He wishes it would snow as it used to every Christmas so his 4-year-old granddaughter Scarlett could experience it.
He wishes Santa Claus was still at G.C. Murphy in downtown Bellaire, and that the “real” St. Nick remained at Cooey Benz in South Wheeling. And Bellaire native Jack Cera, now a political consultant for The River Network following years of public service in Belmont County and as a member of the Ohio Legislature, hopes his grandchildren will see proof of economic progress in the Upper Valley the next time they visit from their home in Oklahoma.
Cera represented the residents of East Ohio for a total of 22 years in the state House of Representatives during two very different eras in the valley region. At the time he first took office in 1983, the amount of industry in the Upper Ohio Valley was on the decline, but steel and aluminum remained strong in Jefferson, Belmont, and Monroe counties.
By the time he was appointed to replace Lou Gentile in the House in 2011, both trades were on life support until ultimately dying.
“That’s one of the biggest reasons why the Valley is a different place than it was when I was growing up because the downtown areas were the places to be back then,” Cera recalled. “That’s because of the number of good-paying jobs that were here then, and that’s why I can remember how vibrant downtown Bellaire was, and Wheeling was a place people would travel to from all over this area. When I was a kid, we rode a bus to downtown Wheeling, and we would spend the day just going in and out of all the stores.
“On Monday nights in downtown Wheeling during the holidays the stores stayed open until 9 p.m., and the sidewalks would be packed,” he said. “But the trends changed to the mall concept, and now we have shopping areas like The Highlands and the Ohio Valley Plaza. I guess those places are more convenient because you drive to each one instead of carrying everything you bought around the mall.”
Good Ol’ Memory Lane
There was Heil’s Bicycle Shop on Guernsey Street, and G.C. Murphy, Grant’s, and Berman’s were all along Belmont Street. The Belmont, Gulla’s, and Hap’s were Cera’s favorite places to eat in Bellaire during his roaming teenage years.
He also remembers several of the stores and eateries he visited with family in friends in downtown Wheeling.
“It just seemed like you could get anything you wanted on Main and Market streets,” he said. “The best burgers, or the best desserts and milkshakes. There were a bunch of places you could go to, but Elby’s was usually your best bet because they had a little bit of everything on their menu.
“These days there are a lot more options because we have Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and seafood places all over,” Cera said. “Heck, when I was a kid, we didn’t know those kinds of foods even existed unless our mothers tried to make it at home.”
In recent years, the former state lawmaker has seen progress being made in both the Wheeling and Bellaire downtown districts what with The Health Plan moving their headquarters into a new building in the 1100 block of Market Street and several new restaurants opening along Guernsey and Belmont streets, too.
“When I was a kid I thought downtown Bellaire was a small version of what downtown Wheeling was. You had some of your bigger stores, and you also had all kinds of smaller shops. There were shoe shops, stores for men and stores for women, and there were plenty of restaurants and lots of bars, too. Of course, there was no such thing as online shopping when I was younger, and it wasn’t until the late 1970s that we had the Ohio Valley Mall,” Cera said. “So, that meant everything you purchased for Christmas and every other day had to be found at the stores in those downtown areas. If the shoes or the shirts or whatever weren’t in downtown Bellaire, your parents had to go to Wheeling because there were a lot more stores there.
“Now, while I don’t think those areas will ever be what they were back then, I do believe they’re becoming something new,” he continued. “It takes time, though, and that frustrates people because they want to see it now and not tomorrow or next year. What those people don’t understand is that the people with the local government are trying to make something every day they go to work.“
A White Christmas?
The National Weather Service has forecast 60-degree temperatures for the Upper Ohio Valley this weekend, so a repeat of what took place last Christmas does not appear likely.
As many as five inches of snow covered the entire tri-state region on Dec. 24, 2020, giving communities in the Upper Ohio Valley the first white Christmas in several years.
“I told my daughter that I wish it was going to snow while they came home because we could take Scarlett sled riding, and even though we got a decent snow last Christmas, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen again this year,” Cera said. “It seems like we had better winters back when I was a kid than what we have now because it just seems as if we always had snow.
“Of course, I don’t remember the years when it didn’t snow on Christmas, but that’s just the way the mind works,” he said with a chuckle. “But I’m confident we had more white Christmases back then than we do now.”
