assets, not liabilities

Cleveland Foundation seeks a remedy - cleveland.com --Gloria and I attended the annual Foundation meeting late yesterday afternoon. The PD recounting of the event at the link is decidedly weak, or insipid. I wonder if the reporter was actually there? Perhaps the Cleveland Foundation will make the text or a podcast available at their site some time. Their plans need to get into the public consciousness somehow.

Ronn Richard's talk addressed a lot of the community issues we've had in the BFD and MTB dialogue these past two years, and did so in a way designed to give hope, but the high point of the meeting was the Gries Lecture series talk by Bill Strickland from Pittsburgh. Bill actually does great things, working with what he's got and what's he's given, from the middle of a neighborhood. From the way he describes it, from the days of "the riots," it sounds a lot like Hough. The slide show and commentary were excellent, and his ideas about people as assets and not liabilities, neighborhoods, divine providence, purpose, and working with what's available were exceptional and simple. It's an incredible and inspiring story he tells. Google will help fill in the blanks.

Archwood Street Fair, this Saturday and Sunday

Last night, we in the Brooklyn Centre neighborhood again emptied out attics and garages and then prowled about our houses looking for the wretched excess baggage of our lives that we foist off on y'all every year at the Archwood Street Fair. It has something to do with improving on our feng shui.

Judging from what I saw last night at Ray and Rudy's and at Mike's, this year will be another good one. In desperation to have something to sell, we're all dragging out a lot of the good stuff that we have held back in prior years. We finally gave up Duke the Wonder Horse and the Victorian pressback high chair; Mike dragged out all the high-end china his relatives have given him over the years.

I believe the fair runs today and tomorrow, on Archwood Avenue between Pearl and Fulton. Wear sensible shoes. Don't forget to bring some food by for Rev. David Bahr and Archwood UCC.

breaking news: Judge Peter Corrigan rules on residency for City of Cleveland workforce

News just in from Cleveland Equanimous Philosopher (CEP) at the courthouse: Judge Peter Corrigan has just issued his opinion that the employees of the City of Cleveland need not live within the city limits. Watch Channel 3 news because CEP was interviewed by Tom Beres; CEP says he fumbled a bit on camera, but we are confident he was lawyerly, as is his wont.

if I ran the city, the series, #7: shoveled walks

I was out shoveling snow this morning and decided to do a little more than I had to and proceeded to clear the walk in front of the boardup next door. The pre-dawn Denison neighborhood looked great, as though everything were occupied again by people who were neat and industrious and considerate, people who had values and pride and self-respect, just like back in 1983. I also made it possible for my neighbors to use the sidewalk without slipping or sliding or struggling with an irregular frozen surface.

One of my main complaints for the past few years of my taking early morning walks around the city is that the public walkways are nearly impassable. Sidewalks on bridges have huge piles of snow and ice, and I feel like a mountain goat getting across. The sidewalk in front of and to the side of the church at 33rd and Denison is usually very unwelcoming because they shovel only from the parking lot to the church door, and I feel there sometimes like Don Ho or Dick Blake (sans clack stick, of course), doing slick dance routines with both feet firmly planted just to keep my balance.

I also was thinking about the recent TIWIDT move by Wendell Robinson, prompted by Jeff Hess and Henery Hawk, to do good deeds to raise the level of good karmic vibrations around these parts. Then I started thinking about how it's really never too late for anything, even to become a Boy Scout, and help people--as a pre-teen, I'd always been too terrified of their rumored circle activities to join.

Now, if I ran this city, I'd do what they do out in Bedford, for instance, and have a guy run around the whole city on some sort of little scooter/plow and keep all the sidewalks passable. But since I don't live in a city that puts the functionality of its own citizens first and doesn't seem to care too much about its own appearance, all I can do is to fill the gap until help shows up. And, I can do this by keeping my own space clear and also helping clear the areas that probably won't get cleared--in front of the boardups, in front of older peoples' homes, in front of the properties of the benighted investors who have been to Carleton Sheets seminars and taken them seriously.

I feel better already, and my arms are getting some tone back, and the neighborhood looks great.

Next on the agenda: overnight parking