Monday, March 27, 2000
Madisonville pride intact, despite insult
BY CLIFF RADEL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Madisonville's pride was wounded last week by a stray word. A Cincinnati cop tagged the east-side neighborhood with the name, “s---hole.”
Even with the three blanks, it's an ugly name, an insult, a verbal shot.
Officer Robert J. Hill III gave Madisonville that name during an official police interview. He was being investigated for throwing a 68-year-old man with Alzheimer's to the floor of a Madisonville United Dairy Farmers.
People living in the 191-year-old neighborhood, people who care about their community, people like the members of Citizens on Patrol, saw the “s--- hole” word last week in the newspapers. They heard it on radio and TV. And it hurt.
You see, they have a name for Madisonville, too.
They call it home.
On patrol
Friday night, as balmy temperatures turned March into June, 11 people from Madisonville lined up outside a waiting police bus. They were ready to go on duty as Citizens on Patrol, a volunteer group working with the police since September 1997, patrolling the streets and helping make Madisonville a better place to live.
They were a mixed group, short and tall, spry and creaky, blue collar, white collar, men and women, black and white. The years they've lived in the neighborhood varied from “just a little while” to a lifetime, from a decade to 56 years.
On this night, everyone on the bus was a little more determined than usual to improve Madisonville. They wanted to prove their neighborhood of 12,000 residents is not a “s---hole.”
“That remark caused quite a stir. People try to make things better here. They don't do that in a s---hole,” said Sue Micheli, president of the Madisonville Community Council, and a founding member of the patrol with her husband, Larry.
“At first that word made me mad and hurt my feelings,” said part-time laborer and full-time grandmother Julia Torrey. “But then I thought, sticks and stones will break my bones. But his words are just going to make me work harder to prove him wrong.”
The Citizens on Patrol worked a four-hour shift Friday night. Their mission: Rid the streets of Madisonville — their streets — of trash, from junked cars to dope dealers.
Hopping on and off the bus throughout the community, the patrol dropped in unexpectedly on neighborhood hot spots. Armed with police radios, the 11 citizens walked up and down the sidewalks, looking, watching, listening.
They observed suspicious activity. Ten teen-agers crowded onto the porch of a darkened house scattered as the patrol approached.
They checked for expired tags on an abandoned car. They donned rubber gloves and stuffed litter into plastic grocery bags.
“We have pride in this place,” said Patty Markley, wife of the patrol's leader, Jerry Markley. She snapped on a glove, bent down and scooped up a handful of crushed cups and broken glass. “We want others to feel the same way,” she added. “Pride grows one person, one deed at a time.”
Horns honked. People waved. Thumbs-up salutes were exchanged.
The patrol's members said hello to everyone they met on foot. Most of the time, they received a friendly “hello” in return. Occasionally, they'd hear an “oh hell.” They just smiled and kept walking.
The patrol walks in all kinds of weather, at odd hours, on the weekends, during the week. Giving up their free time.
“I could be in Oakley right now watching TV and drinking beer with my friends,” said Tom Eppens. He was tired from repairing cars all week. But he was on patrol.
“I have two kids,” he said. “I'm walking with these people so my boys can grow up in a safe neighborhood.”
He doesn't see Madisonville as a hole. To him, it's home.
Rand Richard just put in a 46-hour week selling oriental rugs. Marge Hays spent the week raising funds for WVXU-FM. Her next-door neighbor, James Howard, was fresh from his factory shift, where he spent 12 hours on his feet. And, he's recovering from a series of foot operations.
Yet, he walked the four-hour patrol with Rand and Marge. Fatigue would not keep them from caring for their community.
Rand grew up in Madisonville. When he was a kid, the neighborhood had dress shops where his mother shopped, a Graeter's, a jeweler, a 10-cent store and the Madison Bakery where ladies behind the counter gave him free tea cookies.
Those stores are gone. They've been torn down or boarded up. But hope survives.
“Madisonville can come back,” Rand said as he inspected an empty shop's doorway for drug paraphernalia. “This patrol is empowering. We scare off drug dealers and get old cars towed. And, there's strength and safety in numbers.”
Marge joined the patrol after her son was mugged. “I told myself, "This is not going to happen again,'” she said. “Madisonville belongs to homeowners, taxpayers, decent people, not a bunch of hoodlums.”
James and his wife have six children. He wants them in a neighborhood that's safe — “no drug-dealing on the sidewalks” — and diverse.
“Madisonville is a mixture of people,” he said. “Kids can grow up here and not see someone as black or white, but as a person.”
The neighborhood can continue to be racially mixed and safe, James said, “if everyone does his part to keep up his house and get the dealers off our streets.
“But everyone has to step up. Otherwise, what that officer said will come true.”
Spending an evening with the Citizens on Patrol convinced me Officer Hill was wrong. Madisonville is not a “s---hole.”
They know there are serious problems in the neighborhood. And, they realize they must be addressed by people in the community as well as officials down at City Hall.
But, these Citizens on Patrol also showed me that Madisonville is a place of possibilities. They pointed out the nice houses, the well-kept yards, shops open for business, people raising families.
These sights give them hope. They feel Madisonville has promise. And civic pride. More than anything else, these are the words they use to describe the place they call home.
Columnist Cliff Radel can be reached at 768-8379; fax 768-8340.
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