Four neighbors in a line have completed spring yard cleanup and left bags for recycling.
The symmetry of spring cleanup caught me eye quickly this morning as Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and I started our loop around the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood.
Across the street from the home I share with my dear wife Karen, four neighbors had placed bags from outdoor spring cleaning at the curb for recycling.
That’s a beautiful sight, thought I, a sign that the weather has turned enough despite this week’s sneak snow attack for them to get ready for better yard times to come.
Then I remembered that the bag of Ellie B-bombs and other detritus of winter that Karen collected from our backyard sits in a recyclable bag behind the fence of our backyard butterfly garden.
For one thing, Ellie B can’t grab it there and redistribute the contests that she considers rightfully hers, the sticks and boughs and pine cones of winter. For another, I know that the next recycling pickup for our quadrant of the city isn’t until the week after May 3-4. It says so right on the yellow card that outlines this year’s spring-to-fall schedule I got in the mail in late March. This month’s pickup was last week. The card says so, and I heard the evidence, too. For some reason, the city recycling pickup crew made its way down our street just before midnight a week ago today.
I cursed the noise a little bit, and hoped that they were not collecting overtime from the dwindling city coffers to pick up sticks and brush and leaves at this unlikely hour.
In any case, that means those four sets of bags in a row will sit at the curb for weeks. The wind will blow. Cars will park. Dogs will sniff. The contents will spread. And that’s not a pretty picture to me.
Who did this, I wonder?
Our walk continued to the park two streets over. The one other dog owner using the space had her pet on a leash. Beautiful, I thought.
As Ellie B tugged me toward the parking lot that leads back out to a different street, she stopped to sniff the line of fence posts, a favorite part in her pursuit of interesting scents.
One whole section of fence rail was knocked to the ground.
What’s up with this, I wondered. Car gone too far? Vandals needing an outlet?
Definitely an ugly sight.
Enjoy Good Friday, young ones.
Next we followed our ears to the sound of bouncing basketballs.
Four youngsters were using three basketballs to play in a driveway that was adorned with a hoop on the side away from the house.
They were laughing and smiling, off from school this morning for Good Friday, I figured.
Upon noticing our approach, the young lady ran to the front door. The inside door was open, and their dog jumped against the screen to get Ellie B’s attention. She held it closed.
I smiled. This was without a doubt a beautiful city life scene.
Four jangling bags, time to adjust.
Further on, two men walked briskly past Ellie B and I.
I said hello first. They established eye contact and returned my greeting, but did not stop or even slow down.
Each carried overfilled plastic bags that jangled.
They obviously had found a good spot to claim cans to turn in for the deposit.
Their clothes weren’t the cleanest, but I did not judge harshly.
Way past us, they stopped to adjust their load.
I had mixed feelings. I thought it was beautiful that they’d found a whole bunch of nickels to turn into dollars because it looked as if those dollars were needed.
I also found it sad that they felt the need to race past Ellie B and I at top speed, perhaps out of some sort of shame about those clinking cans inside their bags. We did not seem to be a welcome sight to them.
Beauty indeed is in the eye of the beholder.
In your neighborhood, do you mostly come away with positive impressions and thoughts? Or do you feel somewhat aghast and negative about what you encounter?
Mark Bialczak 
I find balance when I walk my neighborhood. There’s ugliness here and beauty over there. The two keeps the walk interesting.
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That sounds like it keeps you going, Kim.
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Yep.
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Negative. My neighborhood is gross. The guy at the front where you enter has a big, ugly portable storage in his front yard and usually about 10 cars in his yard which makes the rest of the area look grungy. The lady in the back has no grass but all cactusseses (i know, i’ts really cacti) and a ton of silly statues in her yard. And at the far end, there are some teenage boys that have a basketball hoop that they keep in the road. Everyone else is good, but those three make the whole place look junky.
As an aside, I don’t like that you only get recycling pickup once a month! And at midnight, no less! Yikes!
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Sorry to hear about your bad views, Rachel. That spoils it for you, obviously. And I readily accept your word cactuses. That’s how I would say it, too!
Regular garbage and paper-can-plastic recyclables are once a week pickup here. Only the yard waste is monthly. But you sure can stack up a lot of those bags in a summer’s month. Sometimes we have a dozen out at the street front that week. (We have no curbs, you see.)
