There Is No Time For This

A FEW DAYS AGO I SAW a small news item in the local newspaper about an old building that was being renovated. As they were working on the foundation the workers uncovered a Time Capsule. For those of you with no sense of history let me explain about time capsules.

It used to be the practice when public buildings such as Libraries, Government Buildings, and other large structures were built to place a box into the foundation corner stone. In the box they’d put things about the town, their lives, and times. The box would stay hidden until the building was torn down sometime in the future.

Yes! No! Maybe! No! Yes! I Don’t Know!

 

BY AND LARGE TERRE HAUTE (THAT’S FRENCH FOR, “I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND.”) is a quiet town that lives life one day at a time – except when it comes to making decisions. The civic power structure of this town can never make up its mind about anything. I’d hate to go to lunch with Terre Haute; it would never be able to pick what to eat.

Whenever the City and its elected officials, are called upon to make a decision it must first go through a lifetime of hemming and hawing. They will make up their minds and then immediately reverse themselves and go back to square one. It is as if the City is being run by a collection of squirrels who are trying to cross the street.

Eat Quickly, We’re Closing.

 

THEY COME, THEY GO…THEY COME AGAIN. Restaurants that is. I can’t think of any venture tougher than the restaurant business. I read somewhere that 50% of all restaurants go belly up within their first year.

I’m not surprised.

What brings this whole thing to mind is that about six months ago a new eatery opened up near us and, based on good reports from some friends, we were planning to drop by this weekend for lunch. I found out this morning that it had been sold and that there was a “Coming Soon!” sign in the window. Dang! We are just going to have to eat quicker.

What’s Shakin’?

 

I DON’T KNOW WHAT POSSESSED ME, but this morning I took a few minutes to look at The New York Times. I have been feeling rather feverish so I will attribute it to that.

A large photo that looked vaguely familiar took up a lot of the front page above the fold. It was an aerial photograph of downtown San Francisco – my old stomping grounds.

I lived in San Francisco from 1978 until 2002 and I saw a great deal of transformation in The City during that time. Looking at that photo in The Times I could scarcely recognize it as the city where I had lived. Their transformation continues.