Goodtime tour celebrates 50 years

The boats have been cruising down the Cuyahoga River and on Lake Erie since 1958.

CLEVELAND (AP) — It was 1958, the Cuyahoga River was sludge, Lake Erie was dead, and against the odds, two brothers launched a 150-passenger tour boat on the grim waterways.

There was plenty to see above the water line, Vince and Herb Fryan thought — steel mills belching smoke and red-hot cinders, the ship-filled port, bridge after bridge, and the skyline boasting the Terminal Tower, then the nation’s tallest building outside New York City. And they bet the visual feast would prove irresistible to visitors and locals alike.

Their hunch played out, and Friday the Goodtime tour will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Its newest boat, the 1,000-passenger Goodtime III, is the largest day passenger tour boat on the Great Lakes.

More than 4 million people have taken a cruise on the Goodtime, including schoolchildren on field trips, happy hour revelers, history buffs, day-tripping tourists and, since 1978, more than 750 couples who were married on the boat.

The boat’s become a part of the fabric of the city, the connection between all people and the lake, said general manager Capt. Rick Fryan, Vince Fryan’s grandson. “We’re all about Cleveland. We show off the city, and that’s an honor.”

He began working as a deckhand and souvenir salesman two days after he was discharged from the Army, May 23, 1986. His father, Jim, is chief operating officer, and is onboard Friday and Saturday nights to play keyboard in his combo, The Captain and Crew, on dance cruises.

Early in his Goodtime career, Rick Fryan learned the value of the boat to Cleveland, and it’s kept him focused.

“An elderly woman was sitting on the second deck, and every time I went by, she grabbed my arm and said, ‘This city is beautiful.’ Later she told me she’d bad-mouthed Cleveland her whole life and she was sorry,” he said. “‘Look at all of this,’ she said, and there were tears in her eyes.

“I was so proud.”

Rising fuel prices have necessitated a 50-cent surcharge per ticket. The boat uses about $10,000 worth of fuel every two weeks or so, Fryan said.

“But the show must go on!” he said.

In season, June 15 through Labor Day, there are 15 public cruises a week, plus numerous private excursions.

Capt. Bruce Hudec, pilot and engineer, has been at the wheel for most of them, more than 15,200 trips over his 38 years onboard. “I think I’ve been up and down the Cuyahoga more than any other human,” he said.

He’s enjoyed watching the river rebound from its days as a national symbol of pollution. “I see blue herons and snapping turtles a foot-and-a-half long and red hawks,” he said. “Nowadays any oil sheen we have to report to the Coast Guard.”

Hudec, 64, joined the crew for a summer job after he got a fine arts degree from Kent State University. “And here I still am. Some say I’m married to the ship. The soul of this vessel is in me.”

Boredom never enters into his work. “Every trip is like a snowflake,” he said. “There are variables, like heavy river traffic, or a bridge will break.”

And sometimes he officiates at a wedding on the top deck. “It was a novel idea, and it took off,” he said. Rick Fryan also officiates at weddings. They have performed about 800 wedding ceremonies since 1978.

Kirtland Hills resident Karen Henry said she and her husband, John, chose a Goodtime wedding to make it especially memorable. Her mom, however, wasn’t all that sold. “She was envisioning her only daughter walking down the aisle of a church,” Henry said. “After she got over the initial shock, everything was fine.”

The weather was characteristically problematic, giving the couple a fit for three weeks before the big date. But on May 15, 1993, the clouds parted, the sun shone, and the wedding party, including the bride in a traditional white gown, gathered on the top deck for the ceremony.

Then the Goodtime III began its cruise. “The Flats were alive,” she recalled. “Shooters was gangbusters, and boats were lined up three feet at the dock. People to this day remember our wedding.”

Gary Kizzen of Westlake understands her enthusiasm. “The only other time I see the lake is from my car,” he said. He and his wife, Suzanne, have been going on the July 4 fireworks cruise for eight years. “Every time we go it’s like the first time. There’s so much to see. I listen to the narration without missing a beat.”

They also enjoy dinner cruises with friends, Suzanne Kizzen said. “The picturesque view of the Cleveland skyline is a great treat.”

Social studies teacher Eileen Geiger, of North Ridgeville, grew up taking Goodtime cruises when out-of-town family visited. “We’d meet my Dad at his office at Diamond Shamrock, and then we’d eat lunch and go to the Goodtime,” she recalled.

She’s taken the fourth-grade pupils at St. Peter Elementary School in North Ridgeville on Goodtime field trips for 26 of the past 27 years. “Some of them have never been downtown,” she said. Geiger makes sure they pay attention to the narrative by quizzing them afterward.

“Their favorite part is the swing bridge. They like to see it turn,” she said.

So does Hudec. “The bridges are the best part of the trip.”