How a person who has only been in Springfield briefly once before sees the town.
Friday, November 23, 2018
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Let me guess, you didn't get the job because you're a freak.
ReplyDeleteThis is a terrible representation of our town. It is not constructive, informative or positive in any way. I watched it thinking it would get better but it just got worse and worse. Who is this guy and how did this get on the Blog?
ReplyDeleteSorry, folks. That's how people see this town when they first come here. You all thought I was kidding when I said college-educated suburbanites would be horrified, didn't you? Lucky for us he didn't come through here 4 or 5 years ago, when it was worse. Remember the Plywood Palace? The dope dealing in front of the Woolson Block in broad daylight? The Rite-Aid getting robbed every other week? I nearly walked away from the downstroke on my house after one trip through downtown. YES, it has gotten a lot better here, but it still has a long way to go. Just be glad he didn't drive up Park st.!
ReplyDeleteWhat impression of the town do you think someone would get from reading the comments on this blog?
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention that, because I read this blog before I bought a house here. I dismissed most of what I read as the usual conservative griping, and bought here anyway. I understood there would be a certain amount of truth to what some people said, but also I knew that much of it was exaggerated. Yes, I believe that the negative comments on this blog, and the attitudes expressed by many of their authors, are problematic. I was able to see beyond the angry, childish rhetoric, and physical decay, and see a town with potential. Not everyone has that much vision, or patience. As I said, there have been many improvements here over the last 5 years, but I've had to take a lot of crap in that time. Most educated professionals won't put up with that much.
DeleteI left Springfield 12 years ago after living there for more than fifty years. I worked for J&L and Fellows for many years and still have family there. As one of my sons who now lives out of state once said as we shared a ride back to our homes after visiting our relatives, "the best thing about visiting Springfield is being able to leave Springfield". A once thriving town now just a shadow of what it once was, high taxes and few good jobs.
ReplyDeleteThat's a wonderful illustration of the shop town mentality, 6:26! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm really beginning to question some people's assessment of Springfield being a "thriving" town in the distant past. The word "thriving" gets used by conservatives a lot; it's just code for "conservative." I actually drove through here once back in 1970, on the way back from a vacation in Canada, when I was kid (dad took a wrong turn.) My memory isn't very clear, but I remember seeing a lot of old factory buildings, and not much else. Not much different from the industrial sections of every city I'd ever seen; old, dirty, and congested. I would have never imagined that I would one day live here. Human beings have a tendency to romanticize the past; "the old days" were always better than they actually were. Towns used to measure success by the number of smoke-belching factory chimneys it had! This town has the potential to be better than it ever was, but it will have to let go of the past to do it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment. I never saw Springfield during its so-called glory days. When I moved here I saw vast potential and a lot of very interesting buildings that could be redeveloped. Unfortunately, it took awhile to realize that the Town leadership was living in the past and not taking any steps to capitalize on that potential and was heavily encumbered by inertia. We started to overcome that inertia about 5 years ago, but right now we seem to be stuck in limbo again, and the shop mentality is starting to creep back in.
DeleteOther than the recent road resurfacing, and the demolition downtown for the park, things seem to have slowed down a bit, for sure. Does anybody know when the J&L is coming down? It was supposed to happen every year, for three years now! There are still private owners fixing up old homes, but many of those are being turned into rentals. Not the direction this town needs to go. One place I lived in had a novel approach; give the properties away. The town would give the foreclosed homes it owned to a qualified home buyer, provided they brought the home up to code in the first year, and lived in it for at least five years thereafter. It put empty homes back on the tax roles, as owner-occupied single family homes. I think that could work well here.
DeleteI don't know if it was better, back in the day when the shops were active. The sidewalks, roads, walls, and general infrastructure were maintained in a lot better shape. There was no shortage of tax receipts to cover budgets. There were stores enough to provide affordable necessities without traveling elsewhere. All the houses on Park & Union were well maintained and contained families. People walked a lot more and sat on their porches a lot more. Most households had a single wage-earner, and it worked pretty well. High school graduates could pretty much all read, and many went to college. The high school teams often fared pretty well at the state level, as in Division I. People rarely locked their doors or cars. Dogs ran loose. There were small stores in every neighborhood. There were several bars / nightspots in town. We had a radio station. Many more people used the town pool and tennis courts. The Community House was often packed, especially on weekends when they had roller skating upstairs or dances. We had Ira Marshall too. There were a lot more birds around, and more flowers and also more insects. I don't recall it being either particularly conservative or liberal. A lot has changed. Better or worse, I don't know.
Delete"Road resurfacing" 6:54? Do you recollect what disgraceful condition the roads were allowed to get into before they were shimmed or resurfaced? If they were allowed to deteriorate any further they would have become impassable!!!
DeleteI'm sure some things were better here 50 years ago. Most places were. Everything was 50 years newer, anyway. Typical shop town life, where people zombie off to work every day, come home, get drunk, fall asleep, and do it again until they retire; too worn out and broken to get out of their Barco-loungers. I watched my father do it for 40 years. I did it, too. There were bars, where every day you could listen to the middle-aged drunks regale you with how they won the high school football game, before stumbling home. Pretty depressing, really. There's more to life than simply having a job, a barstool to sit on, and a house with a scrap of a yard to die in. Some people around here get that. Some don't, and as long as they run things, nothing will change. Who's Ira Marshall?
