Speak Out 5/29/09

Bring back Broadway

MANY in Cape Girardeau like to pretend that the city is an up-and-coming, booming little river town. If having an ungodly number of chain restaurants and antique shops makes a city boom, then they are right. Cape's downtown district has so much potential. It saddens me when I see the vacant buildings on Broadway and Main Street. Word has it that many of these buildings are owned by the same people. It seems to many of us that the owners of these properties could sell just one or two of them and invest that money into one of the others. How nice would it be to have a theater back on Broadway.

Just say no

WITH their self-esteem probably at an all-time low, I hope the hapless area homeless didn't read the May 24 edition of the Southeast Missourian. If they did, they learned that leadership representatives from every segment of Cape Girardeau's community from men of the cloth to businessmen, educators and politicians oppose efforts to give the homeless a temporary home in downtown Cape Girardeau. In addition, the tone of the letters indicated to me an almost smug sense of pride in being able to jump on the "just say no" bandwagon and pile on the poor homeless.

Olden days

THERE was a time when I was just 3 years old and our road was considered to be the boonies. When the salt truck went up our hill, we would brush the salt off because we could slide down through two yards and out into the sandy road. We hitched our sleds and toboggans together and had such great fun. Now this road filled with doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs. I miss the olden days. Does anyone else?