[Alumni-chat] Recent Visit to YS

[toyboy (andy at svcable.net)]

All you say is fair enough Lesley. Maybe I'm confused what caricature you were describing - YSO or Antioch! 

I realize that I'm probably coming across as Dr. Pangloss in things I write. Signs of old age I suppose. I'm not terribly excited at the existence of McGregor Bldg, but there it is, and it certainly does look odd, and it certainly will change things. Yet, I had similar feelings when I first saw the big Antioch Publishing Company building out there. And am I being too extreme to venture that when the Vernay Labs building was first built out that way,  that it too stuck out like a sore thumb and some people in town were upset? (That empty building right now is more a sore thumb to me than the McGregor Building. I once pleaded to Swanson the Town Mgr to give that place to people like me, i.e. small time manufacturers, etc. We dont need a fancy high rent business park, just want a roof over our head. But he is powerless to do eminent domain.) Development hurts. No moreso in a place like Yellow Springs. It is seldom the sort of development anyone wants. As you suggest, 675 has had more
influence on the town, for good or bad, than any one building in town. But in the end, isn't it complacency and incest that hurts more?

I just am trying to be a bit more careful, at my detriment probably, in determining how Antioch got moldy. Don't forget, for better or worse, the announcement for closure came with the announcement for reopening in 4 years. It is only due to the vast chasm of mistrust, and cynicism towards University motives, that there is a fight now. (I myself feel there is value in closing the campus for awhile, but with safeguarding tenured faculty.) I share your feelings about the campus. And I too am certainly hoping for some renaissance on campus as well. It is just hard to know which clowns to choose to lead Antioch into the future. If I now understand you, it's there we can agree to some extent. 

As for Wal-Mart, I'm still steadfast in my goal of getting through life without going into a Wal-Mart. So far, the only time  I've broken my vow is when my dog ran off during a walk, and ended up inside one.