My town

There's been a lot of depressing crap going on lately, stuff that I don't particularly want to write about but occasionally feel somehow compelled to say something about.

Penn State. Aurora. Unending political ads.

I'm tired of it. I'm confused by it. It fractures my attention span to the point where it becomes my inattention span. So, for a moment at least, I thought I'd try to take this blog to a higher level. Like, perhaps, the fifth floor of NewBridge Bank.

I work 20 hours a week at NewBridge Bank, slinging interdepartmental envelopes in the mail room. When I want to take a little break, I climb out of my windowless basement work station and walk up to the fifth floor, which has floor-to-ceiling windows all around and which provides me with something of an observation platform on our town.

Most Lexingtonians probably don't have this opportunity to see their town from this entirely different perspective, from maybe 60-65 feet high. So here, for your perusal, you get to see what I do:

This spot makes a great perch to view the Barbecue Festival and Center Stage.

This view looks south toward the square and the meeting of Main Street and Center Street.

I love the court-house. Even in an old city like Lexington, it's a beautiful anachronism that I think enhances rather than detracts from the city's charm. Most people, I think, tend to take the building and its iconic clock tower for granted as they drive past it each day. 

Most towns don't have their courthouse on the square anymore, if they ever had one there in the first place. It's a fortunate piece of city planning.

I also love the square that is sprinkled with its trees and monuments — green space in the middle of commerce.

This view doesn't show a particularly busy moment — traffic is light and there are no pedestrians in sight — but that's not often the case. There is almost always activity of some sort here. You'd be surprised.

The City Cemetery is hidden among the trees in the left distance.

The view looking east on State Street was too much for my little palm-sized Olympus camera. I would have loved to have included the Grimes Building (off camera to the left) — and maybe I should have — but I wanted to capture the active innards of Lexington. I mean, city government is right here at City Hall; the federal government is represented less than a block away at the U.S. Post Office. Banks are everywhere. The Police Department is off camera to the right. It's all here.

Sometimes you get to see the weather change its face.

Here we are looking west on State Street. Maybe you can call it "Lanierland" or perhaps "Lanierville," because everything Lanier is here: the hardware store is to the left of the parking lot, and Lanier Village, with its condos and office spaces, is off to the right.

You can see the spires of two churches, but there are actually four churches caught within this frame. That in itself tells you something about the character of the town.

I like this view of the city because it gives me an unobstructed view of the weather patterns that float by. Curiously, I like to watch thunderstorms from this vantage point — I kind of feel like I'm in the middle of the storm without putting myself in any danger. I can wave my 3-iron in defiance on the fifth floor without fear of becoming a lightning rod. I think. The lightning still freaks me out, though.

Looking north into the proposed tree-happy historic district.

This is my favorite view. It's looking north into the part of town where I live. Somewhere under those trees is my house, a little yellow bungalow that gives the life I share with my wife some added dimension, value and extreme happiness. In fact, the whole neighborhood does that for me. No doubt, it's because of the neighbors who live there with me. It's a special place.

Clearly, when I climb to the fifth floor, everything comes into focus.

Even with my little Olympus.