Alan Jenkins editorial on aforementioned brouhaha

I neglected to mention Alan Jenkins' editorial on the aforementioned animal hospital brouhaha. It can be seen at this link. I apologize for linking to these graphical versions of the paper (which are equal parts annoying and useful) but that's all The Waxhaw Exchange and their masters at The Enquirer-Journal are giving us.

I found it a rather strange editorial as it seems to be all over the place. Here's a quick rundown for those without the free time to read it or the patience to deal with its web format:

1) A new animal hospital might be coming to Waxhaw.
2) We tend to ignore government, but let's take a closer look one government process.
3) Waxhaw resident wants to open a new animal clinic, much to the dismay of the owners of the town's only current animal hospital.
4) Owners of current animal hospital go before town board to protest conditional-use permit; hooray for them running to the government!
5) Let me teach you about the First Amendment.
6) Try doing that in North Korea or China; that $#!& will get you killed there.
7) The town board told them they'll consider it, but rightly won't decide the issue on the basis of competitiveness.
8) You know? That might just not be such a bad thing for the Waxhaw Animal Hospital.
9) The system works.

I've got the whole thing converted to text at this point, but that the gist of it.

Animal hospital brouhaha Waxhaw-style

Which apparently means one party runs straight to local government hoping for intervention.

The Waxhaw Exchange and The Enquirer-Journal featured the same article regarding the Waxhaw Animal Hospital appealing to town commissioners to put a stop to Wendy Weeks attempts to open an animal clinic at 3520 Providence Rd. South, or the location formerly known as Carolina Blue Pools.

Sherri's on the case; read the whole thing here:

Jason Burtis and his wife, Tanya, own Waxhaw Animal Hospital. They bought it from Dr. Kenneth Tapley in 2002 and expanded it to a new building.

“My concern is that the new hospital would be a mile and a half from us on the main corridor,” Burtis told the board, “and potentially impact our ability to continue to grow and give medicine.”

I would have a problem with government intervening for a local business worried about competition. Competition benefits the consumers and Mayor Gardner's comments are right on target so far.

After all comments were made, Mayor Daune Gardner said the Board would deliberate on the issue at the next meeting on May 25.

“In this process the Board has to look at the application in front of them in terms of the use, and if it is appropriate for the site,” Gardner said at the meeting. “We can’t really look at issues of competitiveness.”

Deliberations supposedly occurred yesterday, so we'll see what verdict they render.

As a side note, I should add that we've used Waxhaw Animal Hospital in the past and they helped us through some hard times with our Doberman and ultimately helped us put her down. That was a difficult time and we had not one complaint about how they handled themselves and dealt with the grieving owners.

OT: Hayes Carll & Dierks Bentley

As I mentioned earlier, my wife & I went to the Hayes Carll & Dierks Bentley concert on Friday night. I probably should refer to it as the Dierks Bentley/Hayes Carll concert since Dierks was the headliner. I had no idea how big he was until after I got tickets and spoke to some co-workers.

The venue for the penultimate show of the "Up On The Ridge" tour was Coyote Joe's & I liked it right away. Nice wide-open area for the crowd that butts up right against the stage. If you're a big fan of the performer and have no problem getting there early, that's about as close as you can get. One thing to note is a definite lack of seats. We arrived about 7.30p, about 2 hours before anyone took the stage and the limited seats were taken or roped off. We found a wall to lean against for Hayes Carll's performance, but let me tell you, a leaning wall is a far cry from sitting.

Another item of note is that Coyote Joe's is cash only, so luckily for us, I was actually carrying enough cash to buy a couple drinks while we waited...and waited...and waited. Hayes finally took the stage at some point.

