Amid RNC, Cleveland's loneliest historian
CLEVELAND -- For a man in a tri-corner hat and breeches, Herman Rueger isn't getting much attention.
He's an expert on Cleveland's riverfront history, delighted to tell about the immigrants who helped build a key canal. But he's also competing with a different kind of history at this convention, or, in reality, many different versions of history. If he can even get a hearing.
He's standing along the Cuyahoga River near where Cleveland's first settlers landed, just a few feet away from dozens of motorcycles ridden by the group Bikers for Trump. He's got a stack of brochures about the Ohio & Erie Canal, and a map of early Ohio. A basic problem: The name "Donald Trump" doesn't appear in any of Rueger's pamphlets.
A few people approach him but walk away soon after, more interested in a man nearby wearing a hard-hat and toting a rifle with a scope. A crowd of journalists gathers around the armed man, drawn by the glint of gunmetal and a killer backdrop of a Trump sign and a large U.S flag.
"Most are focused on what they're here for," Rueger said.
The center of attention? The Citizens for Trump rally in nearby Settler's Landing Park, which comes with its own distracted take on history that dominates the riverfront this day.
Trump, baby. Donald Trump. The man bound to be crowned the GOP nominee at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week. Future, not history. Trump's name is painted on some nearby trucks, stitched into passing caps and printed on signs left and right.
At the rally, under a bevy of American and Gadsden "Don't Tread On Me" flags, it seems everyone is a historian.
"The answer to 1984 is 1776," shouts conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars.com, a sponsor of the rally. The crowd repeats what is one of his signature lines, and he joins them, grinding out the key date held in contrast to George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984". He drags the final word into a gravelly snarl.
"Seventeen Seventy Six, yeah!"
Up the grassy slopes from Jones, Eric Schenk is selling "Hillary for Prison" signs he made on the internet and is selling for $10. The 40-year-old from Milan has been unemployed for a month, and he's just wishing to go back to when times were good. That was is the 1980s. Schenk graduated in 1985.
'I want to go back to the '80s, and Trump's trying to take us back to Reagan," he said.
But he also has a fond spot in his heart of John F. Kennedy. As in, he considers Trump basically the same as Kennedy, a Democrat. He pulls up a meme on his phone of JFK wearing Trump's red "Make American Great Again" hat.
"Donald Trump and JFK were a lot alike," he said.
Meanwhile, Rueger remains over by the river, resolute. He stands surrounded by U.S. flags bolted to fence posts to guard against theft, his map of early Ohio leaning near his left foot. He tells of the German and Irish immigrants who labored to build the canal that once was a fixture near the present day site of the rally, which featured full of invective against undocumented immigrants.
A little earlier that day, Rueger was just a guy in the background as media and Trump backers surrounded two people arguing in a nearby street, then chased TV personality Geraldo Rivera.
He steadfastly repeats that he has nothing to say on the issues of today.
"I'm not here to talk politics," he says. "I'm here to share the story of Cleveland."
But Trump is now part of the city's story. This week, along the Cuyahoga, another of the city's chapter is being written.