Downtown
I visited downtown Raleigh this morning. Let me tell you something folks. It ain't a bit like Sparta.
The place is a beehive of construction on a new convention center and conversion of Fayetteville Street back into a street from a pedestrian mall. Jackhammers, concrete saws, drills, dust, hustle, bustle, diesel exhaust, horns, you name it.
Downtown Raleigh is not a "big city" downtown in the sense of Boston or Chicago, but it can pass for one over a few blocks around the courthouse. Raleigh policemen in uniforms; very large, fit men in tee shirts with Glocks and badges hanging on their belts; Wake County mounties hurrying to and from the courthouse. Lawyers so fat that they could only button one button of their black business suits, exposing acute triangles of white shirt above and below it. Women wearing skirts and pants waaaay too young for their age. Drug transactions going down on the sidewalk two blocks from the jailhouse. A dollar an hour to park. Street people of all shapes, sizes and colors. No one paying attention to "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs. Port City Java coffee shops. Folks leaning against buildings, smoking cigarettes. Old buildings, new buildings, buildings going up, buildings coming down, buildings getting a new lease on life.
And then there was me, in jeans and a knit shirt, looking for a specific office building in all that.
Hmmmm. Come to think of it, I don't believe that I saw a single pickup truck with a gun rack in the back of it, or anyone -- male or female -- wearing a pair of Pointer Brand overalls all morning.
Get back, Dave, get back to where you belong!
The place is a beehive of construction on a new convention center and conversion of Fayetteville Street back into a street from a pedestrian mall. Jackhammers, concrete saws, drills, dust, hustle, bustle, diesel exhaust, horns, you name it.
Downtown Raleigh is not a "big city" downtown in the sense of Boston or Chicago, but it can pass for one over a few blocks around the courthouse. Raleigh policemen in uniforms; very large, fit men in tee shirts with Glocks and badges hanging on their belts; Wake County mounties hurrying to and from the courthouse. Lawyers so fat that they could only button one button of their black business suits, exposing acute triangles of white shirt above and below it. Women wearing skirts and pants waaaay too young for their age. Drug transactions going down on the sidewalk two blocks from the jailhouse. A dollar an hour to park. Street people of all shapes, sizes and colors. No one paying attention to "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs. Port City Java coffee shops. Folks leaning against buildings, smoking cigarettes. Old buildings, new buildings, buildings going up, buildings coming down, buildings getting a new lease on life.
And then there was me, in jeans and a knit shirt, looking for a specific office building in all that.
Hmmmm. Come to think of it, I don't believe that I saw a single pickup truck with a gun rack in the back of it, or anyone -- male or female -- wearing a pair of Pointer Brand overalls all morning.
Get back, Dave, get back to where you belong!
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