Servic with a Smil

I stopped by what's left of the Norwichtown Mall on my way home yesterday afternoon to get myself some lunch for today. I've been eating salads all week and when I started seeing pellets yesterday afternoon, I figured I should look at a sandwich or something for today. Besides the office is being repainted and the technicians had to take down the wheel and the water bottle. There's still plenty of wood shavings.

And there's plenty of old Norwichtown Mall to shake your head about as you speed through the parking lot. Point in fact, the all in Mall disappeared a long time ago with a dollar store about what's left at this point in a location that had such bright promise when it opened nearly a half century ago.

Except, if what we heard last night is true, better, if not happy, days could be coming back to a part of the city and a region of the state where positive events have been in short supply for quite some time. In these parts, you hate to get too happy, judging from the faces I've seen, because it just makes everything that much worse when it crashes, and too many of us expect everything to go wrong every time. How about a new approach-assume a miracle and settle for good news.

Abwarten und tee trinken as some German person I know is fond of saying. Gotta tell ya, there's only so much tea I can drink before I need to visit the little boy's room, but I smiled thinking about what promises to be a coordinated effort by a developer with a well-earned reputation for knowing what they're doing. The City Council chamber was full and you could feel an optimism emanating from the podium and slowly enveloping the room. Felt a little out of place at first, but we could get used to it.

Coming out of the side entrance of the now Old Mall, waiting at the light for the light to change I came back to earth as I stared at Benny's, the store that's faced the mall for all the years we've lived here (which is twenty), and realized the sign over the garage is missing the E on Service and I have no idea how long it's been like that, but I'll bet Old MacDonald has an alibi.
-bill kenny