Pandemic year 2.5, still chugging along, a perfect late May afternoon, a sort of lull between storms.
Our too-large house, a McMansion Tudor thing from 1914, was really looking its age, so we took out a second mortgage and got a ton of deferred maintenance done. New chimney (don’t ask), new cement front steps and porch (don’t ask), deep insulation of the back porch (also don’t ask). We only had enough money left to paint the front and North side of the house, the two worst, also fixing the stucco and rotting wood trim, including a couple squirrel holes. Now we have to save for the other two sides. With any luck our house will be fixed up in time for someone else to enjoy it. That’s how old, too-large houses work.
Our neighborhood is quiet, on the East side of town, the “cake eater” side. Rarely do we see the police. You could say that the police have been defunded and abolished on the East side. I’m sure they spend very little money here. All it takes is wealth, and the cops go away, other than a speed trap by the elementary school.
We don’t have the stinky paper mill, or the freeway pollution, or the poverty and everything it brings. And we don’t have cops driving around, looking for busts. There is no way this world will survive with a system like this.
Here In Duluth 