Walk around

'I'm too old for all nighters,' said my friend Yori as he told about working till 5 in the morning on information packets for each of the city officials scheduled to attend the neighborhood walk-around inspection last Friday.

The packets were impressive: separate maps for each kind of concern--doubled up power poles, unshoveled sidewalks, crumbling road verges, sections of the cemetery fence in need of repair, suggestions for build-outs to slow down through-traffic--along with annotations and photos. Since people from parks, highway, electricity and other city offices as well as police officers and staff members of the various legislators (even the lawmakers themselves) in whose districts this tiny neighborhood is located were to attend, that meant a massive amount of printing and collating and...it was dawn before Yori had it all in order ('And there was one more map I should have included,' he said ruefully.)

The Mt Hope neighborhood is small, bounded by dtwo perpendicular major roadways and two side by side cemeteries. Yori included streets on the other side of American Legion, and they've go their issues for sure, but the heart of the area under inspection was our side. After a (too, in Yori's opinion) brief introduction at his house, the entourage sallied forth. Soon residents came out to join. As I understand it, it was a large many-legged, many-fingered, many-voiced crowd that went up and down the streets, looking up at this, down at that, telling and being told stories about other things. The whole event was a testament to Yori's persistent dedication to neighborhood improvement.

I wasn't there (though invited) because I had had to work, but I secretly hoped the surveyors wouldn't look into the overgrown vacant lot next to my house where they might have found logs which miraculously appeared there when the tree growing through my fence was cut down.

I'm impressed by both parties that this event, designed to inform and hold accountable city government, took place. It speaks volumes about both civic activism and municipal responsibility. Truly, many of the issues are pressing, e.g.sidewalk snow shoveling. Others seem to me more push-back against city thoughtlessness, e.g. doubled power poles. Others seemed aesthetic matters based on what makes this neighborhood simply look good and cared for, such as cleaning out the weeds in the cemetery pond.

'I'm a detail guy,' says Yori. 'You can't just say 'fix it,' you have to show exactly where, precisely what, otherwise nothing gets done.' Maybe you're right, Yori, but I hate complaining and being fussy. I'm a good-enough kind of fellow and my house and my life show it. Excessive focus on details feels to me like scrubbing myself clean with sandpaper.  But it's precise functioning on the level of small-scale operations that does keep us working at all.

That all-nighter represented a level of committment that makes me tired just thinking of it. So, while you're fighting the war against deterioration, carelessness, rust, laziness, city hall fecklessness, and all forms of ugliness in the common space, please don't mind if I just sit here face to the sky and eyes closed. Call me when you need me.