a quarter in nickel. Their family already got money always. They were the upper echelon of us growing up. And they’re very, very popular to today. They are very, very popular. If you tell her you was over here, she’s like, it was over here. Oh, God, he’d been there. She started talking about me and I’ll be talking about her. They know each other very well. That’s they cool. And they got up echelon people. They came to the. They’re gonna tell you the other side of Columbia. I’m on this side. She over here. So she can tell you about stuff happened down here with her parents. When I was more on this side, Parker with the riots. She’s on this side at 105.

Julie Gabb [01:45:59] Were there like , you’re saying that there’s a division like where there like little neighborhoods within Glenville.

Doug Patterson [01:46:04] You got 105 that splits everything. This side here, Patrick Henry in Glenville. This side right here. Empire in Glenville. The street divides us off. She was Empire. Robert Patrick Henry, that was competitive. But we all started off at Columbia. Beverly child and all started Columbia. But then we went like this and then came back like that. She was on this side, but money. Her parents were money having it. Parents. Now her father just passed away about a couple weeks ago. But they were very popular. She was very popular. She was over there with Kathy and all them whose brother was Superfly in the movie. Ron O’Neill. They from that category something. He was over there with them. Arsenio Hall and all them Jane Kennedy-type people. They- That’s what Margie, rich people.

Julie Gabb [01:47:03] So there was, so there was even stratification within Glenville. Like within, I guess, like within the Black community?

Doug Patterson [01:47:15] Empire, Patrick Henry. That’s when they fought junior high. When we was in elementary school, we just loved each other. We split with the junior high. Then we came back together. Glenville. But it was a split. 105. She over there, we over here, they’re a little bit more precise over here, we more thug rats on this side. The people, that I tell you that, down in the hole, they were mostly on this side, where I’m at, this side is up. St. Clair, all them St. Clair guys up here, they had a little bit over here, but not as much as here. Greg Byers and Pukalu and all them was over here. Most of them was over here. So these people, some of them would go to that. Most of them don’t go to this. Margie, I mean, definitely ain’t going down in there. They like that. I don’t think so, boy, her husband might because he does something. Women like them kind of people. So it might have been that.

Julie Gabb [01:48:16] Oh, and I guess to close it out, I guess. What places did he go for, like, eating and shopping in Glenville when you grew up?

Doug Patterson [01:48:31] Dearing, Scatters. Everybody went to Scatters. Scatters, Scatters, Scatters. I was up there when he got killed. He was with the mafia. Sugar Ray Robinson, all those famous fighters and all that stuff, used to come up to Scatter’s on 105. It was on my side. And Dearing’s. You went to Dearing’s, you went to Juanita’s, you went to Scatters. Everybody went to Scatters Barbecue. Then you went to, what’s the name of that restaurant on Superior? What’s the name of that place? You also went to Dearing’s, and you also went to Hot Sauce Williams. Juanita’s. Another one up there. Margie could probably tell you because she went to a lot of that stuff.

Julie Gabb [01:49:16] You said that at Scatter’s a guy was killed there?

Doug Patterson [01:49:19] He was killed, came in, mafia shot him. Kenny Charles, all them, all them guys were mafia, number runners with the gangsters. They got killed.

Julie Gabb [01:49:30] So the Scatters owner was killed.

Doug Patterson [01:49:33] Scatters himself was killed, right? Yeah, they shot it. I must have been like 14, right there on 105. I heard a gunshot. Randy was laying on the floor. Mafia killed him. White guys, they used to come up in there.

Julie Gabb [01:49:52] So was Scatters still around after that?

Doug Patterson [01:49:56] After what? After they killed him?

Julie Gabb [01:49:57] I mean, the restaurant, was it around?

Doug Patterson [01:49:59] Yeah. Yeah, the family had it for a while, and then they let it go.

Julie Gabb [01:50:04] What did Scatters look like on the inside and all?

Doug Patterson [01:50:07] Small barbecue place. Cause back then, a rib and barbecue dinner was a dollar. Look how much that sucker costs. Now it’s a dollar. You got short, long ribs for a dollar. Short ribs, $1.10. You ain’t getting that no more. No way. But everybody ate their Scatters, and they didn’t eat their Scatters. They go to Dearing for the chicken and then they got Hot Sauce Williams came along later on, but with Dearing and Scatters.

