Today is the start of (hopefully) many more public perennial garden projects that will help beautify our Noble neighborhood. Jan Kious of GardenWalk Cleveland and the one who planted our own Cleveland Heights gardens at Cedar/Fairmount, Cedar Hill and Coventry/Euclid Heights, is volunteering to help the Noble Neighbors find ways to add delight to our main thoroughfares. We've started our long-term project with three beds - one at the Cleveland Heights sign at Belvoir and Monticello, and two at Monticello and Noble. These two are diagonally across the intersection, one at the corner of CVS and the other at the corner of Longwood Beauty Supply. 

We've scavenged plants from a Heights High perennial bed on Cedar which will be removed as part of the high school renovation. Jan and others added flowers from their own gardens. The City of Cleveland Heights donated and delivered truckloads of bulk topsoil and mulch, and with a few more amendments, we've created gardens that are ready to send their roots deep for the winter and to burst forth with color from Spring to Fall. Thanks Jan, Barb, Paula, Brenda, Jeanette and Sandy!

The Cleveland Browns were losing badly, 3-28 by the time Make Noise for Noble Neighborhood began. Cool, cloudy weather might have been an attendance deterrent, but several participants cited the Browns' lousy performance as a perfect reason to leave the warmth of living room TV viewing to join the parade at Noble School.

Adam Kukuk, of DeepGrooves.org, brought all kinds of drums and percussion instruments to the school playground. Others contributed homemade instruments made of pot lids, beans in plastic bottles, and a most-fun shaker stick with metal bottle caps nailed to it. Mr. Adam helped the crowd of over 40 people, mostly kids, learn how to use the variety of instruments, and to work together to make interesting rhythms. Once well rehearsed, we followed Katrina, the balloon-hatted leader, in a noise making parade around the block. Lots of neighbors came to their doorways to smile and wave at our festive fanfare. It was great fun to see wide-eyed little kids watch us strut.

We were joined by Officer Larry who paraded with us in his cruiser - lights flashing and adding several on-beat "whoop-whoop" siren sounds. Five year old Andrew remembered Officer Larry from Safety Town and was thrilled to see that he was parading with us. "Andrew just loves Officer Larry. He's still talking about Safety Town which happened a while ago," reported Andrew's mother. We all had great fun Making Noise for the Noble Neighborhood.

Returning home to warmer digs, many of us tuned into what we thought would be an embarrassing end to the Browns-Titans game. But, what's this? They just scored in the fourth quarter and went on to score a total of 26 unanswered points to win 29-28. I have no doubt that the Make Noise for Noble parade inspired our football team to host a few parades of their own from end zone to end zone.

So, obviously, our Noble Noise caused the Browns to win. 

I'm sure of it.