We drove down to see James' mother today for obvious reasons :-). On the way to the house, we drowe down Watson Boulevard in Warner Robins to go to the cemetery to drop off a flower arrangement at James' dad's grave.

We usually take another way to the house and were aghast at the development on the street. It used to be the outskirts of town with little local businesses dotted here and there, a building supply, mobile home sales, big tracts of bare land, etc. No longer: it's covered with restaurants, a couple of motels, lots and lots of stores.

On the way home we looked down Eisenhower Boulevard which leads to Macon Mall. Previously there had been a cluster of gas stations, a few stores, a Sam's Club, and a couple of motels at the intersection, then the businesses petered out and at the top of the hill there was a ridge of trees that hid the building of the US Office of Personnel Management where James used to work.

The trees are gone and even from the freeway you can see a shopping center lining the hill, with a Ross Dress for Less and other stores.

Heck, we'd stopped at the flea market exit in Henry County which used to be a few metal buildings in big expanse of farmland. The last few times we had been down there, they'd cleared the land and were building a huge shopping center. Now most of the stores are ready to open; indeed the BJ's is already open.

God knows I love some new stores. BJ's is great to explore and I applaud new Borders and Barnes & Noble's. But it's getting so you can't look anywhere that used to be beautiful countryside and see shopping centers sprouting everywhere, and it's annoying because elsewhere there are shopping centers with both big and small properties for rent.

I'm agreeing more and more with Rupert Holmes' "Town Square": "And say 'Enough now, enough now, can't you let it be?'"

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:27:00 PM

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