Franklin Crawford

Solutions to No. 118 can be found under Arts & Entertainment. Find Tinytown Teasers ~ click! ~ and while you're visiting, have a look around.    

Tiny Town, USA – Some say that the Elders of Tiny Town had turned their backs on Time, that we had drifted and in our drifting forsaken our duty, as keepers of the Center of the Universe, to maintain proper time and weather conditions.

And the signs were all there: The Time and Temperature displays on the Commons ceased to register! The sentinels to the East, North and West (never to the South, note -- that cardinal point must be kept open for reasons known only to The Inner Circle of Hell Beings who Run The Show here) ...

In two short years the damage was done. The Commons -- Freak Show, Welfare Central, Hothouse for Huddled Messes Yearly to Breed Freely, home of subprime bankers who like Lou's hot dogs -- became unhinged from its moorings and absent of any mechanical governor of time or weather, was a ghost ship. The flags of the nations fluttered briefly and proudly then fell into ruin and desecration. The Permanent Underclass Pavilion became the site of ritualistic loogie contests, with a high-tar heater to the hawker du jour. Two rowdies were approaching. The wind began to howl. 

The very seasons ran amok!  

But take heart neighbor, friend, fellow traveler: All along The Ithaca Commons, that foundering concrete vessel of non-essential commerce, home to the elaborate glass bong, potter's robbery, the empty storefront, the hot mannequins in the Evo 102 window, that crude gauntlet trafficked by non-violent felons, itinerant crooners and cranky Section-8 mothers of quintuplets each of varying hue like a litter of cats birthed by a female in estrus mounted in sequence by two different Toms from both sides of the tracks (whew, you think it's easy reading that? Try writing it) ... Well!

The Commons now has WEATHER and TIME! 

Perhaps Tiny Town Times stands alone as the only institution that give a rat's ass about those ugly Time-Temp stanchions. Say this for these spawn of the 70s American experiments in urban design : They outlasted six mayors that we can think of; Woolworths is gone, but The Commons clocks abide; Social Services, Mental Health and Probation all moved downtown; the time-temp clocks doth abide (tho with the blind eye of justice until this week).

Let them shine, shine shine! Yesterday the West End Sentinel called to this writer at 5:30 and 87 degrees! He wanted to cry such was his joy!

So what the temperature was wrong? There it was and no argument. YOU stand there all day in the sun and tell me what the temperature feels like. 

Remove these relics  and remove the Commons as well. Tear the whole damned thing down or leave it as it lays. The Elders in their wisdom saw fit, for they know the labyrinthine doings of this city like a Rabbi knows the Rosary, the the Hindu sage his Satantic verses; The Tibetan Monk, his rent; The Chinaman, his Sushi; The Jungle habitué, his beer prices.

As well our leaders are secure in their understanding of St. Augustine's puddly concupiscence, and the ills that lie packed deep beneath the plumber's dirty thumbnail. They know taxes. They know holes. They know when a tree is dead. They wash their hands after using the bathroom. They sit on their asses for hours and listen to all the muck and mire of small town mishmagosh and still have a good thing to say now and then.

And in their wisdom, they listened to the editorial staff at Tiny Town Times -- and it was For We The Peepholes, We, who thrust our mighty swords deep into the gullets of the twin vermin of ambivalence and lethe: And YO! Was returned to us our Time and Weather and with that, our sense of place, of well being: Once again, we are safe. Does anyone know what time it is? YES!

We thank you for your support during this most desperate and hard fought campaign. 

– Chad Coles

HOWEVER DID WE GET BY?: For more than two years police units were parked at each entrance to The Commons in order to provide the time and temperature for citizens. This activity led to controversial overtime payouts from the city. We think the cops kept Tiny Town from slipping into total ignominy. When the man to the right died, time stopped. He was Ralph and he ran the Ithaca Clock and Calendar Museum on W. Mahatma Ghandi Blvd. in Tiny Town. His death marked the official end of the 19th century, although he passed away in 2009. 

Tiny Town, USA – We've had plenty of police drama this year with tragic shooting deaths and suicides. 

But by and large, the uniformed personnel sworn to uphold the peace in Tiny Town minute-to-minute, endure stupendously dull and insipid stuff. We think of the officer called last weekend to dispatch with a dead woodchuck on E. Buffalo St. Once there were buffalo, now, woodchucks. 

A lot happened over that weekend, but the woodchuck stood out as an example of routine police duty the public has no appreciation of, nor respect for: like, ridding the roads of expired nuisance wildlife.

We focus now on the curious day of Tuesday, May 18: A violent drunk was taken to the hospital; a girl complained about a problem she was having at a party; a subject claimed to have stolen something that the store owner denied was stolen. True.

Three separate two-car accidents resulted in no accident report from the drivers involved. Yet a cop was called to the scene for each.

The police assisted in at least two separate deliveries of emotionally disturbed subjects to Cayuga Medical Hospital, and, one to Gannett Health Center at Cornell. They baby sat another soul lost in that infinite space between one's ears until he or she ran their course and returned home without further incident. 

Someone lost a license plate; there was a report of a possible peeper. Not a definite peeper. Just a possible peeper. 

A caller complained about a man urinating on his storefront. The cop arrived, caught the suspect, and the caller dropped the complaint. We can only surmise, and perversely so, as to why charges were not pressed. 

A complaint of vandalism was called in; the police arrived, no such vandalism. There was a report of noise; no noise.  A check on the welfare of someone, a matter of keeping the peace during a verbal dispute; a fight was broken up.

Someone squealed on an over zealous panhandler.  

Thirty-five calls for a Tuesday. Not so bad. Nothing tragic. 

Kind of like playing right field in a game of Special Olympics slow pitch.

–– Chad Coles, Tiny Town Times