Month: May 2008

As I came to my urban home from my parents’ rural home in Wayne County, I thought a lot about the difference living situations I’ve been exposed to over the years. I knew growing up I wanted the experience of living in a place where you could always find excitment. That wasn’t the case in Wayne County. Sure there are things to do but it’s a different approach than city living.

On my way home, I talked with my friend, Jeannine, who went from northeast Ohio to live in Los Angeles. Let’s just say we both live in parts of our respective cities that are “up-and-coming” neighborhoods. Read into that what you will. We talked about the things you learn and need to get by when you live downtown.

I don’t have a “granny cart” yet to haul my groceries up from my garage to my apartment. Instead, I wrap the plastic bag handles around my fingers and tote them up two flights of steps then grab the elevator up to my floor. There’s a reason God let us discover the wheel. I keep look at the carts at Target but haven’t broken down to buy one yet. Next trip to Target I’m sure I’ll have a “granny cart” in my shopping cart. By the way, Jeannine laughed when I said I didn’t have one yet. She says they are essential to downtown living.

Yesterday as you’ll see from the pictures below, I took part with hundreds of other people in RiverSweep 2008. I saw a lot of the Tremont and Ohio City neighborhoods on the way home today and realized how much work all of the volunteers did yesterday. While my area was concentrated to a parking lot. Many people put in a lot of miles on their shoes, you can tell it by all of the trash bags sitting along the road waiting for the city of Cleveland to pick them up. Gone is the trash, what remains is some of the trash bags filled with the litter and a lot of green grass. It just looks clean.

I figure if I had a house with a yard, I’d be out Saturday mornings working to keep it clean and since the Superior Viaduct and the riverfront is my backyard, why not put some work in order to spruce it up a bit. I’m interested in getting some mulch and spreading it along underneath the bridge to make it look nicer. Hopefully, that would encourage people not to dump their trash as much.

I think all of this downtown living is getting to me.