Willow, the coonhound across the street, started it. Our neighbors Niki and Rebecca adopted Willow a year ago. Ever since, her howls — great round vowels of sound — have echoed through the neighborhood. Then Ted next door had an idea. Every night this week, Ted has stepped onto his front porch to howl along with Willow, an impromptu celebration of the health care workers (some of them our neighbors too) confronting COVID-19. Then Julie and Tammy and Ellen up the street joined in, and Preeti two doors down.
Last night, we led our own rescue mongrel out in a soft rain to howl along, some 10 or 12 of us on the block baying like extras in a miscast horror movie. So far, Willow has not objected to our plagiarism. I love Cleveland Heights because the “Rating the Suburbs” algorithm can’t seem to account for it. Check the back issues of this magazine, and you’ll see that Cleveland Heights hasn’t cracked the top 20 in years.
But how do you quantify a neighborhood of weirdos standing in an evening rain, offering feral calls from safe social distance? It doesn’t exactly raise the comps. No matter. Time to clear the table, leash up the dog, and head outside again for the evening howl. I’m certain we sound ridiculous. But that howl has become the sound of home.
Dave Lucas is the author of Weather and the former Poet Laureate of the State of Ohio. He has lived in Cleveland Heights for seven years, four of them on the block of the weirdos in question.
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Dave Lucas' Cleveland Heights
The former poet laureate of the state of Ohio's howling story shows how wildly unique his city can be.
