Five thoughts that came to me while driving around Greensboro
Greensboro is a (furious coughing fit) city on the move!
1.Greensboro is mostly just a collection of highways, leading outward and around and not actually, you know, TO anywhere in particular, and yet they are building more all the time. The new Interstate 73 is cutting through the woods between my house in Oak Ridge and my in-laws’ place in Summerfield. On my way to work, I drive over a new outerbelt that’s being carved out with bulldozers. And then there are the highways that are already there: Bryan Boulevard, Wendover Avenue, U.S. 220, Business 85, I-40, I-840, I-85. A map of Greensboro already looks like a bowl of spaghetti, and they just keep adding more noodles, man.
I have a theory about this, and I am probably wrong, but hear me out. Someday, when everyone except for SAS executives and bank vice presidents are priced out of the Triangle and Charlotte, they are going to want a cheaper place to live that’s within reach of both cities, and guess what? Greensboro’s got your infrastructure RIGHT HERE BABY. They can see the future! The population boom! This place, it’s old, but it’s got good bones.
2. I drove over to the old World War Memorial Stadium yesterday afternoon. It was built in 1926 by veterans of the up-until-then only world war. It was home to the Greensboro Yankees/Hornets/Bats until 2004, when they moved downtown and became the Grasshoppers. Right field sits over a creek that runs underneath in a tunnel. The roof over the seating, which consists largely of hand-me-down chairs from the Greensboro Coliseum, is wooden and held up with iron pillars and cantilevers. The playing surface looks nice, but the rest of the place is proudly decaying. They’ve closed off most of the bleacher seating along the third base line. The paint is peeling everywhere. The furniture in the press box consists almost exclusively of plastic lawn chairs. I’m writing a short Our State story about something that happened there years ago, so I figured I might as well get out there and look.
The best part about old ballparks is that they were built for you to do one thing and one thing only: watch a baseball game. If you wanted to buy a beer, you had to go down into a dank tunnel underneath the grandstand. Also, there is nowhere to go and just stand around (to be fair, there was a sort of picnic area out in left field for a while here, but it’s long gone now).
I’ve been to the new Grasshoppers ballpark downtown a couple of times now, and it’s designed to let you do any host of things while occasionally glancing at the baseball game. There’s a playground! There’s a bar in left field! There’s a putting green! A PUTTING GREEN! Everyone once in a while you hear the crack of the bat and think, wait, is that ball headed my way? When you realize it’s not, you’re free to go back to your phone.
This is one of those things that ballparks had to do to evolve, I guess, but it’s interesting to note that there used to be a time when people went to games in person to watch the game. Now, buying a ticket is great way to spend an evening at an outdoor bar with a cover charge.
3. I went to Smith Street Diner for lunch, and there was a guy in there with a long blonde pony tail, tight jeans, and some sort of Android smartphone clipped to his belt. He was eating alone, which was both sad and inevitable, really. I found this amusing before I realized that I was eating alone too. My pony tail is invisible. But it’s there.
4. After lunch, I made fun of a Charlotte Agenda article:
Ha! I’m clever! I totally could have followed up with a topical joke about scrip! But seriously folks, there’s something ironic about me needling the syntax of a headline about a new place opening in Charlotte while I sit here in Greensboro, which probably has far fewer company stores opening. And when new places do open, I rarely know about it, because Greensboro’s local media scene does not seem to have the same laser focus on millennials/snake people. As a result, I’ve had to resort to making fun of things I actually encounter in person instead of online. Such as:
EXCEPTION:
Keep your newfangled “company stores,” Charlotte. They will never make you as happy as that pig.
5. U.S. News and World Report, which ranks things, ranked Greensboro as the 51st best place to live in America. I feel like it’s worth mentioning that the system may be slightly flawed here, as Fayetteville, Arkansas just barely nipped Raleigh-Durham for third place. I know! SUCH A HARD DECISION!
I love lists that rank cities, because they make no sense. In 2013, Greensboro was named America’s least sexy city. In 2016, it was named America’s 22nd most romantic city. Now it’s the 51st best place to live in the United States. It is also the best city in the state to celebrate New Years Eve. It ranks as the fifth worth city for respiratory infections.
What does all this mean?
(long pause)
(jots notes)
(carries the one)
Greensboro is a (furious coughing fit) city on the move!
This, however, remains the best part of the U.S. News writeup:
THERE IS NO SUBWAY SYSTEM. If only this city’s forefathers would have had the courage to see the future. We could have been Rochester! Instead, I have to just drive everywhere, on brand new roads, at top speed, to nowhere in particular. At least some day, when you all move here, I’ll already know how to get around.