Stretched
Weekly Update 9/18/2022 to 9/24/2022 #139
When I was a kid…yes, I am going to go there and use my youth as an example for today’s column. Before I do though, let me share about my week serving as the mayor of the best smalltown in America.
Even though the Oktoberfest is not organized by the city we still have plenty of work to get done before it happens. For weeks we have had prep work going on not only in the downtown area but throughout the entire city. This year though, we had a group meeting with city departments, Oktoberfest board members, area organizations, and many others I am sure I can’t remember. This was, from what I am told, a first, but in 49 years of Oktoberfest, I can’t confirm if that is true or not. Regardless, it was a chance for everyone to get on the same page just a week ahead of the streets closing and the festival getting underway. Thank you, DPW Director Chad Dixon, for organizing this meeting and to everyone who attended to help prepare for the 49th Annual Oktoberfest.
This week, I took a morning to work with Planning and Zoning. We did our usual checks of troubled spots. I am always amazed at how much change happens between these checks. For the crew that normally does these, it sometimes isn’t as noticeable. For me coming around every six to seven weeks it can sometimes be 180 degrees. One property that we have talked about and worked on since 2020 has now changed ownership and is under a major renovation. One block that was declining and had weekly, and sometimes daily, complaints started with a remodel in the middle of the block. That one led to improvements a couple of doors down. Then another and another until the block looks much better and we don’t hear much about it anymore. It is hard, though, to get people to realize that overnight success stories are anything but overnight. They take many weeks, months, and sometimes years to accomplish.
Guess it is time to get back to that opening thought from back when I was a kid. My first bicycle brought with it the freedom to explore my world. It didn’t take long before I was allowed to ride around the block. Jump the sidewalk the tree roots pushed up. Slide through the gravel where the alley met the street. Struggle up the slight incline around the other side of the block. I fully believed it was the best it could ever get. Add a few more years and I was allowed to go a few blocks farther. Again, I believed this was it, and it couldn’t get any better. As time went by, the boundaries grew, and I always kept thinking this was as good as it could get. Getting my driver's license expanded that even further. Eventually, I realized the world is much larger than I could ever imagine, and that even though I had believed many times that this was as good as it gets, I was wrong. How could I be wrong on something that I believed? How could my thoughts have led me astray? The answer is because my mind hadn’t yet discovered new ideas, new experiences, and that any day you learn something is a good day. Fast forward to today and it helps me as I learn as much about various topics and am always excited to gain even a little more knowledge as the day goes by. Sometimes the best is when I discover that what I have been led to believe is not the truth. Those moments can be hard to accept at first because they go against what I have set as a belief. I am thankful, though, when they do happen because as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, "A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." Thank you to everyone that has ever helped me have new experiences, new perspectives, and have helped stretch my mind to what it is this second because in just a few seconds it could be stretched again.