His setlist for posterity's sake was:

Hayes Carll (opening for Dierks Bentley & the Traveling McCoury's)
Coyote Joe's, Charlotte, NC 2010-05-21

1) Wild As a Turkey
2) Little Rock - From memory, Hayes prefaced this song with "This is a song about Little Rock; it's called "Little Rock."
3) Drunken Poet's Dream
4) Starcrossed Lovers (new, duet) - My stab at the title. Hayes prefaced this by describing it as a song about a Fox News viewer and an MSNBC viewer. He also mentioned that it would appear on his next album, slated to be released in "summer 2014," a tongue-in-cheek comment (I hope!) on the delay(s) to his upcoming album.
5) I Don't Wanna Grow Up
6) I Got A Gig
7) Hard Out Here (new) - Since this song mainly dealt with hardships from being out on the road, Hayes prefaced this with what was essentially a disclaimer that he realizes in this economy it's tough out there for everyone. I don't think it was necessary, but maybe he'd gotten guff in other towns for this.
8) Bad Liver and a Broken Heart - This was slower than the album version if I recall; beforehand announcing this as the "slow dance portion of the show."
9) Down the Road Tonight

Some comments on Hayes' performance:

1) This was my first Hayes Carll show; I am not aware of him being in this area before, but he's probably come through at one time or another. I was very much looking forward to seeing him live for the first time, but must admit, I was a little disappointed.

My first impression of his vocals was they were not very good, although in my layman's take, he seemed to pick up steam as the show progressed. That being said, I didn't think he sang nearly as well as he does on his studio albums. (Although I see now that Hayes has been gracious enough to allow live audience recordings to be hosted at Archive.org, so they are available for download. Unfortunately, there's nothing from this tour.)

2) I thought the set was very short; only nine songs & under an hour. This may be the norm for opening acts nowadays, but in retrospect, why not bring out the opening act on an hour earlier? The interminable waiting would've gone much quicker and Hayes would've the chance to play more of his songs, which should help him to better build his audience. Perhaps the contract is written in such a way as to disallow this.

3) My wife, never having heard Hayes Carll before, wasn't particularly impressed; she thought all his songs sounded the same. It is important to note that the venue might not have been the ideal place to break out quieter songs such as "Beaumont" and "Don't Let Me Fall," a couple I was hoping to hear.

4) All the above being said, I would love to obtain a recording to give the show another listen. If anyone happened to make one and is willing to share, let me know.

As for Dierks' performance, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure I'd like his earlier material, but I do like me some bluegrass, so Dierks backed by the McCourys was pretty enjoyable. Or at least as enjoyable as being packed in like sardines in a hot club behind a tall cowboy and his cute date could be. (I'll add the couple was excessively nice & upon noticing my wife couldn't see, they were gracious enough to shift to the side so she'd have a better view.)

As an added bonus, as a Dylan fan, I enjoyed hearing bluegrass versions of "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" and "Roving Gambler." We left a little early since my wife's feet were aching from 4 hours of standing, so I missed the end of the show. If Dierks' performance is available, I'd love to get a copy of it to hear the entire show.

Some pictures from Dierks' performance at Coyote Joes's are here for those interested.

Also, a nice review of the next night's performance (the final show of the "Up On The Ridge" tour) at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville is available here for those interested.

Busy weekend

I haven't posted in a while. Besides hosting out-of-town family this weekend, my wife and I took in the Hayes Carll/Dierks Bentley concert at Coyote Joe's on Friday night. We woke up early for our final baseball game of the season, hosted the after-game party, and finished removing the mold from the crawlspace.

Sunday involved finalizing the crawlspace with Microban, other miscellaneous chores, and hunkering down to watch the finale of "Lost" late into the night.

And then back to the grind again. The life of a Waxhaw blogger is not as glamorous as you might have expected.

SC raises cigarette tax by 700%

Waxhaw's smokers are left reeling.

As you've probably heard, the SC Senate overrode Gov. Sanford's veto to push through a 50 cents per pack tax increase. The last day to purchase cigarettes at the current tax rate is June 30th, so I suspect there will be some nominal hoarding occurring. More details on the specifics here.

