Dennis Coughlin Interview, 7 September 2012

Abstract

Dennis Coughlin, a life-long resident of Cleveland Heights, describes what he has seen growing up in Cleveland Heights. He discusses living in the Cedar-Fairmount Neighborhood. He recalls the various shops and stores that he would go into. He also remembers his elementary school, Roxboro School, and the various events that surrounded that school such as the Davis Cup. He then describes the Coventry Neighborhood and how it has changed over the years. After Coventry, Coughlin describes St. Paul's Church and Tucker Hall before he finishes with a brief description of learning to drive on Cedar Hill.

Interviewee

Coughlin, Dennis (interviewee)

Interviewer

Souther, Mark (interviewer)

Project

Cleveland Heights

Date

9-7-2012

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

58 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Dennis Coughlin Interview, 7 September 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 911083.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/726

Related Resources

Cleveland Heights @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Mark Souther [00:00:01] Okay, we're recording. Today is September 7th, 2012. My name is Mark Souther and I'm interviewing Dennis Coughlin at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Thanks very much for agreeing to be interviewed.

Dennis Coughlin [00:00:17] You're welcome.

Mark Souther [00:00:19] I wanted to begin by just asking you a little bit of background, when and where you were born.

Dennis Coughlin [00:00:23] I was born in University Hospitals at Rainbow Babies and Children or McDonald House, I'm sorry, in 1950. And, yeah.

Mark Souther [00:00:39] Did you grow up in Cleveland Heights?

Dennis Coughlin [00:00:41] Okay. I am, I grew up in Cleveland Heights. I am a fifth or sixth-generation Cleveland Heights resident. My mother grew up in Cleveland Heights. They moved to Cleveland Heights in 1916. And after the war, after doing work in Washington, they moved back to Cleveland Heights and lived a block away from where my mother grew up. So.

Mark Souther [00:01:01] Where was that?

Dennis Coughlin [00:01:01] On Delamere. They, they were the first house on Delamere. And then we moved one street over to our... We... After she was married we lived on Ardleigh. Lived there for... I lived there for 26 years and my parents lived there for 50, 60 years and then moved... They moved to Judson. So it's still half a mile in another direction, still Cleveland Heights.

Mark Souther [00:01:30] What did your parents do for a living?

Dennis Coughlin [00:01:32] My father was an attorney with Thompson Hine and my mother was a volunteer. She was active in the Maternal Health Association. Actually, she and my grandmother used to go to New York and bring back Planned Parenthood kind of items, information and supplies or whatever from New York for the people in Cleveland, and they were very active in the '30s doing that, or early '30s, and she volunteered at the hospital, did a lot of hospital work. My grandfather was a stockbroker and was president of the board of Lakeside Hospital before he moved the hospital up from downtown to become Lakeside to University Hospitals. He and Dr. Bishop moved it up. And so they were very closely connected with the hospital. My father is from out of town. He moved to Cleveland... He wanted to be in a bigger city than where he's from. He's from eastern Pennsylvania. And Cleveland was basically one of the legal capitals of the United States, the legal practice, and was cutting edge back in the '30s when he started. And he worked for, oh, let's see, '30... 70-something years in Cleveland as a lawyer, partially retired, but with Thompson Hine. He was one of their oldest lawyers when he died at age 94. So, and my mother died at age 91. They died two weeks apart at Judson. So back in 2008.

Mark Souther [00:03:10] Wow. You mentioned Planned Parenthood and that's not really the subject of our conversation today, but I do have a quick question about that. A student asked me about the Planned Parenthood movement in Cleveland. You know, to what extent it was strong here, and I said, I'll look into that. I don't have the answer.

Dennis Coughlin [00:03:28] Okay, it's, it was the Maternal Health Association. It was located in University Circle, and they provided information to people through their University Circle location. Plus they had a bus that would go around and would be at various different locations. My mother during the '60s was down at 123rd and Superior. I think that's where the address was near Patrick Henry Junior High in that area. I know in the '60s, it wasn't the safest neighborhood. My, my mother said, well at eight o'clock in the morning it's a very safe neighborhood. So she, she had no problem meeting with the women in that community at that time. In the '67, '66, whatever '68. I taught there and I tutored there, I guess rather than at Patrick Henry Junior High in the '67, '68, I never had any problems, so.

Mark Souther [00:04:35] Shifting gears back to the Euclid Golf neighborhood for a bit. Do you remember much about or anything about the Ernst family?

