ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!

Sometimes I really hate what is happening to this area, especially around Gallatin. I took some time yesterday to go yardsaling with my mom and we ended up in this subdivision across from Vol State. (One way to get to it is to go up the street the Muffler Place is on and turn left near the end of the road.)

This subdivision, except for the fact that the houses are not in pastel colors, looks almost exactly like the one from Edward Scissorhands. There were maybe four or five houseplans used for hundreds of houses and yesterday, everyone had identical large green trashcans out on the curb. I swear, everytime I find myself in this place, I say the same thing: "I think I've seen this movie."

How can anyone stand to live like this? All the cookie-cutter houses are all scrunched up together and the only privacy you really have is in the house with all the curtains and blinds closed up tight.

What they did to Mrs. Wemyss' Fairvue is even worse. They took a property on the Register of Historic Landmarks and ruined it. People say, "Oh, but it's place on the register is safe. We are doing what we can to protect the house."

Newsflash, people: the house wasn't the reason the property was on the register. Yes, the house was built by Isaac Franklin but the reason Fairvue go put on the register is this: it was the last and most intact example of a working plantation left in the United States. I say it again: it wasn't just the house - it was the land left with the property and outlying buildings on it. This includes the two remaining slave quarters and overseer's house, mushroom house, tobacco base, everything. There were crops growing on the place until just a very few years ago.

The shells of some of the original buildings, including the main house, are still there. Now all that is there is ugly, crappy, utterly unnecessary multi-million dollars houses with that stupid golf course running throughout the whole damn property.

This area is losing ties to its history at a crazy rate. What are they going to do? Knock everything down and then put up a little historical marker saying, "Oh yeah - here's what used to stand on this spot before we put up the Walgreens..."

I am not opposed to progress. What I'm opposed to is the uncontrolled sprawl that swallows everything in its path. What I'm opposed to is unthinking greed that sees nothing but nasty subdivisions all over the earth.

Wake up people! Remember the past and save a little bit of it, so we can remember where we come from. After all, it was a very smart person that said, "Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it."