The Charlotte Observer editorial page is a big fan of the new tax, although I suppose that's not much of a shocker. They take the opportunity to lament that NC didn't gouge the same minority of people with an excessive amount of taxes when given the chance. Read the whole thing here and tell me if you can't envision this entire column, nearly word-for-word, being recycled the next time the government goes after soda, fast food, salt, or whatever simple pleasure they decide you shouldn't be partaking in next.

Here's an opposing opinion detailing some points as to why this new tax increase won't be the financial boon to the SC that its state legislature hopes it to be. The author makes some reasonable points, the most identifiable to Waxhaw being that SC would be losing border sales of NC residents and also the borders sales of its own residents along the Georgia border. If SC prices align with NC prices (even if slightly lower), there's significantly less incentive for NC residents to get their cigarettes while passing through SC. It appears the SC legislature have foolishly planned for increased sales despite a 700% tax increase.

It's worth reading the whole thing.

Cigarette retailers in Indian Land need to have a Customer Appreciation Day on June 30th targeting NC denizens as they come in to buy what might be their last cigarettes from SC. They can make an event out of it.

EDIT 6/24: Fixed a few typos. I really need to start reviewing my grammar more closely before posting.

Marvin Ridge doubles tennis state champs!

A brief shout-out to Marvin Ridge's men's doubles tennis team, more specifically Andrew Treske and Joey Hatala, who recently became state champs in 3A.

The Enquirer-Journal has more details.

Town commissioners attempt end-run

An article in Sunday's The Waxhaw Exchange (which was not delivered to me by the way) discusses the town commissioners' (or at least some of them) attempts to do an end-run around their current inability to control the destiny of historic properties in town. It involved attempting to modify the open burn ordinance to 300 feet which would've prevented any houses in downtown Waxhaw from being burned in a controlled fire.

The goal, detailed by town commish Erin Kirkpatrick, was to modify the town's open burn ordinance to prevent historic properties from being destroyed. Sherri Phengchard writes:

"However, I had hoped to accomplish to protect structures that were 50 years or older, but our town attorney advised that we couldn't put in language such as that," Kirkpatrick said.

The concern about training fires on historic homes began with the Player house, a historic home burned in a training fire.

The burn upset Waxhaw Mayor Daune Gardner because she first heard about the Player house training fire from angry residents, rather than from the fire department.

She said she also wanted to add communications improvements to the ordinance to better protect downtown homes and historic structures.

"The ordinance addressed training fires, but no part discussed the process that required coordination between entities," Mayor Gardner said. "It was very vague. The intent was there, but it was not a defined process."

See pages 1 & 12 here for the whole article. While the mayor refers to "protect[ing] downtown homes", it seems obvious that the chances of a non-intended structure being damaged by a training fire gone amok are slim to none considering the fire department is obviously on-hand to prevent that from occurring. The unlikelihood of this happening seems to suggest that preventing the destruction of historic homes was the main goal of the debated revision to the open burn ordinance.

Whereas town commissioners could not or would not blatantly attempt to ban the destruction of Waxhaw's historic homes, it appears they made significant efforts trying to ban it for all attempts and purposes by modifying the town's open burn ordinance. When politicians attempt this kind of end-run around the limits of their power, it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when this solution seems rather piece-meal.

Had they gone ahead with the ordinance change, as far as I can tell, the only protection it would have afforded historic homes is the fact they couldn't be burned down in controlled burns. The changes to the ordinance would in no way protect these homes from being razed in other ways, thus making the local firefighters and the realistic training they receive the obvious casualty.

Of course, it is important to note that the town commissioners abandoned this course and have left the open-burn ordinance regulations in the hands of someone more qualified. In the unsigned words of The Waxhaw Gazette paraphrasing Commissioner Joyce Blythe:

[W]ho were they to even be able to determine that. At that point it was unanimously agreed that the Fire Chief should probably make that decision for each burn. I would imagine that he would probably know what’s best.

For what it's worth, I have no desire to see Waxhaw's historic buildings get razed one by one, but think the tedious process of gathering private money to purchase and restore these properties is the way to go.

