No, we are not back in the early 1960s, and no, I am not doing a bio on the late Marlin Perkins, but as I have noticed in many city locations, some of them very close to home, it looks like we are living in some of the settings featured on that popular program many of us watched in our youth.

While growing up on Bowen St. in Jamestown, there were days specifically designated as yardwork days. Dad was the working engineer and had our tasks preassigned. We changed off each time, sometimes mowing (using push mowers), sometimes weeding, sometimes trimming the hedge around our front lawn. We lived on an ordinary street, in an ordinary house, but my parents took pride in where we lived, and made sure it was kept up. Mom and Day made sure we participated in the upkeep of our home, inside and out, through our assignments of the chores we had to do, most times before we could do the things we really wanted to do.

If, in your travels from here and there, to there and here, you may have noticed a number of local properties that are not kept up very well, one in particular, for me, probably more noticeable because it’s literally very close to home, might be a pretty good replication of a Wild Kingdom.

In our being able to see through the overgrown jungle close to our home daily, we have notified officials of the situation and in fairness to them we did get one councilperson to try and intercede for us and get something done about it, to the point that they got the owner to mow his lawn, two years ago. As it grew again to towering heights, we said something again, and the councilperson who helped us the first time was told that the city didn’t have the personnel to get out and cite the transgressors of city code violations. A short time ago it was reported that the city hired an additional code violator officer, now making a total of two, and still nothing was done to clean up this site.

If you were to drive by our house, you would literally see what is not, The Magic Forest, nor the Enchanted Forest, not even Sherwood Forest, though it could be used as a location in the next Disney film needing a wooded area as its setting.

I’m not just saying all this because it happens to be happening in my neighborhood (as is also the lack of cleanup of debris and now rotting wood lying in a lot where a house once stood but was destroyed by fire, which occurred three years ago, and where through the remnants of that fire is growing many types of fungus and vegetation, and presents homes for whatever insects, critters, reptiles and furry creatures which have made rent free homes out of this three year old location. Someone did put up an orange snow fence to surround the debris, but that was knocked down within a year and now serves as a part of the pile, but to its credit, it does add a little color to the site. As with the no-plant forest and wooded areas that are adorning our neighborhoods, sadly, there are other piles of burned down houses that are growing into usable neighborhood sites of school science field trips.)

My wife and I have lived in our neighborhood for 41 plus years. Our daughters lived in that house from ages their time in early education until getting jobs and getting married, and our son was born while we were living there and he stayed until leaving for college and then finding the job he sought, unfortunately, five states away. Sally and I worked, and then retired, while living here, and were honored and pleased to have found, and made, our careers in the city where I lived and is close to where Sally grew up in Sherman. We met each other in Jamestown, got married in Jamestown, raised our children in Jamestown, buried our parents in Jamestown and Sherman, and each of us said good-bye to a sibling one in South Dayton and one in Clymer, so this area has been very special and sentimental to us. Sadly, the wide smile we once had for this area has waned, only being kept alive by the family and friends we have who also still live nearby.

One of my goals as I began writing narratives in this newspaper near 16 years ago, was to teach my children the history of Jamestown, our founding, our government, our connection to greatness (Robert H. Jackson, Lucille Ball, Reuben Fenton, Roger Tory Peterson, and more) our industry (MRC, AVM, Crescent Tool, and many more), our sports and sports’ notables, our being named an All American City, The Pearl City, The Furniture Capital of the World, and more) and how it offered so much at Allen Park, Bergman Park, the Hundred Acre Lot, and so much more. We had tennis courts, a golf course, winter sliding, ice skating, even skiing. We had (still do) a Professional Baseball Stadium. I wanted my kids to know that this was a great place to grow up, live, and raise a family. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to the former Tree City. Industry left, businesses closed, people left for the jobs they lost when closures and moves occurred, and our population diminished by approximately 37 percent.

Many of us who grew up here and are still living here, have seen the highs, and are now experiencing the lows of what we call, Our Hometown. Many of us though, do still try and keep our properties looking good, and we want the street where we live to look good too, and if it is not, owners need to be reminded or reprimanded to comply by city codes, and city officials need to be more visible and responsive to all the people, not just the ones who voted for them.

A few years ago, and it still is alive, though not as much, now, there was campaign with the motto being four letters, WWJD. People were wearing shirts, necklaces, bracelets, hats, etc., with those four letters. Wondering what some might feel or want if they lived in some of the neighborhoods discussed in this narrative, I tweak the motto of that campaign to WWCOD and ask, What Would City Officials Do, if they lived near one of these jungles?