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Yes, I can imagine the trouble it would cause either way. 🙂
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The neighborhood I live in moves in front of me. We have a trail that runs past our house. ANd I love what I see. Which is a little bit of everything. And it looks good. 🙂
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The neighborhood parades past your porch. I love that concept, Colleen. And I am glad that it looks good to you.
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The sounds and sights, for better or worse, of nice weather and the promise of spring’s leading to summer. It’s tough, as it is positive. The melted snow reveals some atrocities of the surrounding environment that could not be seen while covered by the white stuff.
For the stuff not covered by snow.. try not to take too unwelcoming responses to cordial greetings too personally. They were either having a rough day, or did not expect the kind acknowledgement from you. However, it’s best that you kept walking since both parties had destinations in mind.
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Yes, snow hid some of the wounds, Chris, and now they’re gaping again. As for the two walking can-gatherers, I hope that their sense of purpose kept them traveling, not any feeling of being judged harshly.
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I feel both positive and negative. I hate litter and sadly we get that – I’ve picked it up before now! But I try to be friendly to the people I see in my neighbourhood and say hello. We’ve lived in the same place for 19 years so have seen a lot of change. Not always for the better!
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Friendliness goes a long way toward making a neighborhood strong, Rachel. I think there must be a lot of people who think your neighborhood is better because of your attitude.
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I love my neighborhood for the most part. Kids skipping down the sidewalks, neighbors enjoying their patios as the weather warms up and the smell of grills cooking BBQ. On the other hand, I’m most likely a neighborhood’s worst nightmare with my patio lights, music and not-so-quiet laugh…! 🙂
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I’m glad that you have found yourself the slice of Americana that you seek, CBXB. And I have a feeling that every one of your neighbors indeed know who lives in that particular mini-manse.
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THE crazy cat lady!!
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That was a fantastic walk, Mark. Thank you for taking us!! Loved it! I really enjoy walking the neighborhood. I wish everyone had big ole porches to sit on with lots of ice tea of conversations…yeah, like Mayberry.
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Mayberry sounds good. I would spend a little bit of every day shooting the bull with the folks at Floyd’s Barber Shop. That would be one heck of a community feeling. One unsweetened ice tea, please. Thank you for joining me on my neighborhood walk today, Audrey.
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Our subdivision is currently doubling in size from the handful of streets we’ve had for years. Nonstop construction. New neighbors across the street have muscle cars and a broken-down truck, but it’s mostly families who are (now) being forced to keep their lawns mowed and shrubs pruned. However, surrounding our neighborhood on three sides is mobile homes, some of which are decent, but 90% of which have chain link fences, more cars than bedrooms, and barking pit bulls–sometimes roosters as well. Couches and bottles and boxes in yards, “no trespassing” and “beware of dog” signs, old men in boxer shorts, shirtless, smoking, coughing. And almost every single day, stray dogs roaming about that prevent us from feeling safe while we walk. So mostly we don’t. But within the confines of our subdivision, parents just trying to raise their kids in a world where you can’t let them go off on their bikes anymore. Glad you stopped to smell your neighborhood roses.
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That sucks that too much of your neighborhood has turned unneighborly, Kerbey. Out of all those horrible nuisances, to me the worst would be the roaming dogs that keep you from walking where you live. Ugh. Thanks for realizing that I like to smell the roses here, and I hope it helped to allow you the moment to vent.
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Well, we did actually walk the two dogs today for a few minutes–and there was a pit bull growling through two fence posts in our own subdivision. But there were lots of pretty green trees and colorful flowers in yards as well!
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As long as the pitbulls keep inside the fence, you are golden. I’m glad you got to enjoy the fauna and flora.
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i love to walk around the neighborhood and see everything at street level and at a much slower pace than just driving by .i see so much positive each and every time i head out. i like the idea of this post, mark, and your nonjudgmental approach to all you encounter.
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That”s an interesting point, Beth, about how you see things differently on foot than when you drive by in your car.
Yes, walks inform my life as well as improve my heath physically and mentally.
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Mostly positive, everywhere I go, Mark. Thanks for the post.
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I’m glad you can hold that outlook, Ann. Very nice, indeed.
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