Street Talk
By Mickey Howley
Truth is I never really counted in the first place. That’s not to say the purpose or purposes did not count. There are multiple raison d’être for this coil, if you will. I never counted the toll or registered in the account for my reckoning of days. My mistake was not to count, a denial of self. I pretty much stopped counting after 100. If the rough math is right, the current number is over 500.
But who cares? In all those clicks and clacks and cups of coffee and just thinking about what would matter and what would make a reenergizing difference via the printed page, I never thought it would come to this, a column about dumping on the street.
Yes. Here is where I say, “Oh crap, has it really come to this?” A column about dog poop. And the answer is an unequivocal yes. I have peaked and am far down the backside slope.
Downtown development is doing well and the less than pure proof our Valley’s revitalization is in a preponderance of large and small pup piles. People and their favorite canines are walking Main Street again, as was intended back to biblical days. But there’s a depository mess, the hunching residuals, the Alpo aftermath that now seems to have hit the fan or plopped on the turf. The epicenter of the messy maelstrom seems the grassy areas of the 200 block of North Main.
What’s a downtown director to do with the doo-doo? Let’s ask people first to practice public space poop prevention. It is great to walk Main Street with your pup. But it ain’t great to let them assume the excremental position just anywhere.
Those green spaces downtown are used by lots of people. Consider your fellow man. Consider the person who keeps the grass cut and works the trimmer. Imagine the blast zone, the aerosol effect, the spray pattern when whirling monofilament juliennes the brown mounds. Many a city worker, doing the beneficial, but sweaty work of keeping downtown orderly, has had a bad day.
What can you do? Well the simple solution is to train your pet to dump in a less public zone. If your pet is habituated, and let’s be clear on the “you” part of your, to going publicly then please do the double bag grab. The warm intimacy of that will be a bonding with man’s best friend like no other. Keep the public green clean.
Your hard-working Water Valley Arts Council has a summer music series. Mark your calendars for May 31, June 14, July 12 and 26. Starting at 7pm in the Pocket Park at Main Street and Wagner. The opening show on May 31 features the band “Young Valley.”
As a plus also on May 31st is the second annual “Block Party” for 200 North Main. Starting at 5 p.m. on that Friday, games, fun, food at the green space at Panola and Main.
Scheduled for the remaining dates are in order; Jimbo Mathus, Willie Farmer, and And The Echo. All concerts are free and open to anyone who wants to hang out, bring a chair if you need to relax or a blanket if the grass is poop free by then.
