I was born after the
Second World War in Cleveland, Ohio as David Frackelton
Gleason. My second given name, Eduardo, was bestowed
upon my baptism.
As I grew up, of course,
I did not know that Cleveland was where I would not want
to be.
Cleveland looks a lot better
today than it did when I was there. This was a
traditional "rust-belt" city with shrinking opportunity
and a significant helping of decay and contamination. I
didn't like it! I left as soon as I was able.
My home in Cleveland
Cleveland's lovely weather, as
evidenced in this view, was particularly unappealing. Guess who got
to shovel the snow off the sidewalk and entrance?
This was Wellington Road in the eastern
Clevelend suburb
of Cleveland heights.
Views of the house and
street
where I lived till about
age 13 when I began
"wandering the world."
My Father and Lakeview
Cemetary
My father, Charles B.
Gleason, was an investment banker. He is in the picture above from
1954. Following the failure of his bank in
the Depression, he became the manager of Lakeview Cemetery, where
President Garfield is buried. It is famous for its extensive
botanical gardens, in no small part due to my father's interest in
horticulture.
Daffodil Hill was one of
my father's inspirations... a long low hillside planted with many
dozens of varieties of daffodil. Landscaping of the cemetary had
been delayed by the Depression, and it fell upon
my father to implement. He folllowed the
landscaper's advice to “Plant, plant, plant.” My father
had been the first male president of the Garden Center
of Greater Cleveland He executed an ambitious
program that introduced thousands of flowering trees and
shrubs.
Another view of
Lakeview Cemetery's Daffodil Hill
Lakeview
Cemetary.... another view.
My father died on the 12th of December of 1956 and was
burried in the place he so loved.
Lakeview was "home" to
President James Garfield... this is his final resting place.
The GARFIELD MONUMENT, located on a sloping hill
near Mayfield Rd. in
LAKE VIEW CEMETERY, was built as a tomb and memorial
to Pres.
James. A. Garfield†. Construction of the monument
began in 1885 with funds raised by the Garfield Natl.
Monument Associationn. Construction was completed
in 1890 and the monument was dedicated on 30 May of that
year, with a procession of notables including Pres.
Benjamin Harrison, former president Rutherford B. Hayes,
and members of the Garfield family.
For the full story of the Garfield Monument, click on
the picture and an interesting page about it will open.
Entrance to Lakeview
Cemetery.
Lake View Cemetery, located in the vibrant University
Circle area, was organized in 1869. It is considered
“Cleveland’s Outdoor Museum and Arboretum.” It’s
Cleveland’s historical, horticultural, architectural,
sculptural and geological gem. The magnificent
collection of trees, shrubs and plants make for an
exceptional green space in an urban area. This “green
space” provides a wonderful refuge for birds and small
animals, as well as a showplace of extraordinary
architectural and sculptural treasures.
For the Lakeview Cemetary website, click on the picture
of the entrance.
My family's plot lies in
this area in the Cemetery
Here I am feeding the
ducks at one of the lakes at Lakeview Cemetery.
Omena, Michgan
Summers were spent in Omena, Michigan, population 60, on
the shores of Grand Traverse Bay north of Traverse City.
Printing
When about 9, I
bought a small, hand operated letterpress printing press... the
kind with lead type and rollers and messy ink. I used it to
print business cards and letterheads, and progressed to using it to
print QSL cards (the postcards radio stations and ham operators use
to verify a distant listener's reception).
It helped that the press, made by Chandler & Price, came
from the factory managed by my grandfather and owned by
my aunt. There was, obviously, a family discount.
The C&P press
lived in the basement, and helped finance my earliest investments in
the stock market... mostly penny stocks on the Toronto Exchange,
where I opened a broker account in 1958
The printing
Press was made by a company, founded over 60 years before, by my
Great Uncle. Click on the picture for a description of the printing
press company.
I went into the QSL card business. Over several years,
the card enterprise formed the basis for savings and
investments that would help finance my first radio
station.
Hundreds of stations bought cards to answer the
reports from distant listeners that were still received in large
quantities back in the 50's and 60's. I was ready and willing to
serve this need with stock cards at a good price: $6.00 for 100
cards, two colors, postpaid.
For some full-size examples of the cards, click on the
graphic to the right and a PDF will pop up.
Investing
When I was 9, I became fascinated by the stock market. I
bought Barron's every saturday and also read the WSJ and
had an account and traded on the Toronto exchange, where
$20 could often buy 500 shares of something like Ajax
Petroleum.
Here is a Standard and Poor's sheet on
Storer Broadcasting from 1959. This was the
investment that got me interested in radio when
I decided to visit one of the Storer stations.
Click on the copy for more of the report as well
as ones for CBS and Metropolitan Broadcasting
(later Metromedia).
Click on the sheet to view a readable S&P report on
Storer.
To see S&P repots on Metromedia, CBS and others, click
here.
High School.
I attended Hawken School in Lyndhurst, OH, from 1st to
9th grade. I was part of the first class to open the
High school (or "preparatory school" as they preferred)
and went through 10th and part of 11th grade there
View of main
building at Hawken School
The printing
experience led to a fling with print journalism. Fortunately, it was
short-lived, and consisted only working on a high school
newspaper.
In my
sophomore year, I founded our school paper. I
could only do this because the
school had no paper. So, I founded it "because I
could." Click on the graphic above to see several
of the first editions of the school paper.
The paper at "rival"
University School reported on the new Hawken newspaper.
The name, "The
Affirmative No," of course, was a comment on the ambiguous nature of
bureaucratic institutions everywhere. The circulation was about 200,
but the Alumni Association found it a marvelous fund raiser as long
as we did not say anything particularly nasty.
Here is the masthead from year
two of the paper. Year one was done with a spirit duplicator, and
they are faded.
My first ad sale... a cold call!
This Coca-Cola ad, a full page at
that, was the first advertising I ever sold. It would not be the
last.
I cold-called the bottler, near downtown Cleveland,
and walked out with a contract.
Nobody had bothered to tell me that cold calling was
hard and frightening.
Journalism for Dummies... summer classes at MSU.
Click on this graphic to see the
curriculum of the course
A summer was spent at
the college-level journalism seminars of Michigan State University,
where students preparing to work at college newspapers from around
the country took courses and produced a newspaper. I was an
editorial writer for the paper, and earned my attractive
certificate.
Click on the graphic to see a larger version
I spent one semester at Cleveland Heights High
School before moving to Ecuador in early 1964. Here is one view of
"Heights High" which was conveniently located across the street from
WJMO & WCUY where I had been working part-time since 1959.