Dennis Coughlin [00:04:42] The Ernst family lived at the corner of Ardleigh and Fairmount in a very large house and. It was always a very nice place to go play in their yard when they weren't around because it was across the street from me and they had a little pond there that we could fish for the goldfish that were in there as we were growing up. So but growing up on Ardleigh was wonderful. I could walk to Cedar and Fairmount without crossing the street. And the stores at Cedar and Fairmount were always very attractive, their toy store and restaurants and the grocery store. And my mother had a charge account at Russo's, which was the store to shop at at Cedar and Fairmount, and she had a two-digit charge number, which I would use at age six or seven and charge cookies and whatever snacks at the grocery store.

Mark Souther [00:05:40] Where was this located?

Dennis Coughlin [00:05:42] Cedar and Fairmount between Grandview and Ardleigh. There was also a drugstore, Standard Drug, which had good candy and it had a, I guess, a quick grill. And then there was Damon's, a restaurant, and there was Hough Bakeries and the toy store known as the Toy Chest. The owner just died recently and there were all sorts of places we'd had friends of fathers and relatives of friends who take us into the Alibi Room to get a ginger ale. It was the local place where all the local people would hang out for alcoholic beverages and the building that is now the India Center at Cedar and Fairmount, which is in the next block, used to be a. Fisher's restaurant, a restaurant sorry, Fisher's grocery store and the Fisher's grocery store was also the hangout after school for a lot of kids who would go up on the roof behind the, behind come up from behind and fights would break out there or whatever. Always on top of the school and there were some interesting restaurants there. Heading down, there was the Toddle House, which was a place that was open very late at night and would always I mean, they'd have food. It would be the drivers for people and for help in the community and various other people who would from the hospital and across the street from the Toddle House was the Doctor's Hospital, which was a local hospital for the emergency. It was mostly I thought it was emergency people going to the doctor's hospital. We would prefer to go to UH just because of the quality of care I think was better there. Doctor's Hospital actually was the predecessor to Hillcrest. They moved away from University Circle at the top of Cedar Hill out to Mayfield. Is that Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village to become Hillcrest. And next door to that was one of my favorite restaurants, which was a quick order grill, which had the best hamburgers and best chocolate shakes. I never knew their name, but it's now where Nighttown is. It was, but it was a single storefront.

Mark Souther [00:08:15] Was it the Hilltop Luncheonette or Chris's Hilltop Luncheonette?

Dennis Coughlin [00:08:19] I have no idea of the name. I wasn't driving at the point, so I guess I didn't pay as much attention to names as but whatever. But anyway. But Russo's was owned by the Russo's family and they still own the building. But they what I understood is that they had the highest profit per square foot of any grocery store around, which was why they were able to sell it to Giant Eagle at a good price. And but all of the trade help would would buy from there because the inner city had no good grocery stores and people would come from miles around to this grocery store, even though we had local grocery stores all over Cleveland Heights, they would come to Russo's to shop because of the quality and because of the price.

Mark Souther [00:09:14] Let me go back to a few things. I want to get back to Doctor's Hospital in a few moments, but I'm intrigued by the Toddle House. You mentioned that the quote-unquote help would, would go there, presumably. You mean people who worked in the.

Dennis Coughlin [00:09:27] People who worked in the. Yeah. Who worked in the neighborhoods. A lot of that section of Cleveland Heights in the '50s still, a lot of people still had... They had regular either cleaning help or day, day help. Sometimes they had people who lived in the houses with them. I know my grandparents had a cook who lived with them at the house and she would buy from the... from Russo's.

Mark Souther [00:10:00] Were African Americans mostly welcome or unwelcome? How would you describe their presence in the Cedar Fairmount neighborhood and give me a sense of date ranges roughly?

Dennis Coughlin [00:10:11] Okay, in the '50s, I had African Americans, not very many, there were, I could say, probably three in my class at Roxboro. I went to Roxboro Elementary from 1955 to 1960-something to the elementary school and there were African Americans there. I didn't, I mean, I never I actually didn't classify people by color. I mean, the only reason I know is because I can look at pictures now and say, oh, we did have colored people in our class, whatever, blacks now, but I think they were called colored at the time, and I don't think there was any problem in the shopping at, you know, being welcome in the stores. I don't think we ever saw them in any of the restaurants there. They did not live up the hill. I'm sorry, off of Fairmount Boulevard, in the out through to Coventry, I don't remember any people living in that neighborhood. They lived Grandview, Delaware, whatever. So.

