Lawn Chairs and Tickets
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Growing up in that town in the 1960s was like living in The Sopranos, though I didn't know it at the time, of course.
It wasn't like "Tony Soprano" town, more like Paulie.
True story...
I was an intern, sitting in a barber shop "Don of the Regency" just off Michigan Avenue, reading (cough) a magazine awaiting my turn.
This guy walks in wearing a dago-tee. With, I kid you not, a pack of smokes in the sleeve. He sits down across the coffee table from me.
"Ummm.....George?"
"Er, yeah?"
"George, it's Jim Fanone. From high school!"
"OH YEAH! Jim, how the hell are you?"
"Good! What are you up to?"
"Well, just got married, and I'm an intern here at Northwestern. Gonna start my residency in about 4 months. I live in the area. How about you? What are you up to? What are you doing?
"Nothing much, really. I (long, long silcece) have my own business."
Okay then.
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Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in Lawn Chairs and Tickets:
@Catseye3 said in Lawn Chairs and Tickets:
Why I hate "homeowners associations".
This isn't even a HOA, just a private house on a residential street.
You've got to wonder whether there's something else going on here. That's pretty bizarre behaviour by the Village, and even more so by the Mayor.
I was only joking
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Lawn Chairs and Tickets:
You've got to wonder whether there's something else going on here.
If I had to guess, someone "connected" to the village government, a cop or a council member lives nearby and doesn't like the look. So, they filed a complaint, hoping the get the weight of the gummint to have the chairs removed.
That's pretty bizarre behaviour by the Village, and even more so by the Mayor.
Yeah, but it's Melrose Park. And the "s" is not pronounced like a "z", but rather as in "stop the madness," by those who grew up there. It used to be very, very, Italian, but has now become largely Hispanic.
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@George-K This isn't even a HOA, just a private house on a residential street.
Oh.
Geez.
I'm with Phibes. Somebody has reason to believe they can behave any way they wish and do anything they want. It feels horridly Orwellian; you want to learn how it came to be that a system cop could leave handwritten notes with impunity.
So I of course agree with the others' comments here.
But I'm curious about the Cozzis' response to all this. Did they react? Did they defend the chairs, even if ineffectually? Did they just turtle? Did they stand up for their god-given right to uglify their yard?
And not for nuttin, that whole chair vista is pretty unsightly.
Gestapo tactics aside, what could the neighborhood have done differently to solve the problem? Did they do things differently before things got nasty? Is that the part we're missing?
What could they do now? Given the Cozzis' age, they could just laugh it off, wait it out, figuring that in the fullness (not much) of time the problem would solve itself. 'Course, with their luck, Michael would move in and carry on the tradition. Heh!
And Serpico, geez, what a piece of work! Who's enabling him? How many times has he been re-elected, I wonder?
Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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@Catseye3 said in Lawn Chairs and Tickets:
@George-K This isn't even a HOA, just a private house on a residential street.
And Serpico, geez, what a piece of work! Who's enabling him? How many times has he been re-elected, I wonder?
Serpico has been mayor for
2023 years. It's the (suburban) Chicago way.https://www.melrosepark.org/ronald-m-serpico/
Ronald Serpico, believing in his grandfather’s vision of the “American Dream,” successfully ran for Mayor in 1997. At that time, Ron felt the priorities of the Village were not focused on the hopes, dreams and concerns of all its residents. Since then, Ron and the Village trustees have been working hard to make Melrose Park a community that people and businesses want to move to and not from.
Now far be it from me to rely on stereotypes, but, c'mon man!
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My fantasy:
I'm in a town meeting and I rise to voice a complaint. This annoys Serpico and he unleashes a volley of fuck-you's at my head.
Me: "No, fuck you, you fucking hack!" (With a woman-and-white-cat-meme finger stab.)
The Chicago Way oughtta work both ways, no?
