Worth Noting

Northeast Ohio Boomer and Beyond earned Best of Show and 11 other awards for writing, layout and general excellence at the North American Mature Publishers Association annual convention in Oak Brook, Ill., on Sept. 25.

Northeast Ohio Boomer and Beyond magazine is a lifestyle publication for active people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. It has a distribution of 35,000 at more than 550 locations throughout Greater Cleveland.

The magazine’s editor is Marie Elium. Laura Chadwick is the art director and designer.

“Just two short years ago we developed Boomer & Beyond for the local market to educate, inspire and entertain readers with the theme of ‘Better Living After 50,’” said Brad Mitchell, Northeast Ohio Boomer and Beyond publisher and owner of parent company Mitchell Media, LLC. “The early positive response from readers and advertisers helped affirm that we were on the right track. We are thrilled to receive national awards for our magazine and we can’t wait to take it to the next level.”

The School of Journalism of the University of Missouri in Columbia judged the entries submitted by the magazines. Northeast Ohio Boomer and Beyond competed in the B Division, which represents magazines with a circulation of 25,001-50,000.

For First Place General Excellence, the judges said, “Northeast Ohio Boomer and Beyond offers readers a wide variety of topics, ranging from personality profiles of the 1970s regional musician to glamping and social media how-to tips. It also has a raft of columnists offering both amusement and practical advice – legal, dental, fitness, health, retirement time and money, among others. Kudos also go to a feature about a special friendship between a 25-year-old college student renting a room in a senior citizen housing center and an 81-year-old resident of the center. It’s a touching story.”

The judges’ comments referred to a cover profile of Cleveland rock legend Michael Stanley and a cover story about multi-generational housing at Judson Manor near University Circle.

The Ultimate Fall Treat

Beer on the Vine

Pumpkin turns up in everything this time of year — and truthfully, some of the items are a bit weird.

Air fresheners. Coffee. Hand soaps. Cheerios. Not in the category of weird (at least in my book): beer.

My favorite beer store started stocking pumpkin ales at the end of summer. Please don’t judge, but it never occurred to me that they used real pumpkins. I thought they used pumpkin-ish spices like cinnamon and ginger and moved on to their next beer, letting the consumer’s imagination take it from there. Not true.

Great Lakes Brewing Company last year harvested somewhere in the range of 200 to 250 pumpkins grown organically at their Pint Size Farm. Located half an hour from the brewery on a historic farm in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Pint Size Farm’s half-acre plot produces pumpkins using traditional farming methods.

The completely organic, pesticide-free and artificial fertilizer-free produce is used seasonally in their brewpub for their Pumpkin Ale. Last year they also brewed a small batch Specter Detector, an experimental Belgian white ale using roasted white pumpkins.

Sure beats breakfast cereal.

Do You Know a Giver?

Give Him Up

Volunteers hate attention. Most are happy to go about their good deed doing without a lot of fuss from the rest of us. Too bad.

Shining a light on these good people reminds us that there’s plenty of generosity and positive things going on in Northeast Ohio. Learning about how others give sometimes results in a gentle nudge to the rest of us. Their kindheartedness has a ripple effect.

We’re again saluting local volunteers in Boomer’s November/December issue. Go ahead, let us know about a giver you’ve discovered. Send a description (150 words), contact information and a photo, if available, to [email protected]

Kindness Rocks

And Sometimes It Rolls

Have you found one?

Kindness Rocks are turning up along sidewalks, on park benches, under trees — everywhere. The movement started on social media and has taken a rock-solid hold in Northeast Ohio.

Painted and shellacked, the colorful rocks usually sport a label with a hashtag so finders can see where their rocks have traveled. The biggest group is #NortheastOhioRocks! — with 175,000 members and about 3 million rocks that have been painted and hidden — but there are plenty of others here and around the country, including the Kindness Rocks Project with a more national scope.

All the groups encourage people to paint small rocks — with or without a message — and hide them as a random act of kindness.

Rock finders often snap a photo of their rock, list the location, and post it to Twitter, Facebook or another social media account. They then re-hide the rock and see where it ends up.

To get started, prepare your rock surface with a layer of paint. Use oil-based Sharpie markers to decorate the rock. If you feel like it, add a hashtag on the back such as #THEKINDNESSROCKSPROJECT, or #NortheastOhioRocks!

Here’s to a rockin’ — and kind — summer.

A Fairly Good Time

Groomed Cows & Elephant Ears

July marks the start of county fair season, and Ohio has nearly perfected the art of canned food judging, giant vegetable growing and corn dog eating.

The Summit and Lake county fairs are the week of July 25-30, the Medina County Fair is July 31-Aug. 6, the Cuyahoga County Fair (Berea) is Aug. 7-13 and the Portage County Randolph Fair is Aug. 22-27.

The oldest continuous fair in the state — and one of the very best — is the Great Geauga County Fair, scheduled for Labor Day weekend in Burton.

Cursive

It’s the Write Thing to Do

I nearly missed out on a church raffle prize (a $10 Subway gift card) when the announcer couldn’t read my scrawled signature.

Maybe a cold cut combo isn’t worth an overhaul of my cursive writing skills, but wouldn’t it be nice to have legible handwriting?

State Rep. Marilyn Slaby of Akron agrees. She’s spearheading a movement to require cursive writing instruction for elementary students.

“I feel strongly children still need to learn cursive writing. They need their signature. Many grandparents said they have written their grandkids, and they can’t read it because they haven’t learned cursive,” Slaby says.

“Having taught cursive as an elementary teacher, I understand some of the problems adults have. Yes, I can do cursive so it can be read, but my husband is terrible. He makes me write everything for him. I tell people to slow down and usually write bigger. By slowing down you can concentrate on each letter.”

Slow down. Concentrate. That’s good advice for a lot of things we do. Elevate your cursive game by downloading practice worksheets online. Win write.

This is Super, Man

From Cleveland to Krypton

Superman was born on Krypton, but he was created in Cleveland.

The original superhero is getting a supersized tribute at the Cleveland Public Library starting this month and running through the end of the year.

“Superman: From Cleveland to Krypton” honors not only Superman but also his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in an exhibit that stretches across three floors of the main library at 325 Superior Ave.

The exhibit follows the world’s greatest superhero from his creation in Cleveland to his growing international popularity, his influence on the current superhero craze, his connection to social justice and immigration issues, and the pride Cleveland maintains for its homegrown hero.   

Highlights include a supersized Superman statue by David Deming, rare items from the Mike Curtis Collection of Superman Memorabilia and other prominent collectors, and a costume worn by Brandon Routh in the 2006 movie “Superman Returns.”

Curtis, the writer of the Dick Tracy comic, donated more than 15,000 items to the library.

Research shows that women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than men by a 3-to-2 margin. Some scientists believe this is because when women reach menopause, their bodies cease to produce estrogen, and the pituitary gland begins over-producing another hormone, luteinizing hormone (LH), to try to jump-start the ovaries.

 Gemma Casadesus Smith, an associate professor of Biological Sciences in Kent State University’s College of Arts and Sciences, plans to test those beliefs in mice using a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

 “So if the hypothesis is that LH receptor signaling goes down, and that receptor is what facilitates cognitive function, then by removing this in normal mice, we should see cognitive deficits,” she said. 

See the complete Press Release