History

Congratulations, City of Aurora, Ohio, for your impressive, new Aurora Park on Geauga Lake!! On Sunday, October 25, 2026, we attended the Grand Opening of Aurora Park at Geauga Lake with our sons, Kevin and Michael.

Our family has a personal interest in this city park, since we remember fun times at Geauga Lake Amusement Park and SeaWorld Ohio.

We plan to return to enjoy Aurora Park again, and hope that this blog post encourages you to visit the park soon.

The unusually warm weather on Saturday, April 4, 2026, brought huge crowds out to the annual Sakura Festival in Akron, Ohio. This was Stuart's second time attending the Festival, but it was a first-time visit for Julie and our son, Kevin. The Festival was hosted by the Downtown Akron Partnership.

Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms. The Japanese cherry blossom trees, planted by the Japanese Association of Northeast Ohio (JANO) along the canal in downtown Akron, were beautifully in bloom. The crowds enjoyed the delicate, pink blossoms as they walked along the canal and patronized the many vendors who participated. There were crafts, and performances by a drumming group and dancers, as well as opportunities to learn about Japanese culture, including a traditional tea ceremony.

Thank you for reading our blog post, and we hope you will share it with others so they can learn about this fun Akron event and scenic trail.

I was so pleased to have participated in the academic activities that were part of this year's celebration of the 60 years of Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP). After attending the Wednesday, October 1, 2025, Archives 60th Anniversary Open House, the Executive Director of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, Cathy Faye, Ph.D., invited me to return for a full day of learning about the history of AHAP at the Saturday, November 8, 2025, Symposium: Reflecting on 60 Years of the Archives of the History of American Psychology. Following the symposium, a HUGE surprise announcement was made at the celebratory cocktail party: A one-million-dollar challenge grant!

Over six years ago, I learned about the National Museum of Psychology. When I finally visited on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, I learned that there was much more to the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology than just the psychology museum.

I really enjoyed all the times I have visited the Center, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn more about its history on this 60th anniversary. I put this blog post together to congratulate the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology board members, staff, and supporters, not only for the progress made over the Center's history, but for the bright prospects for the future!

Is this the end of an era? After 20 years of the Euclid Beach Park Now organization hosting Remembering the Sights and Sounds of Euclid Beach Park, their board voted to discontinue this annual event after this year. Julie was the only board member to vote for continuing this Cleveland tradition in the future. This event has taken place every year at what is now the Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Beach Park. This year's event, on Sunday, September 28, 2025, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, took place exactly on the 56th anniversary of this now-defunct amusement park's closing on September 28, 1969.

There was a huge crowd attending this year's event!!! They enjoyed the amusement park displays, carnival food, and the special car show entitled "The Cars We Drove to Euclid Beach." With such a large, enthusiastic level of participation in 2025, we hope that some sort of amusement-park-related event will be created to replace this 20-year tradition in 2026.

The memory of the former Euclid Beach amusement park has a bright future in the form of an enlarged Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Beach Park and a new City of Cleveland Euclid Beach Arch Park.

We had not vacationed in New Hampshire since 1997, so when Stuart finished a month-long backpacking trip in southern New Hampshire, Julie joined him for an August 17-23, 2025, vacation in New Hampshire, Vermont, and on the USS Enterprise. We put this blog post together to share some of what we explored during this trip.

We want to note that this vacation was after two long backpacking trips that Stuart had already completed this year. Stuart's month-long Appalachian Trail backpacking trip is where he finished the final few miles in Massachusetts before hiking all of the Vermont section, and 50+ miles into the New Hampshire section.

We are sharing our photos and trip observations with you here to encourage you to explore the places we visited.

We had not been to Colorado since 1998, so when we were invited to attend our niece's wedding (celebrating Anna Bonebrake's marriage to Thomas Porricolo), we took the opportunity to extend the trip to include Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, and the Denver area. We were on this exciting trip from Friday, June 13, 2025, through Monday, June 23, 2025.

