Daily observations of my simple life.

Wally World:

It poured down rain the day that the supper Walmart opened but still the newspaper showed a cutsy family fun day at Wally World. Tap dancing by an associates son, balloons, treats, all the trimmings of a grand celebration. Ah yes, people have JOBS. Let's not forget that.

So I drove in yesterday to check out the new SUPER/BIGGER/BETTER Wally World. I passed by the old lonely non super Wally World . Empty parking lot, paved, empty building, wasted.  Within a 5 block area there were three very good supermarkets and 2 very sufficient hardware stores. Good old competition, beat the other guy out. So Wally World had to build more in the center of the hub where traffic will be a nightmare another BIGGER store.

So curious me, who must always check everything out took a trip into town to check it out. I came in the back side to avoid some of the heavy traffic and took 2 hours checking out the store. I'm not a militant non shopper. I bought two of their hand can openers for $1. a piece because I found out they really do work. Really and that's hard to find a hand can opener that REALLY works. I don't think that purchase is going to help build another Wally World somewhere else. Oh, and I bought another bundle of washclothes because they were on sale for $2 off their regular price. I use washclothes instead of paper towels for most things, although I certainly have enough old clothes to make rags. Chuckle. And a pair of leather gloves for handling the octillo when I build my living fence.  I regretted that purchase because I found the same ones at the dollar store an hour later for $1 less. I was disapointed by the garden shop. The one reason I might wish Wally Super store would be the garden shop. I drive over the hill to the Super Wally in Bullhead City to buy trees. They do have good trees that are suitable for this climate and reasonably priced at that Super Wally not so in our NEW BIGGER BETTER SUPER WALLY. So that all said, lets move on.

Well Wally World is so pleased with Kingmans amazing love for them that they are now going to put in a Super Distribution Center right outside of the city limits a few miles. Now we're talking about close to my two properties.

In the last two days the Kingman news has been full of headlines about the man who bought 3000 acres years ago for $3 an acre and is now a millionaire because a Las Vegas developer came in and has been quietly buying land all over the Kingman area. He's going to put in housing developments and golf courses and all that wonderful stuff people love so much.  His master plan is to make Kingman and the surrounding areas a BEDROOM CUMMUNITY for good old Las Vegas. So you see all this beautiful rural country has SHOPPING so it MUST be filled to the brim with PEOPLE/HOUSES/CARS/JOBS . Who wants dirty old desert anyway.

Now I wonder about all those beautiful yucca plants that the super wally world cleared. If I had dug one up a few months ago I would have been arrested because they were precious native landscape. Landscape that has been bulldozed under because we have to have MONEY/DEVELOPMENT.

What about those beautiful little owls we see early in the morning sitting out on our dirt roads. What about the ancient creosotes.

What we really want is to use up more water, we want traffic and smog, we want to be packed in so tight that life will be stressful and meaningless except to shop and eat our way into poor health. Ah the American way of life. It's the only way. What is freedom anyway? We have to be free to consume, to get more than the other guy, to preen and show off our new house, our new car, our expensive this and that. 

Fortunately I'll die before it's completely ruined by the mindless careless ways of the AMERICAN PEOPLE. LET"S BE PROUD NOW. WE'RE THE SAVIORS OF THE WORLD.

I think it's time we all started thinking about our way of life and if it is really so valuable. There  has to be balance and it can't be money led. Money is only a paper statement of energy spent. How do we want to spend our energy? Shopping? OR living with appreciation and respect for all life.   

Posted by: cactusandquail at 14:06 | link | comments (4)

Comments:

#1  29 January 2005 - 14:59

 

I can relate because of all the rapid overdevelopment of our area in the past 35 years. No we don't need more stores and subdivisions and "bedroom communities."

But part of the reason for this is rapid population growth. We really are filling up the planet. The other reason is that no nice, unspoiled area can remain a secret for long. Developers have a highly refined sense of smell for money. And don't get me started about the corrupt officials who permit these things without the infrastructure to back them up...

I just count myself among the fortunate who remember unspoiled beauty in my neck of the "woods" as I listen to cars whizzing by.

InMyLife

#2  30 January 2005 - 17:27

 

Great post, we just had some idiot write a letter to the editor about how we could no longer be in a drought since we've had so much rain/snow the last 2 months. Apparently he's never heard of a water table and the last 6 years of hundreds of thousands of acres of forests (and whole communities) going up in flames or destroyed by lack of moisture and the bark beetle mean nothing. Not to mention all the dry lakes and near empty reservoirs, good ole American thinking, today we have water, I will plant a lawn in the desert and wash my Humvee.

rustymadgal

#3  31 January 2005 - 18:35

 

Wallyworldism is so true of our country sadly. It is a true loss when a beautiful horizon is scorched by yet another mundane polluting building filled with stuff. It seems to me that our country sort of misses the whole point of life, which you seem to grasp incredibly well. Many great minds fought against materialism, Socrates, Ghandi, Jesus.
I wish everyone could understand how quickly we invite our own extinction. Is it too late to show people beauty in nature, the way you can see it?

EvePinkNGreen

#4  01 February 2005 - 15:11

 

I think that's part of the commercial conspiracy. The more stressed people are the less they can see. They become accustomed to creeping demands of the commercial world, then become strangled by the demands. Once in a while they may see something and think,"Oh, that's the way life is supposed to be." but as far as they are concerned it's out of reach. It takes a life plan to get away from the flow. Like getting out of fast moving water before you drown.

cactusandquail

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