Amazing, the things a person can see and hear just sittin’ on the front porch in the ol’ rockin’ chair. This child can see for miles and the rhythmic rockin’ often offers a different perspective and can set one to wonderin’.
After seeing and hearing over the past few days, this rocker’s occupant is wonderin’ why our local city governing body is making such a fuss over unoccupied buildings when maybe some special attention might be paid to other unoccupied things.
There’s been a public hearing about a possible ordinance to shape up vacant properties, and one might suppose that’s good. One surely would rather see a bustling business district with lots of occupants than hear a rustling of feathers from pigeons roosting in empty buildings.
While city officials wrestle with brick and mortar, maybe they should also tackle this empty furniture problem, as in the vacant chairs at city council meetings. Don’t know if there’s a comfort problem or if there’s just something uncomfortable about being asked to reasonably govern.
From our vantage point on the porch, it seems one council chair is vacant about as much as it’s occupied. Could be there’s a scheduling conflict and that chair’s unoccupant simply has too many irons in the fire. Why heck. Everybody knows how tough it is to make time for one sitdown a month. And, who said anything about overtime stuff like special meetings and public hearings.
Me’n the chair noticed a couple of other vacancies seem to occur on special (?) occasions. We’re still tryin’ to figger why a pair of councilgents disappeared from their seats like smoke in the wind. One minute they were comfortable, but suddenly itchy feet (or an itchier area about two feet higher) struck and the empties outnumbered the occupieds.
Both left without comment, without harrumph, without notice. We thought it might be a nature break, but turns out it was just a breakout. From our point of view, it was more a walkoff than a walkout. But, as a wise man said, having to make an intelligent decision often makes dunces of us all.
Often, vacancies occur when the item in question becomes useless. People who create vacancies can also become useless. This child loves the ol’ rockin’ chair but if he doesn’t particularly want to sit in it, he finds another place to light. Wonder if it might be wise for a few alleged public servants to find another landing spot.
But, who said anything about anyone being wise.
