CHOOSE RANT

Title:   The Hometown Day:    July 26th, 1999 Author:  Ruiner Update:   Believe it or not, the town is finally going to get a movie theater. The land has been plowed asunder, and the plans approved. Hmm. Maybe somebody on the council read my rant. (Yeah, right!)				Switching gears as always, let me talk about something else going on in this life of mine. I'm moving. Straight up, the planets and stars have aligned and I've finally gotten the mojo to move out of my parents' house. Nearly twenty-seven years old, it's about time you slack bastard. Heh. It's not the end-all, be-all change for the better. Don't get me wrong. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna have two cool roommates, and the place is pretty nice. I know this for a fact because the fellow who just moved out was a good friend of ours. It's a duplex, one of those deals where the large house is cut right down the middle in two halves. It has an upstairs and a basement and a decent amount of space. No problem for three swinging bachelors. I guess one of the drawbacks is that it's still in the same town that I live now, Roxboro. That still leaves me with a forty-minute commute to work. I don't really mind the drive cos' it gives me time to listen to my music, and you should all know that I luv my tunes. But my car, oh my poor car, is about to hit 150 k on the odometer. I don't even want to think thoughts like this, but it ain't gonna last forever. And being crappy-credit man, getting something else is going to be like pulling teeth… from a Doberman without any doggie-novocaine. You know, I think some day soon, I'm going to have to give a little diatribe about the whole credit card nightmare. You know, I'm hoping this change does us all well. So many of us are altering our lives in some fashion. A few of the guys have moved out to Durham or Pittsboro, both to the South of my town. Some of us are staying for the time being, and one of the guys (not an original Roxboro-boy) is actually heading North to move in with us. Everyone's practically changing places, and it's to the point that our 'Roxboro crew' as we're known in Raleigh can't necessarily be called that any more. Ah, I hated that title anyway. Let me go off about my hometown. There are some nice features about it. There really are no gangs here, since it's a fairly rural area. Some people may argue but there is a good deal of that Southern hospitality you hear about, with neighbors treating you nicely and there being many family and church functions going on. Would I want to raise my children here in ten, fifteen years when that event occurs? Possibly, until they're at an age when they want to have fun. On some issues though, the town is in the Dark Ages. The City Council is full of 'old blood' and people who believe that change is the specter of the Apocalypse. Industry has greased the pockets of these old men into maintaining an atmosphere reminiscent of early 1900s sweatshops. I would hazard a guess that seventy per cent of the people working inside town are employed by one of the various textile or aluminum mills. And even though they compete for employees, there is apparently an agreement on low wages where people won't be lured to similar jobs for promise of better pay. Many would argue, but all you need do is compare salaries of your average workers to those in neighboring cities. The chokehold of some of the corporations is so bad that they've used the Council to keep other employers who would pay better from building in town. It's a shame when the company that helped build the town into what it is today uses its influence to strangle any further growth. I mean, the town can't even get a Taco Bell... Bluntly put, unless you're creative and can find other things to do, usually the best thing to do in your spare time is to leave town. Let me give some examples. If you want to watch a movie in a theater, you leave town (from what I've heard, theaters tried to move into town, but were kept out by wealthy men who own the various movie rental places). If you want to eat at a decent restaurant, more than likely you leave town ('upstanding' citizens prevent anyone from serving liquor by the drink, so most restaurant chains won't build here because they can't stock their bars). If you want to do any good shopping and you don't want Wal-Mart, you leave town (efforts to build a mall in this blossoming town have likewise met defeat). You know I have to wonder what it's going to take to straighten out this town? I understand that people don't want it to become a crime-ridden cesspool with dark alleys and drive-by shootings. For reference, realize that I work in Durham, which is considered to be the crime capital of the state. I'm sure those upright Roxboro citizens are quaking in their boots at that prospect. Of course, there are streets in my town that pizza deliveries won't travel down because of the dangerous neighborhoods. But do we have to wait for the aging moral majority to pass on so that the younger, deprived blood can reform what I see to be unforgivable slights to culture? I'm not proposing a New World Order for the place, but someone needs to lighten up a little. Else, the stagnation will continue and the only ones who will enjoy living there will be the elderly and the non-ambitious. Or perhaps that's already happened. You may wonder why I still choose to live here? Honestly I think it stems from my status as 'no credit man'. When you can find a place with a decent landlord who charges you fairly little and doesn't want to worry with checking your credit, well you take what you can get. And my friends are still around, which is a tremendous plus. One day, we'll all make that mass exodus, and the town will be that much poorer for it. B.Mooney