Death of a Purple Cow
Some of you may have heard the rhyme, ” I have never seen a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I can tell you anyhow. I’d rather see than be one.” The author of that rhyme died last week. And the building where I first read it, Isalys in Youngstown, Ohio has gone away too.
In 1950 the population of Youngstown was 168,330. Today it is less than half that with a huge problem with drug and alcohol addiction, and of course almost no future.
Before Ford rang up it disastrous losses, the Packard Motor Company outside Youngstown had closed. Indeed, the city which during the Second World War was the second largest steel producing city in the world produces less steel today than Charlotte , N.C. It appears that the Hegelian Zeitgeist has departed from North Eastern Ohio.
Sic gloria transit. But there is one way out. Football. Here the state religion is football. The people are American Gothic. And the local flower is a steel ingot. Down the road is a beauty contest where the winner is called MSS PIGIRON PULL. The luck lady gets to push an ore cart as part of her rising to her queenship.
And wait. The local university Youngstown U. has as its mascot, THE PENGUINS. March of the Penguin, Happy Feet and other penguin prodigies might give the plush penguin industry a boost. Actually this is about as realistic as having the Reverend IKE blast forth his maxim: “The more you use your mind, the less you have to use you behind.”
True former Youngstown Congressman , Jim Trafficante announced to president of the U. S. in 2004. But he was doing 12 years in a federal prison at the time. Maybe it is time to get real to abandon those cities which have all but been abandoned like Camden, NJ. If we can call assassination of a king regicide, then why not create CITYCIDE.
Send me your candidates for citycide.