We deviated from our Friday night OT habit via the Red Hawk tonight. Fortunately I only encountered drizzle on my walk downtown. It started pouring cats and dogs after I got there and I did not have any rain gear with me. I hope we are not finished with the OT although I have always liked the Red Hawk. We had a window seat but I didn’t see the crane over the Diag until we left the restaurant. Through Nickel’s Arcade, across the street to the old Jacobson’s parking lot, and home from there.

I used to “shop” at Jacobson’s a lot. Not that I bought a lot of stuff there. It was an upscale department store and therefore didn’t match my budget but I did buy a few things there over the years. Once a long time ago, the beach folk were down here on Black Friday and we were shopping downtown. I think we were at John Leidy (specialty gift shops (shops is not a typo) across the street from Jacobson’s) when Radical Betty asked where Grandroobly (her brother) was. Upon hearing he was at Jacobson’s she rather incredulously asked, “What is Jack doing at Jacobson’s?” Using the bathroom, of course. Oh. Yeah. And we both dissolved into laughter as we so often did.

I’m not sure if that parking lot ever really belonged to Jacobson’s or not. Certainly nowadays it is city-owned or contracted or whatever. Jacobson’s is long gone, as is John Leidy. Jacobson’s moved (or expanded, I can’t remember) to Briarwood Mall for a while, where it took over a Lord & Taylor store and eventually the whole thing closed. The downtown store was taken over by Borders when it moved from its original location on State Street and we all know what happened to Borders (alas). Nowadays Knight’s Steakhouse operates a restaurant in the old Jacobson’s location. It is a fine restaurant but we tend to prefer our neighborhood Knight’s location. When I *have* been to the downtown Knight’s the bathroom is in the basement and I can’t figger if it’s in the same location as the old Jacobson’s bathroom or not. Maybe my old coot knows.

Nowadays I avoid department stores and malls like poison and buy all my clothing online.

The crane. I’m not sure what this crane is all about but cranes are a regular sight in our small/mid-sized city (120K). I believe there’s something in the city zoning that allows 14 story buildings as a height max. And so for the last 10 years or so, developers have been building 14 story buildings like nobody’s business. I don’t want to be a NIMBY but it seems excessive to me. Also, given that a lot of folks in our city give lip service to “affordable” housing, many of these buildings are designed for “young professionals”. Whatever that means. University students with rich parents maybe? There are a lot of things I do not understand. This is one of them. For more reasons that I can begin to articulate tonight.

Anyway, the crane. As much as I hate the kind of progress that jams a beautiful little garden city with 14 story upscale apartment buildings, I enjoy the “art” involved in the juxtaposition of nature’s creations (i.e., trees in this case) and man-made feats of engineering.

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