The beginning of Autumn: Sunday, Sept. 22; 2 p.m. A Polish proverb says, "Spring is a virgin, Summer a mother, Autumn a widow, and Winter a stepmother."

"A widow" is a rather good description in the days around the beginning of fall, with "The Final Play" activities at Cleveland Stadium.

She (they call it "The Grand Old Lady of Stadiums," so "she" apparently is correct) is widowed--"divorced" may be more accurate.

And the mourners pay their respects in the two days of the stadium open house and the two days of auctioning off "her assets."

Sept. 24, 1995: Cleveland Browns, 35...Kansas City Chiefs, 17.

I was there. That was the last time I was in Cleveland Stadium. That was the last time the Browns won a football game in Cleveland Stadium.

It's a bitter-sweet memory of sorts, because six weeks later, Art Modell confirmed that he was moving the Cleveland professional football team to Baltimore.

I suppose I could say, "At least I saw them when they were winners!" Well, in that game anyway, they were winners.

They didn't do very well the rest of that season. They are not doing very well so far this season.

Their games are broadcast locally on radio and television, and that is an irritant to some Browns fans. A comment on "Dawgs in Cyberspace," lambastes the local stations broadcasting the games: "Why are they doing this? Do they really think Browns fans are interested in following Modell's Flying Rodents?" It's "...like throwing salt in our wounds."

The poet writes that "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year..."

But still another poet writes, "Autumn to winter, winter into spring, Spring into summer, summer into fall,--so rolls the changing year, and so we change."

Oh, yeah...like it or not, we change.

"Final Play" is a party at the stadium.

The auction of stadium stuff is the playing of "The Party's Over."

The stadium will come down.

A new one will go up.

The "Grand Old Lady" is leaving, bless her.

But The Browns are coming back.

In 1999.

We change.

WoofWoofWoofWoofWoofWoof!!!!!

OTHER STORIES by John Herrington

RETURN TO Cleveland, The New American City

CLEVELAND BICENTENNIAL home page

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