Most of the time I am optimistic. I prefer to praise rather than complain. Or if I complain, I like to be able to suggest a solution.
But today I just need to vent.
Hollister is a mess. Specifically, downtown Hollister.
To my friends at the Hollister Downtown Association and the Chamber of Commerce, I apologize. But it needs to be said. I took a walk downtown at about 8 Monday morning and I did not like what I saw.
With the loss of Dick Bruhn (not only a Hollister occurrence), the yucky storefronts on San Benito Street are starting to outnumber the cool ones. Empty stores, peeling painted windows and storefront financial offices are not my idea of an inviting shopping environment.
Especially the shops that use painted windows for their signage are starting to look worn out. I admire the painter’s talent, but those signs should be temporary, for a special event, not left up month after month while they fade and peel.
Worse than junky, a small market had let meat juices leak out of its Dumpster and run onto the sidewalk. The stink was growing and flies buzzed around it. I thought of going inside to demand that they correct this public health hazard but wasn’t sure what to suggest: waste water by hosing it into the storm drain?
Then as I turned down a side street, I saw a couple of trucks with bumper stickers showing pit bulls in an aggressive pose.
I don’t know for sure whether pit bulls are naturally aggressive or not, but if the people who own them like them for being tough and aggressive, it doesn’t matter what their natural tendencies are; they will be tough and aggressive.
It was the pit bull bumper stickers that made everything else I had seen on my walk start to seem really grim, and then I saw the junk food wrappers littering a neighbor’s front yard. I don’t know these neighbors very well, but something tells me they didn’t leave that trash there.
Come on, everybody, get with it!
Later that morning I stood in line to pay my water bill behind a young man who happened to say he had been in Iraq. Three tours of duty, in fact. Now he is a police officer in a peninsula town.
I thanked him for his service and we talked a little bit. He said he had moved his family to Hollister for the small-town atmosphere.
Well, our small town is going to dry up and blow away if we’re not careful. Have you shopped there lately? Have you checked out the merchants that are energetically offering unique and individually chosen goodies?
Have you gone downtown for a coffee? Did you attend the free concert in front of Vets Hall last Friday?
Are you taking advantage of the prosperity and abundance the young veteran fought for, or only the freedom to litter your neighbor’s lawn or train mean dogs?
