City Living

We live in a medium sized city, best known for the basketball team of the university bearing the same name as the city. TV Stevie and I like living in the city. He is a Bronx native, and I'm from rural upstate New York. Our city is a nice compromise between the two.

When our children were in school, we debated moving to the 'burbs, but couldn't swing it at the time. We learned the public schools aren't as bad as people -- the press and others -- make them out to be. My children just as well on their state tests as children in suburban schools. Maybe they didn't have as many opportunities for after school activities, but that's life. That's reality. They were both accepted into every college to which they applied and both are doing just fine.

We like the convenience of being only minutes from the entertainment venues: the baseball stadium, the Civic Center, and the various theatrical venues. Our city is also located less than two hours from other things we enjoy. It's a good place to live.

But there are downsides, and in recent months, those downsides are becoming more prevalent. People now drop their unwanted electronics on our corner. The city says it's our problem.

People let their dogs do their business on our lawn and don't clean up after the beasts. Or, as has happened a couple of times, do clean it up, but place the bags of excrement in our garbage can. Seriously. And last weekend, TV discovered that someone is letting a large dog walk up the driveway of the house next door to us, where the dog does its business on the strip of grass belonging to us that TV tries to keep mown. People, I don't let my children crap on your grass. Please return the courtesy!

A few weeks ago, TV discovered a bag of batteries on our lawn. Someone just tossed them there, so it became our responsibility to recycle them.

Speaking of recycling, since our supermarket has installed machines to handle bottle & can recycling, we've debated whether or not recycling is worth the aggravation. But don't despair! Our bottles and cans won't go into a landfill. Every garbage night, the scavengers roam, looking for anything they can recycle (they once woke me up while beating apart our old sleeper sofa for the metal). Maybe putting our cans and bottles in our recycle bin will put food on a poor person's table or school supplies for an underprivileged student.

Someone else recycling our cans and bottles could be another benefit of city living.