Now that bourgeois yuppies have taken over Maize they are
enforcing their anti-nature ordinances to make sure that everyone has a sterile
looking fine trimmed bourgeois looking yard. And what happens if you disobey
the great and mighty City of Maize? You can
be fined $500 or time in jail. That is a lot for an ordinance that actually
says a natural plants are the definition of weeds.
I got tired of watching these people chase out all forms of
nature…wild animals…plants…open spaces…and birds. At one time a hawk lived in
the trees in my back yard—not now. So I let a small patch of land grow wild in
my back yard. This little piece of land was my way of staying in touch with
nature. It was just about 30 feet long and about 15 feet wide. I had some
bushes, some wild plants. I guess technically some of that were weeds. But to
me they were natural plants. And there were trees—lots of trees. The National Wildlife Federation encourages
such habitat projects and you can get a sign from them.
What this city wants is lots of green sterile bourgeois
yards for wealthy people and the upper middle class. What they also want to is
run out all the poorer people who lived here to begin with. They have quiet
little homes, with laid back yards. Those are all under fire. The lady at the
Post Office told me the code enforcement officer mailed out a stack of
complaints against people in this town. I was one of them.
But it will be gone soon. That same officer (called the yard
NAZI by some of us) has made it clear that I either cut that brush down or pay
the fine or go to jail. So I am forced to conform. My view from my house includes
widened roads for extra traffic and lots and lots of buildings with mega marts,
Menards, Sam’s Club, Lowes, etc. I watch year after year as the planners in
this community see how many stores they can cram in one space. It amazes me how
much clutter than can create. They put in a traffic light for Sam’s Club, owned
by Sam Walton who has a horrible history of employee relations, so their
customers can get in and out of their parking lot, while I patiently wait at
the stop light for them. I have to wonder how much the city paid to help out
Sam’s Club.
The City of Wichita has a policy of putting as many
buildings on open land as possible and the clutter out here is amazing. The
city of Maize seems to be following the philosophy as well. It’s hard to tell
where Maize ends and Wichita begins. Once I drive out of town all I see are
rows and rows of stores, most of which I have no interest in.
Areas of wild life of any kind get pushed further out from
town. As the town grows, people who already live in the country don’t want us
out there. Add to that Kansans view publicly owned land as a form of communism
and we city people are kept as far from nature as possible. We are expected to
live in the confines of our suburban cages—our slow death prisons I call
“suburbia.” It’s a style of living I’ve learned to hate. I even had the cops
called on me once for being a suspicious character because I wanted to walk out
under an overpass that had some wild plants under it.
So I’m condemned to this suburban prison until I get a
chance to move if I ever do. I would like to live in a place that has been left
behind from all of this so called “progress.”
- សតិវ អតុ
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