Mark Souther [00:11:30] If they lived on Grandview and Delaware, for instance, and I know there are a lot of apartment houses there today, is it fair to say that, that... How would you describe sort of the help, so-called help, as they called them?

Dennis Coughlin [00:11:44] Oh, okay. Which is different, Okay.

Mark Souther [00:11:48] That did not live in the big estates. Where did they tend to live if they if unless they came up out of the city?

Dennis Coughlin [00:11:55] They came up out of the city. As far as I knew, they all lived in the city because I would... We would drive them home at times into the city, even there were... We had... My grandparents had somebody from – not black – from Ireland who lived in the inner city who would come, but they had brought her from Ireland to the United States originally. And then she'd gotten married and moved to a house along Liberty Boulevard, now Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Mark Souther [00:12:30] You mentioned Grandview, what jogged that memory about blacks living on Grandview?

Dennis Coughlin [00:12:35] Well, I just had a classmate who lived on Grandview. And I had, I mean, you were asking about where they, where blacks might have... Where they lived. I had one on Grandview and one on Delaware who would have been in a house. Delaware has houses. Grandview, he lived in an apartment. As far as I can remember, yeah an apartment there.

Mark Souther [00:12:56] The reason, I'm asking I'm very interested just because, you know, of course, in 1967, there's an incident in which a house is bombed in western Cleveland Heights over around Edgehill and I wonder how all this fit together?

Dennis Coughlin [00:13:08] Well, in 1967, there was a folk singer who was shot at the top of Cedar Hill. But it was, it was... It was somebody who had a grudge against blacks, but it was a somebody who my brother knew and my brothers were both folk singers and they, so, they knew him. But it was quite an incident. I mean, I mean, the whole detail. There was a Judge Steele involved in this case and two brothers who ended up killing this black folk singer at the top of Cedar Hill. But I don't think that that was a problem. The problems that occurred mostly, I know along the ravine along North Park Boulevard, in the riots that took place, the Hough riots, there were some people who were very concerned that blacks were going to come up out of the city through the ravine and attack the people in their houses. And I know nobody on our street was, as far as I knew, were concerned. But the ravine was a place we were not supposed to play, but it was a beautiful place with a lot of stonework inside and it's still very nice today. There used to be a bridge across it, but it was never rebuilt for fear that people would come from southern on the far side of Shaker Square into Cleveland Heights and attack people. My understanding is that there were soldiers with guns on top of Roxboro Junior High School during the riots, and they did patrol that area up and down North Park and Fairhill to make sure nobody was coming up. I'd say in the '60s there was a time when I was probably about – so this would have been about 1958 – somebody tried to steal my bicycle. Somebody who'd come up the ravine and tried to steal my bicycle. And I was a little kid and swung my bicycle at him and he ran away so he didn't get my bike. But, but he was somebody who was not from the community. The concern were more people who came in, into the community from outside the community. It was the growth that time of the growth of the black middle class and the doctors and nurses and people in University Circle lived in Cleveland Heights or Shaker Heights. And this was one of the areas that they lived because it was so convenient to University Circle.

Mark Souther [00:15:49] Do you think, well you mentioned this bridge did not get rebuilt for fear that people would come up from sort of south of Shaker Square? When was the bridge, was it a footbridge?

Dennis Coughlin [00:16:02] It was a footbridge that crossed the ravine between Fairhill and North Park, somewhere around Roxboro. Roxboro used to go through there and but it allowed people to walk over to Shaker Square. I still think it's a good idea. I'd love to see it come, but it was washed out in a flood, the lakes there, the Shaker Lake, had a tendency to flood, which is another story because we'd always have floods from the lake, would always... The lowest Shaker Lake would always overflow. And in nineteen. Again, it was probably 1958, the dam broke at Horseshoe Lake and kids were kept in school at Roxboro Elementary and they were only released to their parents because there was water flowing. It was about a foot deep and water flowing at a foot deep has a lot of force behind it. And I remember seeing mothers holding kids hand and the kid out in front of the mother being pulled away by the water. But we used to, we, actually, we used to canoe all the time on our street on Ardleigh and were known for doing that. And we actually we canoed down Cedar Hill, scraping all the way to University Circle in about 1960, the big flood when Case was underwater and the buses were underwater, we canoed down to University Circle. Might have been about '67, '66, something like that.

Mark Souther [00:17:44] So there was water a foot deep up the hill. Above the ravine.

