As the Village Turns
Aug. 27th, 2014 02:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
monkey5sI am really out of touch with news in general. But there is a small, county-wide, free newspaper that is delivered with the ads on the weekend. This lets me see what the village is up to, in a minor way. And they've been up to stupid things. Two large annexations of land, put through on emergency measure (because people showed up at the first and second readings of the first annexation to protest that it was poorly thought out)- and now they are considering the biggest annexation yet. It would more than double the acreage of the village, and is a recently rezoned tract being developed for apartments, warehouses, car dealerships, sports fields... yeah. PROGRESS! At the expense of we, the current village residents, who will absolutely bear the tax burden of sudden, extreme growth. Those sewer lines aren't going to lay themselves, yanno!
Other things I see around town by the more basic measure of big signs put up to advertise events. This past Saturday was a music-and-food festival on the square. It's the fourth year for it, and they run a free shuttle all day to the town two miles away, who also have a music-and-food festival the same day. Four years is long enough to gain some traction, it seems. There's events for the kids all afternoon, then at five the beer garden opens.
I live near the square. People park on the streets by my house for these events- and I sat here and watched a van and truck combo park across the street that runs beside my house. They went up to the square, and returned probably an hour later. But they didn't get into their vehicles and leave, they stood around with a cooler of beer, and at least two of the guys were drinking heavily. Yeah, it was cans of PBR and something silver- is that Busch? It's been WAY too long since I worked the corner market to keep track. But still, five people with cans opening every few minutes is a lot of beer. They were fairly mellow about it- I did hear the one guy making clearly drunk comments to the girls who parked their convertible nearby, asking them if they were driving a Transformer. After a good hour and a half of them drinking, I had to leave to get my pizza. The drunkest guy was chatting with me, I suspect he thought he was fine (he so very wasn't. I didn't envy him the inevitable hangover). They were gone when I got back- and I hope the two women, who were mostly standing and talking, were the drivers.
But the next day I discovered that, even if a person drinks a great craft beer, it doesn't mean they can't be a flaming asshole. Yep, somebody dumped their empty bottles of Bell's Two Hearted Ale on the grass in front of my house. So sad! I love that beer- they should have shared!
Other things I see around town by the more basic measure of big signs put up to advertise events. This past Saturday was a music-and-food festival on the square. It's the fourth year for it, and they run a free shuttle all day to the town two miles away, who also have a music-and-food festival the same day. Four years is long enough to gain some traction, it seems. There's events for the kids all afternoon, then at five the beer garden opens.
I live near the square. People park on the streets by my house for these events- and I sat here and watched a van and truck combo park across the street that runs beside my house. They went up to the square, and returned probably an hour later. But they didn't get into their vehicles and leave, they stood around with a cooler of beer, and at least two of the guys were drinking heavily. Yeah, it was cans of PBR and something silver- is that Busch? It's been WAY too long since I worked the corner market to keep track. But still, five people with cans opening every few minutes is a lot of beer. They were fairly mellow about it- I did hear the one guy making clearly drunk comments to the girls who parked their convertible nearby, asking them if they were driving a Transformer. After a good hour and a half of them drinking, I had to leave to get my pizza. The drunkest guy was chatting with me, I suspect he thought he was fine (he so very wasn't. I didn't envy him the inevitable hangover). They were gone when I got back- and I hope the two women, who were mostly standing and talking, were the drivers.
But the next day I discovered that, even if a person drinks a great craft beer, it doesn't mean they can't be a flaming asshole. Yep, somebody dumped their empty bottles of Bell's Two Hearted Ale on the grass in front of my house. So sad! I love that beer- they should have shared!
