Sherry Chandler

Caption on an above-the-fold photograph in the July 26 edition of the local paper, The Bourbon County Citizen:

Paris City employees begin cleaning up brush that will be the home of the Paris Dog Park in the future.

I leave you to apply your own punch line to that statement.

The Citizen assures us that our wonderful new Wal-Mart Supercenter will be operational by January 2007. Construction certainly seems to be moving rapidly, which is more than I can say for commuter traffic. That is being stopped by a flagger so that big earth movers can take dirt from one side of the by-pass and dump it on the other. All the traffic islands are torn up so the road can be reworked to accommodate the shopping center entrance. Who knew traffic islands went down two or three feet.

I go to work through town now.

We were promised a bigger better box, with a colonial façade to blend in with the rest of our pseudo-colonial architecture in that area (Bo Co High School being the prime example), but all I see at this point is a big box covered with brick veneer. I’ll admit that I’m a hostile witness.

Companion stores leasing in so far include a discount gas station, a Dairy Queen, and a Starbucks.

Yessirree Bob. Pretty soon Paris, Kentucky will have a Super Wal-Mart, a Starbuck’s, and some nice controlled green space with clean brush for walking our dogs. We’ll look like every other town in America and we’ll be happy. Don’t pay any attention to the empty storefronts downtown. And the jobs! Now our children can aspire to a career as a barrista without leaving home.

For further rants about the biggest box of all, I refer you to Have Coffee Will Write here and here.