------ In The City (Fill in the blank)

Sex?  

Crime? 

Business? 

Overcrowding?

No, no, no and no.

Give up?

How about eagles?  American Bald Eagles?

Yup.  Whodathunkit?  There is a colony of 12 American Bald Eagles in Syracuse, New York, of all places.

See them here.

They're the revered bird of the Onondaga Nation, and they're back at Onondaga Lake.

Onondaga Lake abuts the city of Syracuse and was once the most polluted body of water in the country.  The Solvay Process dumped industrial waste into the lake and along its shoreline for decades, turning it into a putrid and stinking morass, and essentially killing it.  City sewage compounded the problem.  It was surrounded by oil tanks, and the asphalt smell was the punch line of many jokes about the village of Solvay on its banks ("Evening in Solvay" perfume, for example, was often listed as a gag door prize at parties).

There is a lot that can never be cleaned up, such as the mercury that is embedded in the lake bottom, but there has been a concerted effort to improve things.  The oil tanks have gone, and the piles of pollutants and refuse have been removed.  A new sewage treatment plant has significantly reduced human pollution.  A fancy mall sits on the site of the old oil tanks and there are plans afoot to build housing and more shopping (some under glass with year-round golf, of all things).  

Whatever has been done so far has helped a miracle to occur.  Maybe it's time to just stop and forget "progress."  I think what's happened here now is an excellent height to reach.

I wonder what the people of the Onondaga Nation think.  Many of them live not too far away, south of the city.  The bird they revere has returned, in numbers not seen for a century or more.

Isn't it wonderful?