Excerpt from Euclid Creek: A Journey, Part Nine
by Michael Ceraulo
III
"The city is a historical process;
its image at any given time
is merely a cross-section
through a continuous stream"
and
the cross-section of July 10, 2011
as reported on in The Plain Dealer,
decided to highlight this process
in the guise of boosterism,
listing
eighty-four different projects totaling
over five billion dollars in costs
(only
projects with expensive price tags were totaled;
community gardens,
individual green homes,
etc.
were beneath the notice of the one-time pro-slavery rag)
Listed
were projects
already completed,
in progress,
or merely planned,
covering
nearly all aspects of the city's existence:
business,
industry,
medical facilities,
roads and bridges,
arts and entertainment,
housing,
and schools
Some renovating existing buildings,
some adding to existing buildings,
some putting new buildings on sites
where the old buildings had been torn down
to make way for them,
and
I realized that a similar snapshot
could have been taken at most times in the city's history,
and
with a similar degree of hope fro the future of our place
(I hope that those under construction do get built:
even
the least aesthetic,
most taxpayer-draining,
building
is better than a hole in the ground;
it's not too late to debate
the merits,
and methods of financing,
of those not yet started)
And
I try to imagine the future here,
both near and far:
will these buildings being built today
be torn down someday,
as others
were demolished to make room for them,
and
will such loss be lamented by a future local poet?
Will we,
one of the windiest cities in the United States,
take advantage of that fact and plant
enough wind farms to make a difference,
or
will those few already existing remain lonely
as we are fracked to death?
Will the area's slow skating northwest
(at a rate of about two inches a year,
along with the rest of North America)
minimize what appears to be
the current warming trend?
Will we be the future home of weather refugees,
those fleeing from the flooding coasts,
those deserting the growing deserts?
Will we be one of the leaders
in changing from man-made boundaries to natural ones?
Will there be future utopian colonies here?
Will there be another Snowball Earth?
Will all the creeks and streams and brooks and rivers
return,
or be returned,
to their natural states,
with
the elimination of all dams
and the unburying of all culverted stretches?
Will the lake still be around in 12,000 years
to turn into a river
(give or take
a thousand years or so on such a timetable,
depending
on how much in diverted and thus kept
from eroding Niagara Falls),
or
will privatization zealots have siphoned off most of it
and sold it to those who chose to live
in areas without adequate water?
What animals and plants will one day
call this area home as they move here
because of changing climate?
When will the next Ice Age take place,
and
what new natural wonders will be
created in its retreat's wake?
Or,
before any of this can occur,
will this area become an uninhabitable wasteland
because the criminal,
and criminally inept,
energy company
allowed its nuclear power plants to melt down?
(I know it's been said before,
but
it can never be said enough,
those wise words of Tom L. Johnson:
"We must own the utilities,
or they will own us")
I know
what I want the answer to be to these questions
and to other similar questions
that have yet to be asked,
and
I want
the area and all of it inhabitants,
animal vegetable and mineral,
to survive
and thrive
here for the rest of this planet's natural life
