Well, after several years, I picked my knitting needles up again. What finally pushed me to start crafting again? The Marathon Scarf project by the Old South Church in Boston. They put out a call for people to send in scarves in blue and yellow to distribute to runners of the Boston Marathon at their annual Blessing of the Athletes ceremony. I managed to make 2 scarves in time to mail them off.

It is moving to my soul to follow Marathon Scarf project on Facebook and see all the different scarves sent in and to see runners with their scarves. So far, they have received close to 7,000 scarves from around the world!! How exciting to be part of such a huge movement of love and prayers.

I'm having trouble getting my photos from my phone to this blog. But I will post them soon.

I included this blog link on the note attached to my scarves. I hope the runners who get my scarves will visit this blog and leave a note telling us about their run!

This Sunday morning we went out cleaning graffiti again. This time I had an extra helper who got me a step ladder. We were able to clean up 20 tags, but there were a few that we just couldn't get off. I hope I inspire normal, every day people to go buy their own $8 bottle of Lift Off and commit to keeping their street or block clean. We do not have to wait a year or more for the city to clean up messes for us. If we wait that long, more tagging will join it. With a few dollars and a few minutes of elbow grease, we can take back our streets!

Every summer I do something to improve my hometown of Parkersburg, WV: guerilla gardening, litter pickup, yarn bombing. I’m doing something different this year . . . graffiti abatement. You may think it ironic, that I would remove graffiti when I’ve done lots of yarn graffiti over the years. But it’s really not so odd. It’s right in line with my desire to improve the town I love.

Pole cozies can easily be removed leaving no permanent damage and they bring a smile and sense of wonder to those who see it. The tagging I’m removing is not art, but rather marking of territory.

This year I noticed that tagging that appeared a year ago, still had not been removed, and plenty more had been added. This graffiti was not hard to find. It was in what had been good parts of town with upstanding citizens as residents: 36^th St., Emerson Ave., Dudley Ave., Grand Central, Market St., and Juliana.

In the summer of 2008, I started yarn bombing in Parkersburg. At that time, I did not notice any painted graffiti. I’m sure there was some in the seedier parts of town, and according to the News and Sentinel it was a problem. But there were no tags in the well-established neighborhoods or main thoroughfares. (Click hyperlinks for three articles on this.)

Then in the summer of 2010, I saw several pieces of tagging. Some by Sam’s in Vienna and further up Grand Central, near 36^th and Elm, on the North End Post Office, and on 19^th Street. I mentioned the graffiti to friends and family who said they’d never noticed and didn’t see any reason for concern.

I can’t say whether this tagging is the work or teens who just want to leave their mark or signs of gang activity, but I can say that it is not good and should concern everyone. It is well-proven that when a community does not clean up damage such as graffiti, it shows that the citizens do not care. Unrepaired damage attracts more destruction and crime. There is even a name for this phenomenon. It is called the Broken Windows Effect.

Are the tags in Parkersburg gang related? Well, the most common tag is “Merk” which is slang for kill. It is a tag done all over the country and could just be copied by a kid who has seen it on youtube. Tags like the 6-pointed Star of David and Pitchfork that are on the back of the ALF-CIO building on Dudley and elsewhere are signs of the Folk Nation gangs. Again, they could be copy cats.

Some people think there are no gangs in Parkersburg, but one look at the police blotter in the paper shows that the drug-related crimes dominate the lists. Those drugs come from somewhere, and it is usually someone who has gang affiliations.

In 2009, the paper reported that a gang-related beating with a bat left a teen in the hospital for days with a brain bleed. What was even more alarming than the crime, was that the paper learned of it from the victim’s mother, not a press release from the police or prosecutor. In a series of stories that followed, the police admitted that there is a group of teens that call themselves the Six Gun Nation. The police seemed to downplay this because they say there is no national gang affiliation. National or local, if people call themselves a gang, deface property, commit crimes, act violently, and sell drugs, it is a problem. It just may not be a problem citizens are aware of since it isn’t reported to the news agencies.

I’m cleaning up tags left on public property, but there is plenty more remaining on private property that simply needs a coat or two of paint. Research shows that the most effective abatement is that which leaves no sign that the tagging was ever there.

The best is using a chemical that removes the graffiti. I am using Lift Off. I bought a large bottle for $8 at a hardware store. It makes the graffiti come off with ease and doesn’t hurt the surface or remove the underlying paint. I cleaned up 20 tags in an hour and used only a tenth of the bottle. I suggest using a terry cloth towel, gloves to keep the paint off your hands, and a paper mask to keep the spray out of your nose.

If you paint, it is best to paint the entire wall. If you can’t do that, use the same color paint as the rest of the surface and paint a block shape over the tags so that it is impossible to tell what had been written there.

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone took care of their town rather than waiting for government agencies to come do it for them?

Before & After Pics of tagging removal