Cleveland Heights on the Watch

If one wants to maintain a blog I expect it's important to post things fairly regularly. So on the assumption it's better to post anything that I think may be worth sharing rather than nothing at all, here's something of mine that's been hanging around for a while.

My wife comes home from church choir practice frustrated and fuming, not because of the singing (she loves it), but because of the ticket she has just received from a police officer lurking on a street that is dubbed residential, though it is only half so – you know, that stretch of Superior that separates Cain Park to its north from the houses to its south, and upon which Cleveland Heights balances its municipal budget with fines levied on unsuspecting motorists by posting a 25-mph speed limit and a hawk-eyed cop there: he who must never sleep, eat, make love, or gas up his cruiser is always there, ready to bring down folks whose heavy right feet, briefly lulled to carelessness by the seeming isolation of that stretch (particularly in winter), cost them hefty fines plus court costs – the street that makes that guy Cleveland Heights’ most valuable employee minus, of course, all the ill-will he collects.


How long has it been hanging around? I wrote it in February for a class in Creative Writing at Cuyahoga Community College (an excellent class, btw; and free for seniors). The assignment was to produce a 150-word single-sentence paragraph.


And why now? Because I am paying taxes to Cleveland Heights for the privilege of working there, and I want to share with you an even bigger source of municipal income.


How many of you east-siders have met this guardian of public safety? And does he also relentlessly patrol quiet streets in far-off locales?