A year ago this month, the talk and planning were of Cleveland's 200th birthday party: a bicentennial bash that would have gads of stuff going on!

Talk and planning became reality.

It happened.

It happened big time.

We ate the cake and blew out the candles.

It's a year later.

Stuff is still happening.

But there are instances where a bit more planning perhaps was needed, the kind of planning that made last year such a big success.

A year ago, Bob Hope came to town and was marshal for the Parade of Lights on the Cuyahoga River. That was the 13th year that the illuminated vessels sailed thru the "crooked river" waters.

You know what they say about the number "13." Well, a glitch this year may have sunk the Parade of Lights, one of the biggest drawing cards for the annual July festival in the Flats: someone didn't plan the thing, according to reports, and now, they say, there isn't time to put it together for the festival. Will there even be a "FlatsFest" this year? That question is being asked.

A year ago, they lit up the bridges in the Flats and called it, "Cleveland-City of Bridges." Cleveland still is a city with lots of bridges, but they're still working on those lights on those bridges. Not everything worked right, and there was that long, long rehabilitation job on the Detroit-Superior Bridge.

They hope all the work on the $3.9-million lighting project will be finished not too long after all the repair work is done on the Detroit-Superior Bridge. That'll be September or October, according to plans. So, the total bridge lighting effect won't be visible to the big crowds of summer in the Flats.

But, hey! There isn't a "glitch" in everything from the Bicentennial Year! The RTA Waterfront Line--that train ride through the Flats and North Coast Harbor venues--seems to be working well. RTA may be struggling with some other plans and problems about expanding the system, but the Waterfront Line that was a "Legacy Project" of the Bicentennial Year is doing better than Regional Transit Authority brass expected, and it won't be a year old until July 10.

The Great Lakes Science Center has its first anniversary July 20. It was another Bicentennial Year "Legacy Project." It has attracted visitors well beyond expectations, and now, Executive Director Richard F. Coyne believes 750,000 people will visit the center by that birthday date. Earlier, he put that first-year figure at 650,000, but 645,000 already had visited by early May. (And now, for gosh sake, they've got the Trekkies in for "Star Trek: Federation Science!" That exhibit runs through August. And Omnimax--the biggie in-house theater--is showing a new feature, "Serengeti." It's a chronicle of the year-long movement of more than a million animals across 500 miles of the African plains, called, "Serengeti." That's heavy stuff even for the very powerful and sophisticated movie projection system that is Omnimax!)

The guy that ran the Cleveland Bicentennial Commission's work--David Abbott--has a new job: interim director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The Rock Hall got its psychedlic era exhibit underway and lost its director, William N. Hulett. There were reports that the local director and the New York rock power structure didn't get along all that well, so Hulett moved on.

There were differing opinions, too, on that new exhibit, called, "I Want to Take you Higher: The Psychedelic Era 1965-1969." Some didn't like the connection with drugs; others said, hey, that's the way it was.

A high school student-writer for the teen page of the Plain Dealer said the exhibit should include a lot more than it does and that it could have been more interestingly presented. He said he would not pay admission to go see it.

On the other hand, a Plain Dealer columnist defends it as a "...well-done educational experience."

Anyway, for about $15 a ticket ($14.95), you have until the end of February to decide for yourself, should you care to take a look.

There was no argument about the Faberge exhibit being a smashing success at the Cleveland Museum of Art! Total attendance during the nine weeks of the show was 172,600; that's 22,600 more than predicted.

The millionth visitor to the exhibition came during its Cleveland stop. The 400 objects designed by Carl Peter Faberge (you know, the guy who did the "Eggs?") were on display at five American museums over the past year.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is hoping that wolves and friends can do for the zoo what those Eggs did for the Art Museum: boost attendance big time!

Wolf Wilderness has opened at the Zoo, the first big exhibit since RainForest five years ago. RainForest brought in record numbers of visitors (1.4 million in 1993, the first full RainForest year). Since then, attendance has been between 1.1 and 1.26 million. Wolf Wildnerness is a $2.5-million dollar exhibit that opened May 9, and Zoo Director Steve Taylor hopes it will help take annual attendance to 1.4-to-1.5 million.

Cleveland Ballet's "Blue Suede Shoes" got scuffed up a bit: the Mexico City tour had to be postponed because of slow ticket sales and some other money problems. The dancers took a month off and will go back to the West Coast in early July for a repeat production in San Jose (that's the Ballet's second home) and in Los Angeles. The tour of the Elvis Presley music-based rock ballet--it has gotten rave notices in Detroit and San Jose--continues next year.

With "Phantom of the Opera" ending its State Theatre run (and with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber contemplating a sequel to his musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux's tale), Playhouse Square has put "The King and I," "Chicago," "Rent," "Annie," "Dreamgirls," and "Beauty and the Beast" on its 1997-98 calendar.

Yet to come this year: Stomp (June 17-29 at the Palace)...Grease (July 15-20 at the Palace)...Show Boat (Aug. 9 at the State), and some one-night stands by Ray Charles (June 19, State), Anne Murray (June 21, State), New Edition (June 25, State), Al Jarreau and Boney James (June 27, State), Guitars, Saxes and More (June 28, State), The Monkees (July 27, Palace), Jazz Explosion (July 27, State), Harry Belafonte (Aug. 3, Palace), Patti LaBelle (Aug. 9, Palace), Little Richard (Aug. 17, Palace), Bill Cosby (Sept. 28, Palace). Tickets for all are available at the Playhouse Square box office or from Advantix, 216-241-6000 or 1-800-766-6048.

Other stuff:

The Great American Rib Cook-off at Burke Lakefront Airport (June 19-22), the home-opener of the new Women's National Basketball Association Cleveland Rockers against the Houston Comets, at Gund Arena, June 21, the Major League Baseball All-Star game at the Jake, July 8 (a workout day is July 7), and the Grand Prix of Cleveland at the Lakefront, July 11-13.

Oh...the weather? It hasn't been all that great. But it will get better, won't it? And, around here, you can't really call whatever happens in the weather a "glitch," can you?

OTHER STORIES by John Herrington

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