It's absurd to have a heart for the City of Cleveland these days...It hit me that our "sense of community" is simply a chronic disease of attending enumerable forums to attempt to react to the conditions that continue to deteriorate while finding small senses of purpose in that fight. We used to believe that we were making a difference by engaging the disengaged. Somehow; many of us missed the boat.... The game in this city is not one of creating a "HOMETOWN"-that's a facade from eras long ago... 

What we knew as a hometown; one full of die hard blue collar hardworking Americans has been reduced to the remnants. Many of wanted for our own children what we knew as kids...Good neighbors, carefree bicycle riding in our neighborhoods, and schools at the corner that inspired the best in our children. The days of being scared that the city inspector would ticket you for an unkept yard are gone with the wind. Where does responsibility lay? Does it really matter? 

We live in fear in Cleveland. I personally cannot sleep at night...but of course I have two amazing little girls to raise and worry about living here. I cannot let my kids walk to the corner store, to ride a bicycle down their own street, or to be outside without adult supervision. It's like living in prison. The news is something I can barely watch anymore--it used to be something I enjoyed after a long day. Yet; the immeasurable stress related to true, realworld, unreal stories on the TV daily is mindboggling. Shootings, rape, kidnappings, murder, heroin epidemics, disease, corruption, world chaos at large........it's really pathetic. But; of course; I am not popping pills to keep me listed as another walking zombie to ovesight it all...so, I must be crazy. 

Part of me wants to sit here and wait for all that negative garbage to change. It's not gonna change. It's only going to progressively go further downhill. The elected leadership of this town who were not parents and even those that were; spent the last few generations violating the citizens of Cleveland by calibrating and driving negative results so that they could continually embrace big huge grants...to get more money and more money to build on the same methodology...and now--they are so close to accomplishing their mission that the elderly, disabled, and few remnants are living in the mode of "WHY TRY?" Complacency......

I am forever bitter that this ignorant leadership was sustained for so long for self serving purposes. It has destroyed the Americana of this city. It's all a disgrace. But this model is perpetuated nationwide here and there....This is apparently part of something called: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT..... All kinds of new development; not much is kid friendly other than in an afterthought. Comedy. blah, blah, blah. 

I am not alone in my thoughts. Our childhoods memories are full of ugly decay. The amalgum is toxic. The demolitions are traumatic. The reality sucks. Ugh. Life is being missed waiting for any political leaders herein to recapture a sense of community in this town that would begin to compare with what we knew as kids here. No more PBR on the front porches with the entire neighborhood engaged in a weekend cookout...lol...Not unless some political leader gets a PR campaign out of it; that is.....SMH.