i live in a nice little town in n.e. oregon. not the most densely inhabited place on the planet, for sures.
we have a national guard unit here, used to be mechanized artillery, that sort of things.
they've become jailers.
a couple deployments in that capacity.
well, a little armory served them for years, housed a couple tanks and some field guns in the old days, and a "gym" big enough for drill. seems as though they've outgrown the old facility, however, as the u.s. of a. is remodeling the old building, and building another just next to it.
"administrative offices," they say.
this interests me. the basic footprint of the building is far larger than some offices need to support it. i shall be watching as construction goes along, to see if i can understand its purpose. they are a bunch of jailers, after all, and jailers usually have jails.
what for.
something else is going on in town, and it is kind of odd.
nothing much happens around here, certainly it is not a bee hive of economic activity. we raise a little wheat, some alfalfa hay, and grow some nice fruit. lately the wine types have invaded, and expanding vineyards seem to hint that we grow pretty nice grapes, and a couple wineries have won contests and that sort of thing with their wines.
who knew?
but, the other types of business have been pretty low key. body shops, some junk yard type things, little lots and nooks and crannies that have remained in the same places and eked out a hard scrabble living for their owners, ... , for years, without change, alteration, or modification.
certainly no refurbishing, or fancifying, anything like that.
but, they've survived.
in one of my little perambulations around town, i noticed something peculiar. a bunch of them, all in the same spot in one little area of the town, have all gone out of business at the same time. and, where the junk yards and derelict car bodies, and piles of tires have held down the ground for decades, there is nothing but freshly cropped lots full of green weeds, fed by an unseasonal late summer series of rain storms.
the junk just disappeared.
junk usually doesn't just disappear. usually it lingers, left behind by people who have abandoned all hope on this mortal coil, that the endeavor is ever going to work. it especially just doesn't disappear all at once.
all of this has happened in one little contiguous area, even as the rest of the town just sort of stumbles off toward jerusalem in a slow and halt manner.
curious, this.
i will watch. if for no other reason, that this has happened even as the ground for the jailer's new building saw houses that sat on it demolished and cleared, even as the grade was leveled for the new building, even as the concrete footings and the asphalt access ways were cleared and laid in.
all the same time. the new armory building. the clearing of the contiguous lots.
it feels, well, odd.
it bears watching.
john jay @ 10.03.2013
Aren't we already at war?
Posted by: Pappy Van Winkle | October 03, 2013 at 10:58 AM
pappy:
we are kind of a harper's ferry incident from it going hot, in my estimation.
it wouldn't take much to spark it.
john jay
Posted by: john jay | October 03, 2013 at 11:09 AM
Well, this makes it easier in some respects, you know who they are and where they are, if Jesse and Frank "ride into town", I don't have much doubt you and your neighbors can "go to the dance" chuckling
Posted by: Grog | October 07, 2013 at 04:37 PM
grog:
well, it does save on travel expenses.
i don't have to travel across the country looking for trouble, it just comes to my front porch.
i roll out of bed about 3.30 in the morning, and i am right in the middle of things, ... , some winter eve.
john
Posted by: john jay | October 07, 2013 at 05:18 PM