Julie Gabb [01:50:33] What would you get at Scatters?

Doug Patterson [01:50:35] Ribs, pork sandwiches, Polish boy, shoulder sandwiches. Because it was a barbecue place. Scatters Barbecue. Dearing’s was famous for chicken. Chicken, chicken, chicken. Everybody went Dearing’s like KFC. That was the Black man’s KFC. Dearing’s. And Scatters was the barbecue player. You mention Scatters, like, oh, girl, that was the place. No B and M’s like they got right now. No, Scatters. Hot Sauce Williams came later. It was Scatters. Scatters and, what was the name of that? And Red Walters Fish. Lancer’s. That’s where they go get the fish. Red Walters. And there’s another one up there on Cedar. It’s still up there, but I go get that fish. Everybody get their seafood. I’m going brain dead now. But it was Red Walters and, God, what’s the other one for seafood? Everybody know that that’s what everybody should go to get their fish up there on Cedar across from the YMCA and Karamu. And Lancer’s. They go to Lancer’s. It was, uh- She’ll probably know. The seafood place. This is a seafood place. She’ll tell you. Everybody used to go there for seafood. Fish, catfish and black bass. Just like you get out of the ocean with a head on ’em. I don’t eat stuff like that. But I’m just saying red snapper and stuff, they went up there. And they went to Lancer’s for their food. But Scatters for the barbecue, number one, Dearing for chicken, number two. Then you got Red Walters that did their thing up there on Cedar. That’s up there now. And then, God, I can’t think of China. I can’t think of ’em. They’re adults. They remember. I’m the one that’s brain dead. [laughs] There’s certain places, that’s all everybody go. You go up there, that’s where they were at.

Julie Gabb [01:52:44] Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about Scatters. I was curious.

Doug Patterson [01:52:47] He was number one. Best barbecue, first thing they’re gonna say Scatters, right? That’s what they be saying. Scatters. And the chicken. They say Dearing’s. I’m surprised they have said Dearing’s. And Red Walters, and I’ve forgot the other place, and I know, and it’s famous as Scatters. I can’t think of the name right now. And that’s where everybody went for the seafood besides Lancer’s. Lancer’s, you go down there, you see judges and attorneys and doctors and all them go down there at lunchtime. It was on Carnegie. They closed it and went across the street when they got burnt down. Now, he moved again. The Lancer’s. The party center was Vel’s and a Mad Hatter that was, and Checkmate, Inner City. That’s where everybody used to go. They get out of here and go to them clubs. Forge. Everybody used to go to them clubs. The Forge, Lancer’s, Mayflower. You hear them. Winston’s after-hour place. That’s where everybody hang. You see everybody in them places. On Euclid, the Gold Coast, that’s where everybody’s running back and forth. All them after-hour places. You go up in Winston’s, you turn around, there’ll be a gun, shotgun. They’d be up in the air at your back. When you walk in that door, up through that peephole, you turn around. You see them up there? Mm hmm. The Brougham Lounge. All them. Mm hmm.

Julie Gabb [01:54:13] When did you start going to the Gold Coast? At like, what age?

Doug Patterson [01:54:17] When I was about 20 something. My sister used to go because she was older than me. And she always dated older men. So that’s how I got hip to it. Cause she married one of the guys, Harvey, on the Brougham Lounge. So I didn’t hang in clubs that much. I was running show, but I didn’t hang up there. That was older people to me. They wanted too much for what they were asking for. I wasn’t doing that. I was running them beauty pageants. Miss Legs, Miss Thighs, making money, doing, having fun. They was up there with big gamblers and stuff. I wasn’t doing that. Dearing’s and all. Big money. Marjorie and them go to that kind of stuff. Their family had more money. Margie and Beverly Childs. And they were the popular. Her father, Kenny Childs, was a number runner. They were hustlers. They were the popular ones. They still popular. Her and Beverly and Lillian. They all popular as far as females.

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