DeleteIra was the town character, known as the Mayor of Main Street. He was, ah, self-employed and was often seen walking around town. He had a more or less regular routine, including a swing all the way up to Howard Johnson's for coffee. For some he was an object of ridicule, which he didn't take very well, but he seemed decent enough to talk civilly with. Later in life he got a fur coat that he wore during cold weather. He was well-known and accepted as a fixture of the town. Nowadays he probably wouldn't stand out as much.
Delete10:37, most jobs unavoidably involve having to "zombie off" to work every day. The job and scrap of yard is the basic deal, the best basic deal most people get or can get or should expect to get, and that goes for today as well as 50 years ago. What to do with remaining disposable time and income is up to individuals and their families. Not everyone chooses alcohol or other drugs to fill up the rest of their lives.
Phil, what you describe is a town that was adequate at serving the basic needs of its citizens, but not all of the time, and only if you didn't expect too much. (High school graduates that could "pretty much" all read? YIKES!) Nothing extra, and not the "thriving" paradise described by the local conservatives. Believing that what the shop owners gave you for your labor is "all you should expect to get" works pretty well for the shop owners. Don't get me started on what a load of crap that is. They all made out like bandits when they sold out, didn't they? No, not everyone who works for a living spends their money on booze, but I'm the only one I ever knew, or worked with, that didn't. Ok, so Springfield wasn't a working-class nirvana. I really don't care. What was once here is now gone. Since I now have a vested interest in this town's success, I'm concerned with how this town is going to move forward. Pointing fingers and playing politics isn't going to get the job done. As a college-educated suburbanite, I have some solutions, if anyone cares to listen. I won't even charge you, which is more than can be said for all the consultants around here!
DeleteAbout the "pretty much all read", it's hard to convey tongue-in-cheek with writing. Basic education in Springfield schools (and many others) was better 50 years ago than it is now, significantly better, in my inexpert opinion based on observed contemporary reading skills and comprehension of more recent graduates.
DeleteMy family had alcohol but it wasn't overdone. Several, including my father and I, worked in the shops for extended periods, 40 years in my case. The family did fine, we all turned out well and have had pretty good lives. I think that was generally the case in Springfield during those years. Bryant paid for me to attend college evenings, and I got a bachelor's degree doing so, for which I'm grateful. I can't even imagine a viable alternative to working for a living.
You're right about going forward. There's no going back, never is, never was. (MAGA believers take note.) Antecedents might affect future developments in the near term, but not only is the town greatly different now, the national and global context is. Where we go from here will be somewhere new. Frankly, it's scary.
If we can't get off of supply-side economics, there is nowhere to go but down. It's coming sooner than most people think, if they think at all. The stock market is fluctuating badly, the corporate debt bubble is expanding, and the Big Three automakers are laying off a lot of employees. Economists are predicting we'll go below 2% GDP in 2019. Get ready, America, it's happening again.
DeleteThanks for that 10:07!!
ReplyDeleteWhen Wall Street raped (literally: "carried off") Precision Valley, the blow to the capital base was such that we had to raise property taxes 247% in 1983 to continue to provide adequate services.
ReplyDeleteThe Planning Commission in 2016 was informed that Springfield faced $21,000,000 in road and sidewalk repairs to bring all up to standard. It chose not to include that information in the Town Plan's revision.
One of the results of the rape of Precision Valley was the loss of the $114,000,000 annual payroll. If you look at the household income profile for the town, there is a tremendous drop in middle class income-- in 2014, 95% of households were earning 50% of all the income earned in Springfield, and 5% were making the other 50%. This was not all the income earned in Springfield, but the remainder was earned by people not living in town.
The result is that Springfield now has a lot more people in the financial position of the Mayor of Springfield, Ira Marshall, only a lot more stressed out than he was. It's hardly surprising that they would seek to escape at least temporarily with booze or drugs.
It's interesting that we say the big problem is an opioid epidemic when the death rate due to alcoholism is 50% higher. Maybe we just prefer to focus on the next new thing.
Chuck is currently sitting in His home in chester contriving new "facts," ready to pounce on those that do not agree with him and accuse them of beating their families. Sounds healthy...
DeleteThings are much better now. I sit on the couch and stare at my smartphone. Play grand theft auto and hang out on facetrash. Buy stuff on wayfare and amazon. Get my meals at mcds. Get paid by the state. Ah the good life.
ReplyDeleteWell that was about 5 minutes of my life that I can't get back. Honestly, this guy is a complete moron. I think from Brattleboro, and that is so much better. Hopefully he won't get the job here, because we don't need anymore morons! Anyone with any half a brain would do some research when looking at another area to work before speaking. I'm sort of figuring he hopes to get more subscribers for his blog than actually find work.
ReplyDeleteSpringfield has had it challenges as all of the towns up 91. I think there is room for improvement, but we have done a lot of great things.
Before you complain about my post. Tell me what you have done to help Springfield become a better place to live. If you haven't and only complain on this blog... don't respond.
ReplyDeleteIn my honest opinion, it's all about the FREE human fecal compost available at the Wastewater Plant. Humans should NOT grow their veggies in heavy metal human feces. Springfielders who do have morphed into a zombie race.....I see them all the time wandering around town!!!
ReplyDelete