I sat at Stacy's Sports Inn last Friday reading your front page story about Ms. Manley's big push to get a franchise steakhouse into the Great Warsaw Crossroads. I couldn't help being a little amused, as I was reading the story over an excellent piece of rare prime rib. And of course, on that side of town I could have been at Bogey's Steak House at Rozella Ford. Or instead of prime rib, I could have been eating steak at one of several other local restaurants. By the way, I had an hilarious conversation with Stacy Haines that evening (He's the owner, for those of you who have not met him.) We shared a handful of colorful stories about the hijinx of some of the world class characters in our locale.
So here's my point: Take notice - there's already a lot going on around Warsaw and around our byways and curving lake-roads, a lot going on that we risk losing if we're going to turn our town into one of those big long strips of franchises like Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Houston or Rockville, Maryland, or ...
Speaking of Rockville, I grew up there. Around 1966 Rockville was the American Council of Cities' "All American City of the Year," population 35,000 - a little bigger than Warsaw is now. It was a friendly, comfortable place, then. The old Rockville Airport Hangar recently had been converted to a roller skating rink. (The airport had closed then because the main roadway was commercializing, and it didn't make sense to keep a landing strip operating right in the middle of the new commercial center of town.)
Over the next two generations Rockville suffered terrible economic successes. It became the second largest city in the state of Maryland, after Baltimore and it remains so today. It grew into a collection of four-lane and six-lane highways, and most of its commercial areas got so busy it no longer was safe to cross their streets - even at the lights. Old people that comfortably used to make their trips to and from the store in between the morning rush and the afternoon rush no longer found any peaceful, sane time of day to make their excursions.
Ms. Manley's argument about keeping more dollars in our community by having a crossroads steakhouse makes sense only if this improves the life of our community. More dollars and more business does not always equate to improved living. I'm offering a gentle warning from my own experience. First, let's try to appreciate what we have got; and then let's be careful about how we go about changing it. If we are not careful about what we go aiming for, we risk achieving permanent successes that leave us less happy than where we started.
For my part, I'm happy letting Ms. Manley and her acquaintances go off to Fort Wayne for franchise steakhouses, if that's what they want to do. But please do not let us end up bringing Fort Wayne here and losing Warsaw.