The Waxhaw Exchange makes some powerful enemies

My neighborhood never got Sunday's copy of The Waxhaw Exchange. I can't tell you how many times I walked to the curb feeling optimistic only to be disappointed seconds later.

For those who got shafted like me, don't fret as the online edition can be found here.

Another Historic Waxhaw Walk scheduled

John Anderson's column in Sunday's Observer (can't find it online or else I'd link to it) informs us that Joyce Blythe has scheduled another historic walk around town for this Saturday.

And like nearly all preceding walks, we've already got prior obligations (baseball game) so will be unable to attend once again.

I've transcribed the details for those interested.

Another Historic Waxhaw Walking tour is scheduled for 10 a.m. this Saturday.

This time, Commissioner Joyce Blythe will be joined by Melvin Farris to share reminiscences of times gone by. I've done this tour and I can vouch for the interesting and informative anecdotes that accompany a thoroughly pleasant walk.

Meet at Waxhaw United Methodist Church. Wear comfortable shoes and bring a bottle of water.

Details: Joyce Blythe at 704-843-2246

Think of me if you go as odds are I'll be desperately trying to get my youngest to pay attention to the batter around that time.

More potential trouble...

...from the Fiesta Band, says a young documentary filmmaker. I can honestly say it's as good as any documentary out of the Waxhaw scene that I've seen to date and that includes the various train videos off to the side at the link. If the aforementioned blurb isn't good enough for the jacket, I don't know what would be.

I strongly suggest watching "Good time or Good Crime?" to learn about the boisterously insidiousness of the whole enterprise. If you're anything like me, you'll notice two things:

1) the band went to absurd lengths to drown out the audio as the documentarian tried to interview them on the street. Equal parts caginess and cunning; what were they trying to suppress?
2) Nice work at 3:05 of the video; I loved as he slowly walks down the micro-alley towards the camera a la news magazine.

All that being said, nicely done.

I always figured the first Fiesta Band documentary would be a play off of "Behind the Music" about band infighting. If they continue selling out to the man (and for free pizzas) the band infighting may be closer than we think.

Title needed for another Fiesta Band post

Last Sunday's (May 9th) Charlotte Observer featured an article on the Fiesta Band. For those who keep up with all things Fiesta Band, this is probably just more of the same.

We do learn that the principles of the Fiesta Band have some rules in place, which was news to me as I've yet to see these rules in action.

"We've got a couple rules," Dunn said. "When a train comes by, everybody has to stop what they're doing and square dance..."

The other rule is that they have to walk or dance past the windows at nearby Rippingtons restaurant at least once every Friday. They've done it to the song "YMCA" before and got a good reaction, he said.

But the most interesting part for me was how they're being treated as a town resource by local pols.

The way they energize the corner also has attracted positive attention from town officials.

Mayor Pro Tem Martin Lane recently asked them to have an additional "fiesta" to greet traffic coming through town for the Queen's Cup Steeplechase in Mineral Springs. Mayor Daune Gardner posted on their Facebook page that it would show "the Steeplechase crowd Waxhaw's fun and quirky side..."

The message Lane wanted travelers to get from the Fiesta Band was, "we have fun here in Waxhaw," he said. "Come and hang out next weekend. You don't have to wait till the Steeplechase to have fun in Waxhaw."

I hope these requests will be few & far between because we sure don't want the Fiesta Band to be seen as corrupted by the man. But if they do go that route, have they considered doing my neighborhood block party?

Potential trouble?

A little Facebook birdie (otherwise known as Mark himself) says Southsiders now has wifi access.

While I welcome the change, beer and wifi could make for an interesting combination.

Beyond Waxhaw: Nearby development

A couple development-related items of note on the way to Waxhaw. Many commuters surely have noticed them already but for those who haven't:

* An new Aldi is going up near Young's Garden Center in Lancaster County. I don't think I've ever been to one, mainly because I always figured driving to the Monroe Aldi would essentially negate any savings gained. Not that it's closer (and on the route home for many), it seems like a good place to stretch your dollar.

