REHAB NATION

Upon returning to Shelby from my holiday visit to Mount Airy, I was ready to put the mind in neutral and coast through some mindless television watching. Mindless is the operative term there, of course, and there was a surplus of it.

Seems that some folks in the TV business were focused on the word "Recovery" and I'm left wondering if those people have completely lost it. Everyone seemed to be running a holiday recovery marathon or series. Is Christmas such a festival of wretched excess that we have to enter formal recovery to go on with life in the aftermath? Are we at a point where the entire nation is watching Dr. Drew's Sex Rehab on MTV? (I'm not, by the way.) Are we a REHAB nation in the worst sense of the word's current usage?

Well, I hope we can take up the Rehab banner in a very different light here in 2010. Rehab as in working on strengthening our historic building stock, replacing roofs and windows, painting, converting unused second floors to residential or office uses, and so forth. Let's rehab unused industrial space for some new businesses that make solar panels or naturally-derived cleaning products. Let's use an old warehouse for a new brewery or a facility to prepare and package new locally-grown foods.

You see where I'm going, of course, leading back around to the locovore idea of sustainable living. If we can strive for that improved balance and activity we can get to the point where we don't need to run off for REHAB or RECOVERY in the first place.

The rant is ended, go in peace.