I left home for the office this morning
about 6:50. Energized by a restful Fourth, I’d already exercised, perused
articles from the New York Times and the Cincinnati Enquirer, read and sent a
few emails, uploaded a picture of Kevin Conwell for a post that will be published later today, fixed breakfast and left the
kitchen semi spotless, showered, shaved and dressed, and used the RTA app on my phone to discover that I could shave about 8 minutes from my two bus commute by
leaving 49 minutes earlier.
I had barely gotten 200 yards from my
porch and was already perspiring. The air was so humid I was transported back
to my childhood visits to Richmond VA. My earliest years were spent in
Washington DC., one hundred miles north of Richmond, where my mother was born
and her parents still lived.
DC was humid enough, so much so that in
that era Congress used to adjourn for the entire summer. Even as a first
grader I sensed that DC was much faster paced than Richmond. And it wasn't just
that DC was the nation's capital, either. The Virginia atmosphere was just
thicker; people moved slower. And that was true for my six-year old motor as
well. I just wasn't as efficient a nuisance when I was in Richmond. I couldn't
run as far, as fast, or as long.
All of which came back to me on my walk
to the bus this morning, along with my father's mid-century observation about how the invention of air conditioning had changed the South
and enabled it to be more competitive. He was from Houston, Texas, where I
imagine the heat and humidity took an even greater toll on productivity and
efficiency in the first half of the twentieth century.
I'm slowly making my way through a book
about Atlanta politics this summer, and I have just finished one set in Birmingham. As I read or visit other places, I always compare notes with my
hometown. To my father's observation I would suggest that another competitive
advantage that the old industrial North has lost -- and Cleveland may be
Exhibit A -- is our refusal to give more than a lip service welcome to the
demographic and cultural changes that are transforming our country and the
world.
I'll have more to say on this directly
in the next couple of days as I review Ballots and Bullets, a provocative new book by local author and attorney
James Robenalt that underscores how little this community has changed in the
last half century.
Our civic leadership is metaphorically
still sitting on the veranda sipping mint juleps, dreaming of the Amazon while
the world passes us by.
