Yes, it was a strange thing to do. I did it anyway. I’m pleased I did. I’ll do it again if I feel like it.

The street lamp at the corner of 45th and Duval is hung from a wooden power pole. Because the corner is a well-traveled one, people always put up signs on that pole advertising lost pets and yard sales, and hang “Make $$$ Working At Home” flyers and such too.

Mostly, the same people also take their signs down a few days later—but they don’t remove the staples or carpet tacks or nails or whatever it was they used to put the signs up in the first place.  They just leave them all behind.  Naturally, after years of this treatment, the pole now looks more like a metal porcupine than a lamp support.

This annoys me, every time I go by that corner (once or twice a day).  Not only isn’t it any good for the pole to leave all that ironmongery in it, it’s an eyesore, and makes all the new signs people put up disintegrate all the faster for being slatted around by the wind against the knobbly nailheads and things.

So this morning I took my claw hammer, and two pairs of pliers (one regular, one needle-nose), and a Great Big Screwdriver and went down to the corner, where I spent a good hour and a half removing several pounds’ worth of assorted fasteners from the body of the pole.  I didn’t get anywhere near done (that’ll take a couple hours’ more work), but heavens, it looked so much better when I stopped!  I carefully picked up everything I pulled out, to guard against tetanus infections in unwary pedestrians and flat tires from nails in the street.

Nobody stopped to watch or commented on my work, even though the corner was very busy, with students catching the bus to the university and lots and lots of vehicles passing by; I suppose nobody was quite sure whether I was a city employee or part of a neighborhood beautification program or a wandering nut or what.