Oh what a beautiful sunny day it was. If only the wind wasn’t blowing so hard, I think there would have been more people out and about. It made me smile early this afternoon seeing the number of young people enjoying themselves in East Park. There were several people fishing, a young mother and her daughter over near the deer pen, and a smattering of young couples out strolling. As I’ve said many times, we natives oft times forget what a natural gem we have with East Park, so let’s get out there and start enjoying it.
After closing up my public open house today, I left a bit disappointed by the weak turnout. I’m not sure what was going on in our community to where there wasn’t the usual numbers. Everyone that entered was shocked by its size and the amount of light contained within. The skylights in the ceiling of living area bring in more than enough natural light. One of the neighbors caught me as I was leaving and asked why it hasn’t sold. All I could say was, “The buyer is not here yet.” He’s a friendly chap and filled with much information about the surrounding units. I bristled when he told me that several years ago, one of the buildings that’s at the opposite side of the courtyard facing that steep embankment to the east, somehow became infested with raccoons in the attic. He was quick to let me know they managed to get one of the roof vents off and crawled in. They thought they’d found a toasty warm attic to spend their winter nights.
It wasn’t but three years ago where one of the commercial buildings in our City was entered by coons in the same fashion. I heard the owner had to beef up the strength of those vents to keep those naughty monkeys from getting in again. I’m just now remembering a barn hay mont I was in not long ago that was certainly claimed as being a coon family’s new residence. One thing I do know for sure, is that once they’ve gained entry, it’s a real chore to keep them out. They become all the more aggressive in trying to re-gain entry for whatever reason they believe they’re being kept from something that’s theirs. Most would never believe how many of them live in our City’s storm sewers. I’ve personally seen them either crawling out, or sliding back in after dark.
Someone asked me several days ago why Mason City hasn’t grown along with our surrounding “hub” cities. I breathed deeply and said, “Unfortunately we live where there are far too many special interest groups who’re continually trying to push thru their own agendas, and because our citizenry has grown greatly apathetic, they’re really not that much interested in vision or change simply because they believe it’s yet one more special interest group at it again.” Since I was given a soap box, I also went on to speak about how there’s really no person or persons in our community who possess self-less charisma. Whenever anyone lives in a given community lacking charisma as a whole, they’ll find stagnancy. There’s got to be at least one in our midst who’s ready to speak.