When the building first started going up, I just assumed it was going to be a CVS or Walgreens because local development seems to suggest you can never have enough drug stores. Needless to say, I was happy to be wrong.

* Heading west out of Waxhaw on Highway 75, there's been some land tucked between Highway 75 and the railroad tracks that's been getting graded for quite some time. And according to the sign that showed up recently, it will eventually become Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. The church appears to still be a long way off though, but when completed, it will surely become the closest Catholic church to Waxhaw.

Before the alcohol referendum passed, I though this would've been an ideal location to open a pub. Right next to the tracks with a van to safely transport Waxhaw denizens back and forth. Good thing for Our Lady of Grace that I had neither a more fully thought-out plan involving little more than a bar, railroad tracks, and a van service nor the seed money to get it off the ground. What can I say? I'm a dreamer.

Another First Friday come & gone

I headed out to First Friday with the boys tonight; the missus was unavailable to partake this time around. Because of this, only two shops were visited this evening - the Library Association used bookstore & Pizza Works.

After what seemed an eternity of searching, we scored two books apiece for the boys (couldn't find anything for me, but my waiting list is so exorbitantly long that that's probably a good thing). Interestingly, my oldest picked up a Scholastic "Tales From the Cryptkeeper" book! Who knew they had these for the 4-8 year old set?

We then headed over to Pizza Works for some ice cream. Given the heat and the fact that I believe Pizza Works is the only game in town as far as ice cream is concerned, I figured there'd be a crowd outside, but nope. We got our ice cream, ate it outside in relative solitude, and headed home, but not before first stopping to take in a little bit of the jazz performance outside Stewart's Village Gallery.

From there, we ended up on the railroad tracks. And given the fun they had cavorting on them, I'd guess that was their favorite part of the evening. We never found any flattened coins, but they were able to dance to some Fiesta Band tunes & run & play. It's the simple things...

Speaking of the Fiesta Band, they were out in full force, but tonight they shifted from their usual location in front of Waxhaw Antique Mart to the other side of South Broome St. Could it have been prompted by the small bit of foresight I exhibited in this post? Almost certainly not, but whatever helps me sleep at night.

As for the movie, it was starting a little too late for our family to enjoy. If anyone attended the showing, let me know how it went. Were they projecting it onto a sheet on the wall of The Furry Godmother?

Nice write-up on JAARS facility

I'm not very familiar with JAARS, but AOPA has an interesting article on the remote jungle training center outside Waxhaw.

Check it out here if interested.

I may have to take the family to one of those quarterly open houses; sounds like fun.

Election update

Just a quick update on Tuesday's election compliments of The Enquirer-Journal. Actual results are here.

I chose to vote on the Republican ballot as I was slightly more familiar with those candidates & I mean more familiar in the loosest sense. It appears all the candidates (not including judges) that I voted for lost except for Richard Burr. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it but wish Fern Shubert would've won.

The Village Scribe update is here for those interested.

Not another First Friday update

Yes, another update on top of my earlier update.

Gavin of the STMSPPC (I'll pause to let that soak in) got back to me with more specifics. Here it is straight from the horse's mouth:

"Yes, there will be a movie shown this Friday presented by CWOW. Raiders of the Lost Ark (family friendly version) will be shown on the side of the building at the corner of South Main St. and South Church St. This is the building where Rippingtons restaurant and the Furry Godmother are located and adjacent to the parking lot where Main St. Grill, Fuzion, Dazzle, and Jackson Hewitt are located. That parking lot would probably be the best place to view the movie. For the best spots, people will need to come early- and bring their own chair. The movie starts at dark.

"Here are a few more details that are not on the flyer. Country music performer Kelly Seidel will be performing in that same parking lot next to Main St. Grill beginning around 5 pm. There will be a Contemporary Christian music band performing near the Bike Depot around the same time. There will be another band (classic rock genre I think) performing in front of or near the Library Association bookstore roughly around the same time as well. And the Fiesta band is expected to be doing their thing at the south corner of Main St. and Broome St."