Dennis Coughlin [00:17:47] This was on top of the hill flowing down. This was on St. James. At the intersection of St. James and Roxboro. But quite often, if you went to Coventry and North Park, there would be water flowing two feet deep, flowing there, and kids would be playing in it. And there was a chance that they would be killed by being washed into the ravine. And my brother and I did save a couple of kids one time who were caught on a telephone pole, but, yeah.

Mark Souther [00:18:23] Wow.

Dennis Coughlin [00:18:23] It was not a safe place, but we used to also... We used to canoe up at Shaker Lake at the whatever the Shaker Lake, Green Lake, whatever the lake is called, the lowest one.

Mark Souther [00:18:34] Yeah, I think Green Lake. Let's return to Doctor's Hospital a bit. What can you tell me about what it was? I have an idea from, I've seen an old picture, but you remember before it was Doctor's Hospital?

Dennis Coughlin [00:18:50] No. No. As far as I know, it was Doctor's Hospital in the '50s. And I'm trying to think with it probably moved. I would have said 1960-something, but I don't know. I don't remember specifically it moving. I don't, I was never in the hospital. We always would drive past it on the way to UH. The father of one of my best friends was head of OBGYN there but I never knew the place so.

Mark Souther [00:19:22] Okay. Any other memories about the Euclid Golf neighborhood? What, any interesting happenings or other neighbors or houses that you could comment on near where you lived?

Dennis Coughlin [00:19:35] Well, let's see, I. It was what I found interesting is that there was such a mix of people, our street, Ardleigh, which probably had, I don't know, 15, 20 houses on it, one could not tell whether somebody was rich or not. I mean, whether they were middle class or not. The person who lived next door to us started to Addressograph-Multigraph. The Ernst house on the corner of Ardleigh, the Carlin family, moved in, they were big real estate, I guess, developers in the '50s. Across the street from them, where the Kangessers who were involved with parking lots and a lot of real estate. And the Barkers lived on the street, which was office supplies. And there were attorneys and, and doctors and people who had family money that lived on the street. It was somebody from the Cleveland Indians at one time who lived on the street, but he moved away. And the head of the Cleveland Orchestra, the sorry, the administrator for the Cleveland Orchestra, lived on the street. And so it was it was quite a mix of people that were there. So.

Mark Souther [00:21:07] You mentioned that you went to Roxboro Elementary and also middle school or?

Dennis Coughlin [00:21:13] No, I went to University School for middle school, but the elementary I mean, it was sort of fun. The classes were fairly small at 20, 20 kids in a class. They were like three fifth-grade classes. So there were 60 people in my class and fourth, fifth, third, fourth and fifth-grade. I know. I mean know anecdotal items are my first-grade teacher. After my first grade, she ran off, got married to the custodian and ran off, ran away, whatever, eloped somewhere. The school didn't think very highly of that. Roxboro didn't think very highly of it. And after I left Roxboro, there was a well-known principal at the school, Clarissa Adams, and a friend of mine and I in sixth grade. So this would have been 1961. We were throwing snowballs at the streetlights and we got it from we were at US. Actually, this is the person who was the chairman, became chairman of the board of KeyBank. And we got called into the principal's office and told never to do that. You know, throwing snowballs is something for your backyard and so on. But because he and I were very good friends at the time. So anyway, Henry Meyer.

Mark Souther [00:22:37] Do you remember much about the school building, itself, the Roxboro School building itself? Any fond memories about the building or?

Dennis Coughlin [00:22:45] I mean, it was a, it was a school. I mean, it was... [laughs] I don't... It's interesting because at the time the libraries in the school system were part of the public library, the school... I think the libraries were under the school board and the library at the junior high upstairs was one of the branch libraries for the, for the library system. And I think that at the elementary you could, the books would go back and forth. But I think you use the same system for checking out books from one library the other. So, yep.

unknown speaker [00:23:27] Sorry. How are you?

Mark Souther [00:23:27] Hi, good. How are you?

unknown speaker [00:23:27] Good.

Mark Souther [00:23:35] You mentioned, well, rather let me back up. The one reason I asked about the building is that I understand that there was, there's the original building some people say is encased within all the additions and no one really is able to comment on that.

