Emporia pluses again
John E. Peterson, Special to the Gazette
Thursday, August 6, 2009
I have written columns about the positive things about Emporia. I call those things Emporia Pluses and I have headed the columns that way. It has been a long time, however, since I have written an Emporia Plus column. It is time to do another such column, if I had my way.
This thought was in the back of my head, but a big stimulus brought it out now. That stimulus was the six-days special sections in The Gazette which examined our community on a positive note. They were devoted to Emporia successes, to Emporia positives, and the series was headlined “Welcome to Progress.” This Gazette series was, indeed, an Emporia Plus program for me.
One other comment about the Emporia Plus idea before I actually get to it. Every community also has negatives. We certainly do in Emporia. It is good for us, however, to emphasize our positives. That does not mean we should not be working on our negatives. We must do that. And when we improve one of our negatives, such success actually becomes a Plus. So let us not forget the negatives.
In the lives of old people like me, one of our biggest Emporia Pluses is that we have a full-service gas station. I am referring to Brodie’s Full Service at Commercial and 11th. Every community should have at least one full-service station to serve those people who are unable to provide their own service. Brodie’s is wonderful in doing this.
It is my hope that Brodie’s will be here for a long future. It will be a longtime Emporia Plus. I must say, however, that our Chamber of Commerce and community planners must count on us always having such service. It should be one of their goals to see that Emporia always has a full-service station. That is because it is a huge Emporia Plus.
The several big new apartment buildings we have here in Emporia are a Plus, I think. In terms of the way they look, there is no doubt about it. They are very attractive to our city. In terms of how they affect other rental places, I do not know. We shall have to see how it works out.
Our “Main Street,” Commercial Street, is definitely a Plus in my view. It still has its shortcomings in buildings which need to be upgraded, but its general appearance is attractive. I would call it a Plus, if I had my way.
I must insert this comment in here, even though it was not in the writing of my first thoughts. I had written about our parks being a Plus, as you will see below, before Pat Kelley’s marvelous editorial about Soden’s Grove, Peter Pan Park and Fremont Park appeared. He spoke of our parks as being “Emporia’s Old Treasures.” And he certainly made them an Emporia Plus. Pat beat me to it, but as you can tell from my next paragraph, I feel the same way about our parks.
Emporia’s parks are a big Plus! The bigger ones, Soden’s Grove, Peter Pan, Jones, Hammond, attract lots of picnickers and visitors. And Soden’s Grove and Peter Pan have recently been upgraded and given additions. But we also have many other parks. Fremont, with its marvelous band concerts, C of E, Las Casitas, Whittier, Dryer, Walnut and the new one at East and Ninth, etc. Pat Kelley is right in calling them “treasures.”
Having mentioned Soden’s Grove stimulates me to mention two other pluses near there. Our Veterans Memorial is certainly an Emporia Plus. And that old bridge right there beside it is a big plus. It gets lots of people just looking and others fishing.
We have some residential areas in Emporia which are definite Pluses. At least, I would call them that, if I had my way. We have some older areas full of lovely old houses. They are delightful to drive through and just look at the houses and the tree and yards around them.
We also have some magnificent residential areas which are quite new. I will not even try to name them because there are so many such areas and I would not want to fail to include them all. I must add, however, that we also have some residential areas which are just plain lousy. They are Emporia negatives and we should do more to improve them. We certainly would, if I had my way.
The recreational aspects of our parks have been mentioned above. In addition, we have the Lee Beran Recreation Center, the Jones Aqua Center, the TRYSA soccer complex and other things. We have a fine recreational Emporia Plus.
I must mention our array of churches. We have many, those of a variety of denominations and some which are of architectural beauty. I have long thought that our churches have been an Emporia Plus.
So! There you have my most recent discourse on our Emporia Pluses. I agree with Pat Kelley that such things are treasures. We must, however, also keep in mind that we have negative things. We should work on converting them to Pluses. We, indeed, would work hard at that, if I had my way.
reddog (K. B. Thomas Jr.) says...
i always look forward to your articles and it is a great service to the community and we the people appreciate it. as i understand it, he is not on the payroll, so i encourage you all to send a letter of thanks. dr. peterson is a big plus for our community and i admire his style. i have a name for my style, its the reddog redneck bloger. the thing i really like about our community is once in awhile i will meet someone who, will tell me a story about my grandad. and thats a great plus to me. we have a lot of pluses but, do not take them for granted, we often dont appreciate what we have until we lose it. for example the college of emporia and the school spirit c of e fights. talk about lost treasure and this is it, you just had to be there to appreciate what iam saying. this school is part of the emporia heritage. the first coach at oklahoma came from c of e. gwinn henrys football teams were throwing the forward pass before knute rockne made it famous. and i could go on and on. one last thought, everyone only goes around the track once in life, and if you dont enjoy the pluses, its pretty pathic.
August 6, 2009 at 10:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )