What Lexington Needs: Leesa Moorman and Annabel – To Find a Middle
By Leesa Moorman and Annabel
My dad first came to Lexington from Western Kentucky in the forties to watch a football game. Although he was smitten by a few well-dressed sorority girls, he thought Lexington was a snooty, overgrown town that fancied itself a big city.
These days, he’s too old to ogle Chi Omegas, and he travels here from the bright lights of Cadiz to make sure his granddaughter is being fed. But he still says Lexington is a one-horse town with bad parking.
I, on the other hand, have wholeheartedly embraced Lexington as my adopted home town. But then I’ve always been easily seduced by pretension. Like any love acquired late in life, Lexington has its share of bad baggage.
We need to develop a rational, progressive environmental policy. We need to understand that economic development and environmental interests are not mutually exclusive. We need to acquire the fearless hearts and minds necessary to make the hard choice which will preserve our country for our children.
Lexington needs a family-friendly downtown park with a safe playground, grassy picnic area, and secure public restrooms where a daddy can change his little girl’s diaper.
Our Town-City needs to find a Middle—a middle class, a middle ground, a middle of town. We need to eliminate the stratifications which mentally separate Chevy Chase from Gainesway, Hartland, and downtown. We need to worry less about declining property values in Ashland Park and more about leaky roofs in Bluegrass-Aspendale. We need to pay as much attention to the crimes committed on North Limestone Street as those perpetrated on Chinoe Road. We need to teach our little ones that wearing a tie or pantyhose to an office will not necessarily guarantee that your work will have value, and that putting on airs is not a good way to live.
Finally, Lexington needs more dancers and fewer lawyers. And a few more checkers at Kroger wouldn’t hurt.