Dennis Coughlin [00:23:54] Well, I should have asked my mother more. She was there when they built the school and dynamited to build the school because the school is built on a... The stone is right to the surface in that section of Cleveland Heights. There's probably no more than a foot of soil in that section of Cleveland Heights and they dynamited when they built it. But when I was there, the day actually they this long time later they put in new windows and put on an addition, which was the library. And Roxboro went through. It was a through street. But I remember, you know, the gym was in the basement and and it was one of these places, a two-story tall gymnasium, and and I remember playing in there and the there was a dirt yard that we played in the back. And then sometime in the, in the '50s, they paved over part of the lot, part of the lot, which actually made it much harder to deal with things. There were a lot more skinned knees and injuries to all the students after they paved over the schoolyard from the dirt. We were a lot cleaner, but probably a little more injured. But I remember lining up for classes and so on and having recess in the back of the school. So.

Mark Souther [00:25:20] Tell me about the tennis facility and how it came to host Davis Cup and when that was?

Dennis Coughlin [00:25:26] This would have been probably about 1960, I don't know, '63 somewhere in the early, well, '65, '66. Bob Malaga, who just died in the last several months or whatever, brought tennis to Cleveland. And they they built this court for the Wightman Cup originally and brought women tennis players from all over the world. I remember meeting Evonne Goolagong, who I fell in love with as a teenage boy or whatever. I just any female, I guess, teenage boys might fall in love with. But a neighbor had a party for all the tennis players and we were there and got to meet all these people. She was, I guess, closer in age to us than the other some of the other players were. But it was quite something to have this huge tennis stadium and it was filled. And later on they brought the the Davis Cup and watching all of the players. And these were the best players in the world watching Arthur Ashe play. But it was full. The absolutely full and the tennis courts were there. Actually, the courts are still there, but they removed the stadium and moved the stadium down the the seats and the I guess the fences and everything else were moved down to the Shoreway to become a tennis facility down on the Shoreway.

Mark Souther [00:26:56] You mentioned Malaga and that's the same name that's down at Cleveland State at the tennis center down there.

Dennis Coughlin [00:27:01] Yes, right. Same.

Mark Souther [00:27:03] Tell me something about him?

Dennis Coughlin [00:27:05] I... Somehow, I think he was a member of the Skating Club, but he was just a big tennis enthusiast and was was probably head of the USTA and and was quite a voice. I mean, he died the... Actually, I think his services were in the last two weeks. I'm sorry, I can't tell you about him. I mean, these are some of these things are not things that, that a teenager would remember, I guess.

Mark Souther [00:27:32] Sure and yeah. And I could look up some of this stuff too. I just, I wonder how, how he chose Roxboro? Was there a particular connection?

Dennis Coughlin [00:27:47] I don't know whether there was a particular connection, but I think it was because it was an open space that was near to the Skating Club, which was an, which had indoor facilities and outdoor facilities, the practice, so it gave them practice areas that they could practice at. The. Yeah.

Mark Souther [00:28:12] That makes sense.

Dennis Coughlin [00:28:14] And actually, the another piece, I mean, later on at the Roxboro, at that place, that location, there is now a nice track at Roxboro and also at Heights High. And that was put together. The financing was put together by the Weingart. I'm trying to think what his name was, but he arranged for Cleveland Heights residents, residents to help out at the air show and at the auto races, where we would earn 10 percent of everything we sold in the concessions. We would get paid nothing. Basically, you got paid what you could eat and plus you got in free to the event. But it provided 10 percent of all our sales went to providing for the football stadium at Heights High and the track at Roxboro. And I believe there was something at Monticello. Also, it's.

Mark Souther [00:29:16] Alright, thank you. We've been, mentioned before just a little bit about Mitchell's when it was at the theater. Can you?

Dennis Coughlin [00:29:25] Okay, Mitchell's was the candy store as far as I was concerned. There was also Damon's at Ceder and Fairmount and Hough Bakeries that had candy. But Mitchell's made their own candy right in the store next door to the Heights Movie Theater. The movie theater was there. It had various activities, I mean, sometimes it was an art movie theater, sometimes it was a an X-rated movie theater. I'm not quite sure what prompted it to move from one to the next. And but it would have more avant-garde movies. But all of the popcorn for the movie theater was sold at Mitchell's and there came a point where they moved the popcorn out of the movie, out of Mitchell's into the movie theater. And somewhere around then it's when Mitchell's moved to its current location at on Lee Road. But it was on Coventry, but it was the place to go for candy. It was the best candy around. And the Mitchell's were characters and, and their son was about my age. And I don't know whether right now whether Mrs. Mitchell is still alive. Her mind is, wasn't last time I saw her about a year ago, her mind wasn't completely with it and she'd speak Greek to me or whatever. I think it was Greek and her son would tell her, no, you have to speak English. So.

