Enjoying Open Space and Green, Green Grass of Home
By C.V.
Beck
Over the past few months, as I sit
here at the Tent City, California/Frederick Streets, created out of a necessity
and an emergency of the residents of Lincoln Place, I have a rare opportunity to
observe in peace and quiet, the life of the community around me.
One thing I have especially noticed is how
many people like to walk their canines at Lincoln Place and the easement area
behind the Ross/Ralphs...a lovely, green, wooded area of great serenity and
beauty (except, of course, for the massive wall behind Ralphs and brought to us
Venetians by the city’s Over-and-Under-Planning Department); the cars
parked at Ross...(but comfortably so, not overcrowded, yet). While we residents
and supporters of Lincoln Place remaining in place sit there, we can’t
help but notice many not responsible people walking their poochies unaccompanied
by “the plastic bag” and the scooper. On the odd occasion, we do see
a responsible someone who does use a plastic bag to clean up the waste product
of one of the loves of their lives but, more frequently --unfortunately--I
don’t see anything at all like
that.
At home, I sometimes hear a
galloping sound, as some huge animal, off the leash, chases my felines as they
jump frantically in the open window and hide in the highest, furthest part of
“my” comfortable, adequately spacious one bedroom apartment (rent
stabilized). When I leap, galvanized, into the hallway with a broom (hopefully
wearing clothes), I sometimes only see enormous muddy pawprints all over the
“French White”-painted hall floors (brought to us, unannounced by
AIMCO and the Housing Department) and I don’t see an owner, as they are
far away from their off-the-leash methane generator, usually talking on the
cell, or reading the paper, paying no attention whatsoever to what their
companion might be up to.
Sometimes, I
“catch a person in the act, red-handed, and they are inordinately
uncomfortable and guilty-acting.
For
example, when I flung the door open four weeks ago or so, I caught the man,
holding a leash with no canine attached, and then found a large, white female
german shepherd in the backyard that the payment of my rent entitles me to think
of as “...my own”...(silly me). So, cooly, I told the person with
the German-sounding accent that, although I was a cat person, I didn’t
mind people walking their dogs through the property (although, no doubt, the
owner did as “it” [the corporation] has been madly exercising
“it’s” private property rights throughout the complex as of
late) but that I did feel visiting dogs should be on a leash. As I had managed
to bust this man in the act, he felt obliged to tell me in future he would keep
his dog on the leash. I neglected to mention the requirement of cleaning up
after the waste products of his pet but felt sure he already knew this...as this
was obviously what he was avoiding doing. All’s well that end’s
well, sure, but then I remembered how scared my cats are when this off-leash
experience happens.
Another day, I
stepped out into the hallway in my zebra-patterned Muu-Muu, singing loudly at
the top of my lungs...I startled a woman who, I thought at first, was one of my
neighbors but, as I approached her, (with my hair standing up on end and
disheveled), she began backing away, in alarm. It was only then that I noticed
she had a leash in her hand, attached to nothing. I saw a very well-behaved
black lab-looking doggie, whom she referred to first as “Bec” and
then, “Malbec.”
One of my
companion cats was cowering by the window, ready to leap in at a moment’s
notice. Her dog was after doing his business and the woman behaved as though I
had caught her doing something wrong...which I ignored. We began to talk in a
civilized way and she said to me, after the weather chitchat, something like,
...so, when’s it all coming down?...She confided to me that she really
liked to walk here and I replied that many people do, because of the open/green
space we have here at this historic resource.
She then said something like...how
nice it is here but unfortunately that...”we can’t do this
anymore!”...(Oddly enough, the very same words that Mr. Robert Shober, the
AIMCO relocation salesperson, had used when he first appeared at the complex two
or so years previously, simultaneously sitting on the grass, enjoying the green,
green grass of home and the wonderful open space resource we have here at
Lincoln Place, eating cookies and telling us we had to leave, because, “we
can’t do this anymore!”
This neighbor said her son was a
property owner nearby. She was very guilty-acting and embarrassed that I had
“caught” her, both enjoying the fruits of Lincoln Place and not
keeping her dog on a leash. Also, doubtless subconsciously, well aware I knew
she was walking here because she and others living nearby believe it is OK to do
this here and also, somehow, magically, all right not to clean up after
one’s own pet because of the situation here at Lincoln Place. Maybe she
thought the “poop fairy” would take care of
it.
On the very rare occasion when we
Tent City people do see someone doing the right thing, that is, cleaning up
after their dog, we have literally applauded them and cheered,
“Yay!” as well and they seem totally non-plussed, apparently missing
the point our clear, vigorous expressions of appreciation for a responsible dog
owner here in Venice.
Posted: Thu - June 1, 2006 at 05:56 PM