Maggie's Farm

Cleveland!

http://tiny.cc/g5f6t

But Browndog, I'll bet your choppers are ruler-straight, and Pepsodent white now! [Unless you chaw, of course]. Bob Hope was a Clevelander, and he was the Pepsodent guy.

Cleveland is truly the best kept secret in the United States of America. The weather is better than Northern California six months out of the year. The city has no north or south, it's east/west all the way, bordering the southern shore of beautiful Lake Erie [lookat a map], with its endless supply of tasty lake perch, its sandy beaches, and its vacation/party venues.

The summers are deliciously sensual, with warm nights, and frequent thunderstorms with crashing lightning and thunder, followed by cooling breezes. The days are alive with life; katydids, lightning bugs [fireflies], praying mantises, 17-year locusts, and fat squirrels feasting on the buckeyes and acorns that grow everywhere.

In addition to beautiful, sensuous Lake Erie, Cleveland is ringed by its "Emerald Necklace," a meandering park crisscrossing the Rocky River, with innumerable picknic areas, ball parks, soccer fields, and hiking trails. You can drive for fifty miles and more past green fields and over river crossings. As kids we used to climb down and explore "the Valley" [as everyone called it] searching the river for snapping turtles and snakes, which were akways found in abundance.

The only dreary times [like all of the northeast] were in February and March, when winter got really old. But Spring was just around the corner, and by May/June Summer excitement was in the air. There is nothing better than a Cleveland Summer. Nothing!

And Autumn is fantastically beautiful, with warm days and crisp, cool nights. The fields are fallow, hunting is discussed everywhere, and high school and college football is the subject of endless speculation and conversation by folks ho believe they know it all. :>)

People make fun of Cleveland, but they don't know what they're talking about. Having lived in the late, foormerly great state of California for the past 40 years, I truly savor my trips back to the wonderful Cleveland area where I grew up.

California has already self-destructed, and like all cities, Cleveland has its share of political problems. But for a healthy, wonderful, interesting environment, Cleveland has it all over predictable, depressing, politically correct, rapidly declining California. And if I can talk Mrs. Smokey into moving, we're outta the lost world of NorCal. I keep telling her that our $800,000 house would buy a mansion right on the Lake.

Cleveland is very inexpensive; it is vibrant, beautiful, and never pretentious. I crave abandoning self-absorbed California, and returning to America's real heartland — Cleveland, on beautiful Lake Erie, where you can buy a big house within walking distance of the lake for $200,000.

Sooner or later I will, and California can keep its cops and firefighters with their $200K+ annual salaries, along with its insane do-gooders, who believe it's their religious duty to ban plastic shopping bags, and 'protect' snail darter minnows and owls, at the expense of the state's economy and jobs. I'll take down-to-earth Clevelanders any time.

Don't tell anyone about this — we don't want Californicators to flood into Cleveland and screw up "the best location in the nation," as Clevelanders say. It's our own personal secret, and we want to keep it that way!

But real, down to earth, honest folks are always welcome. You will not regret your move — guaranteed – or double your money back! :- )