There it was on the corner of Crack and Meth, a shack. I used to drive by the shack and point it out to the Cadet, "Play your cards right, son, and you too could live there." But not anymore, the shack has gone, reduced to a small pile of inconsequential debris in this once prosperous farming community.
And it was prosperous, complete with shops, businesses and 20,000 people. All on a walkable, human scale too. You know the score or perhaps you've read about it, being able to walk around your town saying hello to friends and avoiding enemies, perhaps shooting the latter in this instance. Hey, it was the frontier.
Then the asset-strippers took over, King Cotton moved overseas and the town hollowed out as the socio/psychopaths in charge of the way we live now decided to turn our towns and cities into roads. What would you rather live in, a city or a road? Asked no one, not waiting for an answer.
Net result? Shacks, which are returning to nature. Imagine, if you can, how that'll play out in our vast suburbs over the course of the next few decades. Think Detroit on a continental scale. But maybe there's hope, maybe we'll turn this thing around and start living, approximately, as we should.
Who knows. Next time you drive into any one of our Mega Cities, look at the landscape to either side of the highway and ask, "Could we do any better? Or is there some kind of law that says, 'No, you have to create the ugliest possible environment to live in, otherwise you won't be so rich.'"
Demonic, eh? In the meanwhile, I thank God I'm in the country, shacks and all.
Cheers,
LSP
