Maple & Main

City Living

Posted by Curt Otto on June 17, 2009 | 1 comment

Downtown Waukesha can be an active setting sometimes.

Take yesterday morning for instance. 

At 6:30 AM, as the sun began to rise and the birds softly serenaded a new day, construction began on the sidewalk just down the street. It started with the sounds of a chop saw ripping through cement, and ended with the echos of a jack hammer breaking concrete.

When the dust finally settled, I could hear the pitter-patter of squirrel feet race across my rooftop. This happens every morning as the squirrels frolic around and do whatever it is squirrels do at 7AM. It drives my dog nuts.

As I retreated to the deck to enjoy a coffee in the cool morning breeze, two large city trucks pulled up in front of my place- one with a lift bucket, and one with a tree grinder.

Things suddenly did not look good for the sickly old honey locust tree out front.

At 8:30, a chainsaw began to rip through the poor old tree. By 9AM, only a small pile of stumps remained where a tree had once shaded my front door.

The bad news is that the shade flowers in the baskets under my front widow are going to fry now. I also can no longer comfortably cook breakfast in my boxers, as my kitchen window is now in clear eye shot of the insurance offices across the street.

The good news, however, is that the sight line of my business has been greatly improved. You can now see the Art Academy building very clearly as you travel West down Main Street.

That is a definite plus.

Once that bit of excitement was over, I headed back to the deck just in time to catch these two air conditioning thieves trying to steal my neighbors air conditioning unit!

Actually, they are supposed to be doing this. Looks like my neighbor was getting a new air unit yesterday. It kind of takes the fun out of the whole story, but I guess I should stick to giving an accurate description of what is really happening as to avoid getting these two fellas in trouble.

And so concluded another beautiful morning in the city.

Ah, Waukesha. We make more noise before 9AM than most cities do all day!