Hardly anyone back in the Olden Days thought they’d be at Mexican Original longer than a few weeks or months . . . until a better job came along. Many of us stayed considerably longer than that, however, and during the years of its operation on Huntsville Road perhaps literally thousands of our friends, neighbors and family members also worked there.
It was a little more laid back in 1980 (the year I began working there) than in later years; I recall a small group of us sharing a beer with the night shift supervisor one night in the parking lot after our shift was over.
I was thinking about all of our fellow thousands of folks from Northwest Arkansas who toiled in a building which often rose to over one hundred degrees in the summer, and sank to to the forties and fifties in the winter months (not to mention the fact that the roof leaked during heavy storms) as I read of Fayetteville Alderman Sarah Marsh’s desire to see at least part of the Huntsville Road property turned into something that would have a more direct connection to the neighborhood than a Kum & Go - whose employees are forced to dress like museum guards, but still have to do the same drudge work as any other mini-mart type employee - and whose online job interview questions left me so creeped out that I vowed last night never to spend a dollar supporting them.
Community garden?
Recycling drop-off facility?
Public park?
These all sound like dandy ideas to me.
Speaking personally, of course, it might be nice to have a park which specifically honors the working class folks of our community. But that’s just me; I always got me one of them personal agendas goin’ on.
Speaking of agendas, Ms. Marsh was roundly criticized by the editorial in Saturday’s issue of the Northwest Arkansas Times, which advised us:
“Let’s not use municipal policy to enforce one alderman’s personal agenda.”
News Flash!
I suspect that most, of not all, of the men and women who run for public office have a “personal agenda” - only in polite company it is usually referred to personal philosophy, I suppose. It is part of the rich diversity of our culture, and our government, which brings so many views together.
Marsh - just as much as, say, an alderman whose philosophy/personal agenda is formed by “free market principles” - is perfectly free to try and persuade others on the city council of her views. Maybe she’ll be persuasive, maybe she won’t. The folks who voted for Sarah Marsh no doubt appreciate her “personal agenda,” and probably appreciate her speaking her mind about such issues.
It’s not like she has Jedi mind tricks, after all. The others on the council will either agree with her, or they won’t.
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Quote of the Day
“I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyeballs water.” - Harlan Ellison
rsdrake@cox.net