The Observation Deck

The semi-retired Wizard of Lakewood, Kenneth Warren, stop by this weekend for another
of his visits to the "Wood." Friday night while getting caught up on many things that had
changed or not changed in the weeks since his last visit, he mentioned his new tools for
charting and understanding not just a community, but the ability of key players and
programs, within a community. As the conversation continued, into the night it was
decided to try them out Saturday at the Root Cafe.


Here Kenneth Waren, with Tom Shaughnessy, Steve Davis and myself look at one
of Ken's diagrams as we discuss how Lakewood fits, and where the city's various
personalities and programs fall. This was good as it was the first time we were able
to share time with Tom, who was VAL's infamous Bridge to China when we were working
so hard to bring the University of Beijing into the Lake Erie Screw Building. It has been
years since we discussed just how close The Visionary Alignment for Lakewood was to
landing a world class university in Lakewood. The only things that derailed it was one
person's small vision that it was easier to deal with Cleveland State or Akron University.
Alas the deal finally was shelved when economic visionaries in Lakewood decided it would
be even easier to convince Ferry Cap and Screw to move in instead of being the home
to the University of Beijing's first American campus.


Betsy Voinovich brings Ken up to speed on Lakewood's continued deep commitment to
high quality education for all, Quaker Steak and Lube and the Collinwood Observer.
It was fascinating to see how Ken's S.C.H.W.I.N.G. Factor was able to highlight quickly
what forces of consciousness and sub-consciousness were being applied. Then we all
watched as it accurately peeled back the various communal layers in Collinwood as well!

Ken said that it was much better and more precise than "Spiral Dynamics"® while having
the ability to more accurately chart programs and organizations as well. I have to admit, it was
amazing as we went over program after program, and personality after personality using
Ken's civic engagement tools for the future. It did highlight that programs are certainly the
out growth of the person(s) that formed it, and how hard it is for a group to change even
when they are making public overtures at change and growth. Ken has been teaching
and is now hitting the university lecture circuit about this and civic engagement Observer
style, while writing.


Ken shows Steve how his tools could have predicted many of "bumps" in the road for
Lakewood programs, based on the various personality's strengths and flaws.


Nadhal Edayh, Mike Zannoni, and Ken look at how the chart works to explain how
so many issues are pushed by the sub-consciousness, especially her in Lakewood. Mike
carries nearly as many psychological evaluation tools with him as Ken does.

Hope we can get him to being it to Lakewood for a special Observer event.

Another great weekend with good friends in Lakewood.


.

I am glad you all are doing your best to revive the leather coat economy in Lakewood.

Jim DeVito wrote:I am glad you all are doing your best to revive the leather coat economy in Lakewood.

Jim

Ken calls it the "Pleather Gang"

FWIW

Hey DeVito--- Those are just four geezer "racks" who in their younger days would have been hanging around Poppee's,smoking cigarettes,before going into class at Harding.

Betcha Gary Rice can fill you in on the explanations and details!
Stan

Hi,
I'm usually against dress codes, but it does organize the group. Now, if I see someone in a jack like that, I'll know they are former LVA (Lakewood Visionary Alignment) and now SD.

And here I was, innocently sitting around, trying to come up with one of my typically classical "let's all hold hands and sing around the campfire again" posts for that big, festering dysfunctional boil of a topic as to how Lakewood can all get along better again....

...and Stan has to bring up the legendary.... Harding racks.

Racks, (as applied to the "slanguage" of 1950'-60's Lakewood) for those too young to recall, were those, shall we say, frisky, freethinkin', and at times perhaps, leather-clad young people of old; some of whom sometimes having had "conflict resolution issues" with authority figures. (smile)

The mythology back then was that Harding had all the racks. The other two junior highs were pristine clean.

Yeah, right.

As a Harding teacher's kid, my own interest in the rack culture, (or lack thereof), would probably need to be classified as being primarily academic and sociological in nature............

Ah, the good old days.

Back to the banjo.

(For the record, I've never smoked a cigarette in my life)

Thank You Gary.