This flyer below has more specifics about what some of the participating businesses have planned. Take a quick gander at it before heading out that night.

UPDATE 5/6: An update on top of updates; would that be considered post-modern? My guess is no, but an update about my updating could be classified as such. Anyway...

The town website finally has a blurb about First Friday, with a supposed link to the flyer with the always helpfully descriptive 33-random character file names employed by the town, in this case, {18423ADC-D5DE-48F9-ADC9-29E9306F8E19}.PDF.

But unfortunately, it's a link to download the old flyer from April's First Friday, you'd be best served to look at the one above.

OT: The Incredible Adventures of Electron Boy

For those of you who haven't stumbled across this yet, it's a pretty amazing story of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Electron Boy, and evildoers denied.

Check it out.

Voting today

I haven't had any posts on today's primary and that's mainly because the voting snuck up on me. Despite the campaign signs & the telemarketing voicemails (thankfully deleted by my wife before I could hear them), I forgot all about it.

I headed over to the Waxhaw Volunteer Fire Department in the late afternoon & it was deserted. I took the time to turn off my cell phone ringer as directed by the sign, but any potential incoming call would have at most annoyed the election volunteers. When I went to tally my votes, the machine read only 148 votes recorded and this was around 4pm!

To illustrate how ill-prepared I was to vote today, I took the time to write down everyone I was voting for so I could remember later who I had chosen. The only one I knew beforehand was Fern Shubert who was running for the State Senate in District 35. And that only because I remembered her articles in the defunct The County Edge, which oftentimes seemed to oftentimes illustrate government waste and poor decision-making by the powers that be.

April's Crime Report

I'm trying to cram in a bunch of posts since I've been absent for a couple days. Everyone knows Cub Scout camping waits for no one.

Therefore, here's the month of April 2010 crime in Waxhaw (a couple days late) compliments of the Waxhaw PD & CrimeReports.com.

Sign up at CrimeReports.com to get access to these maps & get more detailed details about the crime.

First Friday coming up this Friday...

..and there appears to be limited noticed once again.

Dorothy Maloney's column in The Waxhaw Exchange fails to mention it (column can be found here). John Tiley at The Waxhaw Gazette has not mentioned it as far as I can tell & per his schedule, it appears it won't be published again until too late - this Friday.

But if you're a loyal reader of this blog and its comments and remember every little thing that comes across my wires, you wouldn't be caught unaware. Hopefully the businesses have been informed plenty in advance this time around.

Per Gavin of the STMSPC (heh):

The next First Friday is May 7 and our theme is "Movie Madness". We plan to show movies on a large exterior wall and encourage merchants to host events that are tied to this movie theme (or show movies at their locations).

I wrote up a travelogue of my family's last First Friday, complete with pictures, & figured now would be a good time to share it for what it's worth.

===

I figured walking into town to check out First Friday would be an enjoyable evening and that is exactly what it was. I thought I'd write something up so that maybe those fence-sitters considered checking it out, although I didn't realize it'd take me so long to do it.

While we originally toyed with eating in town, I'm a fan of 521 BBQ & Grill (mentioned here), so when it was offered up as an alternative for dinner by my family, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn't think it would clash with our Waxhaw-themed evening since it's close to Waxhaw, right? (I also heard a rumor that the proprietor was looking into moving into the possibility of moving into Waxhaw, but have no idea if that's accurate. BBQ lovers can only hope.)

We stopped briefly at the house to drop off the car (and to loosen my belt) & then headed into Waxhaw. The first shop open was The Quilting Nook. We stopped in briefly to check out the quilts; the boys asked for a cookie & I said 'No.'