Due to our other travels, we had to delay writing this blog post, but we enjoyed putting it together as our way of remembering the good times we had in Colorado in June 2025. We are sharing our photos and trip observations with you here to encourage you to explore the places we visited in Colorado.

On Monday, January 20, 2025, my wife and co-blogger, Julie, volunteered at the Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel at the Cleveland History Center, while my son, Michael, and I spent Martin Luther King, Jr., Day 2025 visiting four of the museums in University Circle.

It was an unusually cold day (the outside temperature varied between 7°F and 11°F). We used drawstring bags to carry our multiple layers of winter clothing while we were in the comfortably warm museums, and then wore the clothing when we walked between the venues. At these low temperatures, the cold hurts any uncovered skin, such as our faces. Despite the extremely cold weather, was saw many families visiting the museums throughout the day.

I put this blog post together to share my photos and experiences of our visit to the following museums:

• Cleveland Museum of Art
  - Zygote Press
  - Specialty Departments and Programs
  - Picasso and Paper Exhibition

• Cleveland Botanical Garden

• Cleveland Museum of Natural History

• Cleveland History Center
  - Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel
  - Cleveland History Center Exhibitions

I want to thank these museums for welcoming the community every year to visit as part of celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. I am grateful that we have such excellent, educational, and engaging museums in our community. Michael and I had a great time touring all the museums.

When Stuart saw the announcement on social media for the Institute for Human Science and Culture's Misinformation Society panel discussion on October 2, 2024, he knew that it was important to attend. The topic is of immediate importance as we are in an election cycle that has included a historic level of misinformation and disinformation.

Originally, Stuart planned to watch the YouTube livestream of the event. After Stuart wrote about his tour of the National Museum of Psychology on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, Julie also became interested in seeing the museum.

This blog post is about the two of us attending the October 2, 2024, panel of University of Akron professors discussing misinformation/disinformation, and then touring two sections of the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

The Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, located at The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, collects, preserves, provides access to, and interprets the historical record of psychology and related human sciences. . . .

The Center houses the Archives of the History of American Psychology and the National Museum of Psychology, as well as the multidisciplinary Institute for Human Science and Culture.

We want to thank the "Misinformation Society" panel members for sharing their knowledge on this important topic. Also, a BIG thank you to the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology staff for their Brown Bag History series and for our visit to the institute galleries and the Psychology Museum. We are very fortunate to have this great resource in Northeast Ohio.

The first day of fall had already arrived the Sunday before, but in Cleveland, we stretched the summer fun one more week by having three great events over the weekend of Friday, September 27, 2024, through Sunday, September 29, 2024:

• Friday - Sunday, September 27 - 29, 2024 - IngenuityFest 2024: Era of Ascent
  I attended Day One and Day Two of this three-day celebration of Northeast Ohio creatives.

• Friday, September 27, 2024 at 8:00 pm - PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 42 at IngenuityFest

• Sunday, September 29, 2024 - The 19th Annual Remembering the Sights and Sounds of Euclid Beach Park

The following blog post includes my photos and videos from the weekend, along with event information and what others have shared. I hope this blog post encourages you to learn about the year-round activities of the organizations that planned these events.

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future fun events hosted by Ingenuity Cleveland, PechaKucha Night Cleveland, and Euclid Beach Park Now!

On Saturday, August 31, 2024, we had a great time with our son, Michael, learning about the history of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Malabar Farm State Park. At the farm, we went on both the Big House tour and the farm tour. The farm tour consisted of a narrated ride around the farm property on a tractor-pulled wagon. We then visited the many animals in the Main Barn.

After an enjoyable morning at Malabar Farm, we then had lunch at the Mohican Lodge and explored some of Mohican State Park.

We put together this blog post to share with others our photos from the day and links to park resources. It brings us joy to add this trip to our other travel blog posts. This fun and interesting day was like having a mini-vacation!