Gary Rice wrote:"conflict resolution issues" with authority figures. (smile)

... that is priceless

Gary, I'm afraid that the Harding racks infected the pristine schools as well. When Horace Mann was a Junior High School, we needed to beware of the racks on the tracks - and they weren't all Harding.

But those fellows pictured above never were or will be racks.

It is typical of a certain generation to claim the fierce independence of wearing a uniform.

Racks! omg.

I tried to explain this to my wife not more than a week ago. She'd never heard the term Rack . When I switched it to the alternate; Greaser, she got it right away. I'm not sure when the term Racks (also sometimes called Hoods) faded out and morphed into greaser, but I'm thinking around '67 was about the last of it. Remember, the polar opposite in those days were originally Preps and later Surfs and later Jocks. Which was all happening before Heads, Stoner's and Freaks entered the scene starting around '68-69.

Racks (short for racketeer and really a name coined by fearful parents for characters like Brando in the Wild One http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1391853849/) were legendary in Lakewood. Unlike Brando, nobody had motorcycles. But they all had what we called Regal Shoes (not sure if that was a brand name) which meant severely pointed, Italian black tie-ups, with cleats on the heals for extra sound effect (full horseshoe style for the entire heel, got extra points). Black Leather jackets, white tee shirts and black chinos completed the outfit with of course slicked back hair. They smoked Pall Malls, Chesterfields, Camels, or Lucky Strikes exclusively. Later as re-defined greasers, filters like Marlboro or Kool's were acceptable. In the early days, having a knife, preferably an illegal switchblade, was also highly desired to show off casually amongst fellow Racks. Brass knuckles were even more prized as were oversized choker collars for giant dogs, as these could hide in a leather jacket and provide some cover in a knife fight.

It was not confined to Harding, but yes, that's where all the street cred was started. Between hanging out at Hilliard Theater, Angies Pizza right behind and below the theater, Prange's steak burgers caddy-corner from Hilliard and Harding field itself, these were the guys you didn't mess with. Another notorious hang out was Tony's pizza across from the Detroit theater.

Good times

Dustin

I am surprised you di not give a mention to how you had found the outlet store for Campus Sweaters.




http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Greaser



.

Oh sure in the Garment district on what, W. 6th?

Yeah, it was also great for Madras shirts (that were guaranteed to still bleed)
AND the often hard to find, but highly sought after Mod clothing, polka dot shirts, wide whale corduroy bell bottoms and of course pants like these...

You all forget Harry Weinraub's, but I digress---------Dustin-- you're spot on LOL, and in response to DL, I do admit that those that I identified as being geriatric racks would in reality have been the targets of the every day lunch money shakedown at Harding, you're timeline of the genre is perfect.
The only thing you missed was toe cleats, talk about a racket until Mr. Wallace, the Harding principal banned them, along with the horseshoe heal cleats on the hard linoleum floors.
And, wind it all up with Andy Williams "Moon River" after the Harding dances.
(Notice I am totally ignoring the other Jr. Highs, Emerson and Horace Mann, perhaps because their contribution to society and the world and Lakewood athletics was negligible?)

YES! Toe cleats, jeesh. And I think Harry Weinraubs was only a few doors down from the "place" that OB remembers.

And DL, yes there were Racks occasionally at the tracks, but it thinned out as they discovered pizza parlors and bowling alleys.
So we replaced them as the juveniles du jour.

Moon River, wider than a mile...

I went to Horace Mann and can't speak for Emerson, but I recall that we rocked at athletics (or really, really wanted to in our spare time

Dustin

Harry's was just south of Campus Outlet, which was 6 store fronts south of the Cravat Store, which was
next to my apartment on West 6.

But the greasers, would go to Capitol Clothes on St. Clair and West 6th, where you could choose from over
100 styles of leather jackets and full length coats.

Me personally, I preferred the action on Prospect like Mr. Shoe, Mike the Hatter, Alders, and Goldfish.

But then I have heard I have the blood in me.

Ken is closer to the real deal, out of Brooklyn.

.

The "Rack" terminology was used and familiar in such far-flung places as my alma mater, Mayfield High School. However, my wife Rhonda, who went to Elmhurst High School in Fort Wayne Indiana, was not familiar with it.