Joel M. Albers

I’ve really appreciated carrying forward all the
lessons from “the Village”, from the depths of all
we learned at Cleveland Heights (our teachers, our
blessed interracial “cauldron” of classmates, friends
(mostly clowns we grew up w/ & you know who you
are) and especially parents (both of my parents
taught me that making concrete connections to our
common humanity,and in both of their cases befriending
the enemy, can bring about a change of heart.
Point is, it’s not the “piece of paper”, but rather what we
DO with it & the Actions we take. For me that’s meant
creatively knocking down walls and barriers that segregate
and bring out the worst in people, and building the bridges
to unify, empower and help bring people together.
That was our strength at Heights High and it’s more
important today than ever! See you in the streets.

Night b4 1st day of school Sr yr, Steve Egar & I locked our bikes to the fence around the football field near that huge grey shiny metal addition to Hts High called the Vocational Training Ctr. To our surprise, we were able to climb up a succession of rooves till we got to the clock tower (at that time the hands were
Mickey Mouse’s I believe). And the room just inside the clock tower was I think the Swim Cadet or Synchronized Swimmer’s hang out or should I say,make out, room, TMI. Anyway, thinking we were cool (NOT), we hung a huge banner (bed sheet),
w/ phrase from the Eagles song, “we’re already gone”, meaning from Sr. Yr. So we made it back down, very nervously ran to our bikes.Apparently we tripped an alarm, b/c I had just unlocked the bike combo lock when a voice said, “freeze & put your hands up.” So we did. The cop took us across the street near Arthur Treachers, pulled out the phone from the police box attached to the telephone pole & called the “Sargeant”. After 2” cop hung up phone & said “boys this is your lucky day”, Sargeant said not to press charges. Looking back I doubt the cop actually called, just tried to scare the sh!t out of us. And that he did.