Rain-slicked and Risky

Your Boulevardier, accompanied by Madame Boulevardier (also known as Simone de Boulevardier), drove to our former town of Roseville, California today. We still use the services of our Roseville dentist, a fine gentleman named Randall Shawn Kelly -- and so we make semi-annual trips to the Sacramento suburb for hygiene and visits with friends and former colleagues. Madame also made an appointment with a favored masseuse at Roseville's Center for Optimum Health.

While she was on the table, Your Boulevardier decided -- surprise of surprises -- to walk the town. It proved to be a depressing experience, for three reasons.

First, there was the continued decay of downtown Roseville. In spite of the city's attempt to breathe life into its downtown district -- fixing roads and sidewalks, building an impressive Civic Center -- downtown Roseville is still dominated by empty storefronts. Meanwhile, shopping centers as large as some midwestern towns sprout around the city's edges. Roseville's city parents (Your Boulevardier avoids sexist language) have not yet acknowledged that they cannot have a thriving boutique-rich downtown while allowing ever-expanding shopping centers of chain stores on the city's periphery.

Second, the town -- even in its compact downtown -- continues an all-automotive experience. Your Boulevardier literally saw one person get in his car and drive it less than two blocks, from the library to the civic center, rather than walk from one to the other. It is Your Boulevardier's experience that pedestrians are literally looked upon with suspicion in Roseville -- "What is that man doing walking down the street? He must be up to no good."

Third -- or perhaps an extension of Second -- Your Boulevardier was nearly struck in a crosswalk by a motorist. What's more, the fellow appeared to be genuinely angry that there was a human being crossing the road, in the way of his Sport-Utility Vehicle, slowing him down and impinging on his God-given right to drive rapidly to his destination and park immediately in front of it.

There was a running joke in the Boulevardier household when we lived in Roseville. The city won an award for pedestrian safety, and we laughed that the city had such a low rate of pedestrian injury because there were no pedestrians there. Our visit to Roseville reinforced our decision to leave the town. Many people we know who live there love it -- especially families with children -- but Roseville is certainly not a hospitable place for a pedestrian. Certainly not for a Boulevardier.