Mark Souther [00:30:56] What was your favorite candy that you got when you went to the theater?

Dennis Coughlin [00:31:03] Probably the chocolate-covered orange peel, I think candied orange peel, chocolate covered, I, I had to give up on Mitchell Candy, I became allergic to chocolate through overdosing on chocolate, dealing with stress at a job in Cleveland Heights that I got burned out from. Anyway, but I'm allergic to chocolate now.

Mark Souther [00:31:25] I'm very sorry to hear that. [laughs]

Dennis Coughlin [00:31:27] Yeah, [laughs] anyway.

Mark Souther [00:31:30] Let's come back to, oh, one other question you may or may not know about Mitchell's. What prompted the move to Lee Road?

Dennis Coughlin [00:31:41] I don't know, I mean, I could surmise that it had to do with the changing mix of people in the Coventry area, plus the lack of parking in Coventry. People in the apartment building started having more than one car per apartment and which created a lot of stress on the amount of parking there. Whereas on Lee Road, they had parking lots, which they did not have down there. I would guess probably, it was probably more the the people who were walking in the community at that time in the '60. It was it started running downhill. As evidence, I will segue into some of the places on Lee Road. The C-Saw Cafe, which was a hangout for the Hells Angels between New York and Chicago, as well as they had a house that they would crash in on Hampshire. It was a three storey house, which is now a parking lot. The Cleveland Heights, I guess, declared it a nuisance and tore it down so as to discourage the people as did as they did with the C-Saw Cafe after where there was a shooting. And I'm not sure. I can't remember as to who was involved in the shooting. It was a somebody was killed at the C-Saw Cafe, but then there was. That that probably didn't help, and then Irv's, Irv's Deli, that was there, that was the after-hours. After all the other bars in, in northeastern Ohio would close, Irv's would still be open and people would go there. And there was not much control made of the, the clientele there. And so I worked at a, at one of the hospitals and I worked a 7:00 to 3:30 shift and would have to get up at 6:00 in the morning and there would be people passed out on the lawn or at three o'clock there would be shooting going on down at Coventry and Hampshire. I lived on Hampshire, four buildings in. And [it was] a real nuisance. And the Cleveland Heights responded with by, well, they closed the C-Saw Cafe and tore it down and tore down the house on Hampshire. And then I, I was very active in Coventry Neighbors as their... as one of the board members and the treasurer. And we decided if Irv was not going to clean up his act, we were going to take away their liquor license. And so we did a local option. And my name and address was on all the literature and we felt, felt badly. But we ended up taking away their liquor license, which sort of killed that corner of, of Hampshire and that whole well, we didn't kill the block. The block still there and there are still businesses there. I think the hardware I don't know, the hardware store is still there and it's always been there. And Grum's and all of these places are still there. And Coventry is still quite a wonderful place to go to hang out, visit whatever. And I still go down there occasionally. And I do see people I recognize from the time I was there in the, in the '70s and '80s. I was active in, in a number of programs down there. A program called the Apartment Improvement Program, which were block grants to help fix up buildings. And actually I, I was asked to run for city council in 1983 and I lost, but, but I had improved the name recognition and got my brother elected to the school board based on running his campaign. So after that, so but I love the Coventry area and a lot of people still live in that community that, that I knew back in the '80s and they're still there. And in Cleveland Heights, what's interesting with Cleveland Heights is that more than I think more than half the people in Cleveland Heights that live in Cleveland Heights used to rent in Cleveland Heights. And, probably a third of the people in Cleveland Heights grew up in Cleveland Heights, so there, there are a lot of people that that still that stick with Cleveland Heights just because it is so it's an eclectic community. It's open in places. It's of course, in some others it's not. But it's it really is. I love it because it is community and it's what I enjoy.

Mark Souther [00:36:35] When you say it's open in some places and not in others. Can you elaborate?

Dennis Coughlin [00:36:39] Well, there are some communities that that are very welcoming of anybody coming into the community and and the stores. I guess I feel of course, [I'm] [I] feel I don't feel necessarily unwelcome in communities, but I it's I'm, I'm willing to go anywhere in Cleveland Heights, but there are some places which seem a little more homogenous than others and others that that are are not I mean, it's just it's where everybody lives. I mean, it's that's what's nice about, I guess, of th

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