Bo Williams (bowms@email.unc.edu) proffered:

: On Wed, 18 Dec 1996, James Hepler wrote:

: > Just remember that when
: > Blockbuster opens, VisArt, the Wizard of Vid, and the Video Bar will all
: > lose business.  
: > 
: this isn't exactly true:

No, it's not: 

Blockbuster killed North American Video, which was the big local chain
(owned by a bizarre man from Durham who had his dead pet dog stuffed) when
it first came in here, about a decade ago. North American carried Beta,
Blockbuster didn't. A few North American Videos cling on in odd places.
Visart is newer than Blockbuster in Chapel Hill, and is just a different
form of a big chain moving in. The Carrboro store was a Music Loft and a
Family Dollar Discount Store until early this decade. 

[Note: Ruby is exempt from this ranting.]

In general, the process of bigger replacing smaller in Chapel Thrill is so
much farther advanced than any of you newcomers realize. The town I grew
up in and the town I loved is already dead, and has been for over a
decade. Old schoolers still call it "The Village", which is ridiculous
now, but hasn't always been. 

How many of you remember when the hippies would spread blankets on peoples
cars on Franklin Street and sell baskets? They did that until the local
merchants got pissed off in the late 70s, and then only the Flower Ladies
(tm) were left, and then *they* got driven into NCNB Plaza for a bit.

How about when Schoolkids was ten feet wide? When University Mall was a
marsh? When the University (incompetenly) ran all of the town's utilities?
The Chapel Hill Stars Professional Baseball Team? When the town council
tried to decree that trick-or-treating was to be done on October 30th?
Having to be on the waiting list for UNC basketball tickets for a decade,
because young professor had to wait for old professors to die? "Jesse's
Zoo"? Or at least when they decided to sterelize the beavers on Bolin
Creek? 

Chapel Hill is a parody of itself now. This isn't bad in toto: there are
more and more varied restaurants here than ever before, more places to buy
music, a more expanded cultural setting. Old Chapel Hill was too
parochial, probably too dull, too closed-minded. It's just that it makes
it really hard for me to get worked up over some business transition that,
in truth, has gutted the town already. The main block of Franklin Street
used to have a nice camera store and a hardware store and a shoe store and
all of that good stuff, and now it doesn't. In the South you're no longer
a real town if the last hardware store on the main block of downtown is
closed.

All of you fuckers complaining about Chapel Hill going to pot can all go
to hell. It's your fault it's happened, because you come here and stay and
big business sees the swelling population and strip malls and Party City
ineviatably follow. We natives are a bit crotchety about this from time to
time.

Mr Helper said he feels like a poseur because he's just been here for two
years. I sometimes feel like one because my folks only moved here five
years before I was born, and because I don't have an accent and say
Midwestern things like "howdy" and "folks". Every line you draw is
arbitrary and false. Chapel Hill is dead. Long live Carrboro.

Nate Florin
Chapel Hill 1972-1993, Carrboro 1993-present.