The next shop open was the Waxhaw Antique Mart (disregarding Rippington's since we'd already eaten). Typically, I stay outside with the boys when we visit this store to ensure we're not footing a large bill of broken glass. But this time I went in & saw lots of neat stuff, spying a pair of Civil War-era sharpshooter glasses I wanted to get for no particular reason. While perusing the wares, I heard loud dance music coming from outside. After a minute or so, I realized what this meant, informed my wife what was going on, and headed outside to check out the... Waxhaw Fiesta Band.

They were just starting so there was only a few of them but the Stormtrooper was already there acting as their vanguard, as evidenced by this picture:

My boys were outside with Grandpa enjoying the dancing & tunes. I came out to check out the show. A photographer & reporter were present, which turned out to be none other than Elisabeth Arriero, dare I say Waxhaw's one-time ace reporter. Since I was one of the few (only?) bystanders present at that time, she came over to ask me some questions (detailed previously here). If you were ever curious about the business of obtaining hard news in Waxhaw, prepare to be awed by this never-before-seen illustration of Elisabeth in action.

I like to say I stayed cool under her barrage of pointed questions.

[One side note on the Fiesta Band: I'm not sure how appreciated they will be by nearby businesses on First Friday evenings, particularly the Waxhaw Antique Mart. I suspect there will be a significant-enough group of potential patrons that will not be interested in running the Fiesta Band gauntlet to examine the Antique Mart's wares. Maybe the town can begin blocking off the southern side of Broome Street on First Friday evening to accommodate the ever-growing Fiesta Band, which would give them plenty of room to perform the Thriller dance. That is...if they think they can manage it. (yes, consider that a shot across their bow)]

After crossing Broome Street, one of my boys partook of the lemonade being offered by Waxhaw UMC. Due to increased whining about getting ice cream, we skipped the Bead Merchants & were heading straight for the Library Association's used book store when we got sidetracked by The Broom Shop (mentioned here). I had been looking for this shop for weeks as I drove by & for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where it was. But there it was tucked in between the used book store & the Bead Merchants. A very small shop (does anyone know what was there before Mark began making old-fashioned brooms?), but large enough to handle his antique broom-making machine.

Regardless, my parents interest in seeing a broom made outlived my boys interest so we took the little ones to the used book shop. They picked out a couple of books each, while I scored a Dashiell Hammett hardback containing five of his novels, including "The Maltese Falcon" and "Red Harvest" -- the latter being worth the price of admission alone. I lent my copy to my brother years ago & haven't seen it since. I highly recommend it if you're into hard-boiled detective fiction. However, if you're only interested in speaking like a hard-boiled detective, then I suggest you visit this site.

After the book shop, we met up with grandpa, broom in hand. We headed down Broome Street heading toward Pizza Works, the only game in town if you want ice cream now. I noticed The Antique Clock Shop was open, but we decided to skip since the kids were running on empty.

As we headed home with our ice cream, we stopped in to see a live pottery demonstration at Stewart's Village Gallery before heading home for the evening. As we walked along North Main Street, we could hear the the tail end of the Fiesta Band's "performance." The boys wanted to check them out once again, but it was past bed time.

Goodbye Elisabeth!

This is not breaking news, but Elisabeth Arriero, Waxhaw's ace reporter, appears to have left The Enquirer-Journal/The Waxhaw Exchange for South Charlotte News, a subsidiary if you will of the Charlotte Observer.

Apparently filling her shoes will be Sherri Phengchard. I wasn't a big fan of her Waxhaw 5K article (can be found here), but I'm not ready to write her off just yet.

Waxhaw 5K results

The Waxhaw 5K is officially over. Congratulations to Wingate student Andrew Smith for his convincing victory. Here's a photo of him in action.

That's him there on the right. The blurriness of the photo can only be attributable to the speediness of the runner & not the photography skills of the photographer nor the poor quality of the camera phone he was using.

Also, congratulations to my wife for finishing her first 5K. If nothing else, she can always say she beat the mayor. I suggested she run another 5K the next day to best her time, but she declined in 3 words or less.

Full results are available for those interested compliments of Queen City Timing.