Land of Plenty

The talk of the town is real estate. Everywhere Your Boulevardier goes, it seems, the land under our (collective) feet is Topic A. The barber shop, the post office, the coffee shop -- the same conversation is being had in all of them. The house sat on the market for how long? How many houses in your neighborhood are in foreclosure? The real estate agents held an open house and only the neighbors came?

One bit of real estate in town that is getting some action can be found on Strobridge Avenue. It seems that the McDonald's there has applied for a permit to raze and replace itself. Your Boulevardier can still remember when that restaurant first opened -- the red-tile outdoor tables, the twenty-nine-cent hamburgers, and the actual Golden Arches. The restaurant grew like an oil-fueled Winchester Mystery House, adding a drive-through, a party room, a play structure, and a huge parking lot that seems to be full all the time. Now it and Wendy's stand alone on what's called by some (certainly by Your Boulevardier) Fast Food Island, circled by one-way traffic and perpetually confusing out-of-town visitors trying to find their way back onto the freeway.