MANSFIELD — We love a good nostalgic moment in Mansfield, sitting around and talking about how good things used to be.
When the sun shone brighter. When the streets were always paved. When the jobs paid more. When the living was easier.
“I remember back when … ” is one of our favorite moments.
Certainly, such nostalgia has its time and place. One of those moments was this weekend as we welcomed thousands of visitors to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic “Shawshank Redemption” movie.
Red. Andy. Warden Norton. Capt. Hadley. The gothic walls of the former Ohio State Reformatory, aka “Dracula’s Castle.”
It was a perfect weather weekend to celebrate what was a glorious moment in Mansfield history — the filming of a motion picture that is now largely regarded as the greatest movie ever produced in our city, and perhaps anywhere.
But it’s worth noting that Shawshank was filmed at a nadir in local history. OSR closed in 1990 and was already deteriorating and scheduled for demolition when the movie was made in 1993.
Mansfield was bleeding jobs at the time with factory closures of Westinghouse (1990), Ohio Brass (1990) and Tappan (1992).
In fact, actor Clancy Brown, an Ohio native, said he didn’t like what he saw when he came to Mansfield to portray Capt. Hadley.
“Being in Mansfield, Ohio, for much of the cast was a little like being in prison. It’s a very depressed place now. It used to be the center of the state, the center of industry. Now it’s completely depressed and run-down and fallen apart,” Brown said in a later interview that I found on YouTube.
Much has changed for the better in Mansfield since those days. Honestly, it could not have been much worse.
I wanted to get an interview with Brown while he was in town to see what differences he had seen. Sadly, I didn’t get that chance.
The downtown I covered as a Mansfield News Journal reporter when I came here in 1990 was a blighted area with boarded-up windows and empty storefronts.
It was what many called a “red-light district,” home to prostitution, drugs, gambling and other vice-related crimes.
Younger folks may not remember what the city was like in 1980s and early 1990s before local leaders like Mayor Ed Meehan and business leaders like John Fernyak, Bill Hartnett, Thomas Hoaglin and Rex Collins decided to plant the seeds for rebirth with an idea few believed would work.
They pushed for something called Richland Carrousel Park, a spark that has helped ignite more than 30 years of growth while breathing new life into downtown Mansfield.
There were many in town who thought the carousel was a huge waste of time and money. When I interviewed Fernyak for a story about the 30th anniversary of the project, he said he still had one of the bumper stickers produced at the time:
“Will the last person leaving Mansfield please turn off the carousel?”
I offer all of this to explain how much I enjoyed a conversation on Saturday afternoon over coffee at Relax in the same downtown area that Richland Carrousel Park helped to rejuvenate.
In between covering nostalgic events related to Shawshank, it was wonderful to have a chat about the future of the city. There are so many positives going on in this community right now.
The man I spoke with is a Mansfield native who grew up with a life that touched nearly every geographic part of the city. He has since traveled the world, but has never forgotten his hometown.
He spoke about connectivity of sections of the city, how one naturally can lead into another. He talked about people who helped to plant seeds that perhaps they didn’t live long enough themselves to see come to fruition. He talked about vision, patience, positivity.
He talked about the fact he was having coffee while sitting outside a business in a wonderful retail area that may not exist today if people years ago didn’t help to set the stage for it.
He talked about “Yes … and,” which is an amazing way to engage in conversation.
It’s good to have institutional, positive memories of our city, to remember those vaunted “days of old,” albeit memories that may not also recall the struggles and hardships residents endured.
On Saturday night, as I finished my last Shawshank story and photo gallery of the weekend, that earlier conversation rang in my head.
Let’s celebrate the past. Let’s remember the past. And yes, let’s make tourism money off the past.
But let’s also spend more time in positive conversations about the future we can share now — and what we can help create for generations to come.
As Andy Dufresne said in the fabled film, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
