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11/20/2003 Archived Entry: "THOUGHTS ABOUT THE XXX SIGN AND SHOP"

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE XXX SIGN AND SHOP

There are a lot of quirky little things about the XXX After Dark Adult Arcade that I haven't figured out...not that I've tried very hard. It really doesn't matter much in the big picture. Actually, it's pretty humorous.

Everyone, so I've heard, has denied loaning money to anyone to buy the Texaco Station for an arcade. I always thought when you loaned people money you had some idea of what they were going to do with it. On the other hand, anyone could have bought the station and no one did. Getting a bad loan off the books is just good business.

Now, some people don't like those who bought the Texaco station, although we don't know for sure who they are, and want them run out of town. They are trying to ruin the Arcade business by reporting to employers those truckers who stop there. That's not the American way.

Then too, I was told by an employee that the Waterin' Hole carried many of the same items and had booths just as the current Arcade does. Nuttin' new going on there...just more of it and that big sign. Those novelties have been around for months....maybe years.

I haven't heard anything about on whose property the XXX sign is planted. But it is definitely planted on private land. If they were well-paid for it, how can you blame them if they have no objection to the store? Farmers need income. How can it be any worse than letting someone plant an ugly and threatening wind-generating machine on your property?

No one has stepped forward to claim authorship of the fliers that were put on car windshields during church service one Sunday. They were filled with lies and misinformation and obviously distributed to incite people. Ooops...that part backfired on them.

All their claims of the big sign ruining the town's businesses seem unfounded. If there are claims that business is going south anyplace near the location of the "sign", maybe it's a red herring. Maybe the business was way down and in trouble before the arrival of the sign.

There are other Wilson businesses advertising inside the Arcade hoping to attract visitors to their places of business. That's interesting and seems like good business.

Everytime I've passed by the Arcade hardly any cars are parked there, but I'm not a night person. Maybe business picks up after the rest of the town has gone to sleep. Terry Yarbrough, who's running the place, is just trying to make a living...like the rest of us.

One of the most conservative men I know.......way to the right, nice guy, but wayyyy right....has no problem with the Arcade and is incensed about the furor over it. He feels if you don't like it, don't go there. That's the way most people seem to feel. The people who scream the loudest about it may have other agendas. That's often the case. Cover up.

It seems like a lot of hoopla over nothing.

So far this has been a case of those who want to tell us what to do against those of us who don't like being told what to do. It was a typical local altercation. The injection of the invitation to bring someone from the American Family Association here to stir up trouble adds a whole new dimension to the argument. You might like to do a little research on the net to see what this group does for a living.

If the Wilson group follows the petition course taken by some Abilene residents, and the court orders a jury hearing to determine what is pornography and what is obscenity, we can all expect to pay higher taxes for that bit of folly.

Anyway, the complexities that are now clouding the picture are going to needlessly involve county officials and everyone else. It's too bad we couldn't try to be better neighbors and learn to accept and grow with the diversity that prevails everywhere else. Until we do, we can't expect people to want to move to rural Kansas. We just need to be more accepting of our differences and move ahead to save our communities. As it stands now, we are only rearranging our deck chairs on the Titanic.

"You've got to be carefully taught"....to think the way some do.