Tuesday I had one of the most quintessential Akron nights I've ever had.
I drove over the Cuyahoga River, spent 20 minutes in traffic on OH-8 due to construction on the Central Interchange, passed a community garden, zipped by the Akron Art Museum and the rubber worker statue, and parked in a University of Akron parking garage, where a student was selling tickets to the RubberDucks game down the block.
Full Akron, already.
I walked to the newly renovated Lock 3 Park in Downtown, and then, with not one, not two but three Goodyear blimps drifting overhead, I watched Mayor Shammas Malik give his second State of the City speech as sudden early June sunshine bore down on the crowd.
On the way home, I got Swensons - a salad boy, fries and a Dr Pepper.
Only if I'd then toured the Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens after working on my Soap Box Derby car with the help of LeBron James and Don Plusquellic could this day have been more peak Akron.
The blimps are what endures.
When you live in Summit County, you tend to forget how incredibly rare it is to see one blimp 鈥� let alone three 鈥� gracing the skies over your community. There are about 20 blimps in the entire world, and , one of which is housed in nearby Suffield.
The blimp serves as an icon of the city that's recognizable worldwide. It, like the rubber worker statue Downtown or the lit up Firestone sign, are symbols of Akron's history as the Rubber City.
When people ask me why I like covering Akron, I always say the same thing. Akronites are the most passionate people I have ever met about bettering their city and their community, and with such a rich history, they are often looking to the past to inform the future.
This year, Akron is celebrating its 200th birthday, and the Goodyear blimp is turning 100. Big year.
In Malik's State of the City speech, he addressed things the city has to work on: gun violence, community trust in policing, homelessness.
He also celebrated the wins the city has experienced: revitalizing Downtown post pandemic, reimagining the Innerbelt, removing lead water lines and renovating the beautiful park we were all enjoying.
"For my whole life, Akron's future has seemed like it could go either way. Our best days could be behind us in our rubber past, or they could be in front of us in our sustainable polymers and more things we can't even imagine today," he said. "And the beautiful thing is that in the people of this community, in all of us here in this park and the people who live here in this city, we have everything we need to succeed as a community."
Akron has been through a lot in 200 years, from being a hub of the abolitionist movement to the rubber capital of the world to stewards of the Cuyahoga River to the center of a musical movement, dubbed the Akron Sound, to the proudest fans of LeBron James.
And as the mayor looked to inspire residents in his state-of-the-city speech, it was clear their spirits were already sharing airspace with the majestic blimps, hovering high above it all, with a view to the future as wide as the horizon.
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