The responsibilities of a city dweller
Forgive me this transgression as I rant…
I live in the City of Cleveland. My reasons for deciding to live here were as wide ranged from a close proximity to everything to a desire to experience my fellow man in a way different from that of my youth. I recognized then that people in the city might have different behavior patterns than the suburban dwellers I grew up with, but I also believed that some of my beliefs about city people were based on a skewed paradigm of having been raised in the more affluent suburbs.
To some extent I was right that I had a biased perspective on folks living in the city. I’ve met and been neighbored (can’t think of a term that better describes this relationship) by a bunch of great community-oriented people. There are so many wonderful people that live in this city - it would take a phone book to name them all, but then…
There is also a group - a significant, perhaps even a majority - that are lazy ass bastards.
I have this personal code that forces me to do my best to maintain and keep up my property. Be it ever so humble, it’s my home. I’ve had this code since I began living on my own - whether as an owner or a renter - I’ve always believed that you demonstrate your civic and familial pride by cutting the grass, sweeping the porch or (as is the case currently and the motivation for this post) SHOVELING THE FRONT WALK.
On Valentine’s Day we had a bit of snow. We get snow every winter. Granted we got more than our normal dose the other day and it created a lot of headaches, but it sure as hell wasn’t something that we didn’t expect.
This is Cleveland. It snows in Cleveland. Buy a snow shovel (hell, if you’re my neighbor and want to borrow mine, just knock on the door - I’ve got two!). Oh yeah, after you get the shovel, try using it! The following are instructions for those of you who haven’t ever used one:
1. Begin by shaking hands with the non-shoveled end of the handle
2. With your other hand, grasp the mid-section of the handle
3. Take shoveled end and insert it in snow
4. With a forward thrusting motion, scoop the snow so that it is in the scooped side of the shovel
5. Hoist the instrument so that you carry the snow in the shovel to a location that can serve as a dumping area for excess snow
6. Turn the shovel over the dumping area and deposit scooped snow in area
7. Repeat as necessary until sidewalk and other pedestrian traveled areas are clear
Thanks for shoveling. Now when you drive perhaps there will be fewer people (especially small children making their way to school) walking down the street in your way.
Have a nice day (I just added this last line to lighten the mood of this post).
I think I have a cure for this. It comes from my childhood home-city of Bedford. It entails having the same guys who do the streets do all the walks…this is something you do in a city when the preponderance of the residents become elderly, or otherwise unable to fend or shovel for themselves–even when the inability may result from being fat-assed and lazy (generations of the Great Society’s welfare will do this to a people), or from better things, like going to school full-time, or being on the road making deals so much that you never touch home until weekends, or having enough income you can snowbird in warmer climes. We need to coordinate our snow removal to accommodate the pedestrian as well as the automobile driver. Things are skewed right now too far in favor of the suburban gas piggies. I’ll flesh this out later at my own place, http://timferris.blogspot.com, as part of the “if I ran the city” series. Thanks for keeping this in the forefront.
We need to focus right now on forcing those who take or have taken block grant money–like some of these pusillanimous nonprofits–to clean their walks diligently–they’re probably some of the worst neighbors in that they’re the worst offenders–their attitude in all matters is that if we don’t fund a program for them to do it, they won’t do it.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Sorry to disagree. First after spending an hour clearing the sidewalks for the elderly still not forclosed on because they cant pay their property tax, come the city snow plow to deposit more on the sidewalk then the orginal storm. Second, with two houses on either side of me, one behind me and one across the street, all foreclosed on and already missing their copper plumbing and some their siding, snow unremoved is an improvement to site. It also helps keep the dopers from using the houses. So you see all around it helps raise the property values of us who remain city dwellers.
February 17th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Both good (and unfortunate) comments… I would acknowledge the issue of elderly residents and their inability to manage the snowfall - at the same time I would suggest that if the majority of the lazy (like for instance a certain neighbor of mine who has multiple able-bodied children) would get off of their butts and do their share, people like us would be able to focus our energies on helping those who really need a hand.
February 18th, 2007 at 11:12 am