(The title, as most people know, is a takeoff on a sentimental tune I composed in 1988, called "I Left My Teeth in Tuscaloosa".)
Various claw marks can be found on Princeton's residential streets from time to time.
They do not appear to be related to the savage ripping apart of cereal boxes, a phenomenon less often observed as kids age and glues become more sophisticated. (This is a much milder case than in the past.)
Some speculate that the claw marks appear when one or another of the many tiger statues in town comes to life at a particular phase of the moon, prowling the streets by night as gentle Princeton wisely sleeps.
But no. Careful observation by a sleuth posing as the family's designated dog-walker revealed that the marks are in fact the work of a curiously charismatic, clawful contraption on a quixotic quest to clear the streets of cast-out clutter.
Despite its superheroic strength, The Claw is doomed to fail.
For the right to purge one's private property in all seasons at the expense of a public street must remain inviolate. Princeton did not invest in Belgian block curbstones so that they might be seen,
but rather so they could become upscale composting sites, provide substrate for inter-canine communications,
and increase employment opportunities for earthworms.
And yet one city had the audacity to put the endless dumping of yardwaste to a vote, and ended up replacing The Claw with rollout bins except after storms and during fall leaf season. Sacramento's heedless attempt to keep streets clean and save money unfairly targets Sisyphus and his many emulators, who would find their Sisyphean qualities endangered if relegated to part-time work.
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