No, I won’t hit you with a quasi-technical and philosophical word salad!

But, seems like the significance of time for politicians is tremendous growth and change. I’m speaking a bit more finite and referring to my local city government. In their eyes, simple, familiar, normal, same-ol’ same-ol’ are not good things.

That small farm or open space is better served with an apartment complex or strip mall or the new concept of urban living -with restaurants and shops below, and luxury apartments above.

The city councilwoman smiles and praises things like “progress” and “economic development” and “diverse and engaging communities.” Yet I only see more traffic, rising costs, more taxes and regulations. I see more and more people fill our once small out of the way neighborhood. It almost feels suffocating. There’s lines to get into stuff where there wasn’t before. A calm Sunday is no different than a busy Monday.

I admit that I may be a bit of a hypocrite or maybe it’s more that I’m getting older and my preferences and attitudes have changed. Twenty years ago I may have praised the addition of another Starbucks in the neighborhood. Or may have even hoped for a Target or McDonald’s in short driving distance. But that definitely has changed.

I ran from home to live in the big city. Although really big cities scared me (like New York or Chicago) so I chose Denver. It was big but still felt hometown-like 30-years ago. Now I feel like it’s Los Angeles of the mountains. I wanted someplace bigger as a young man (a kid really). That’s because I grew up in a town where Kmart was the only option for most things and there was no comic or game shops in sight. Movies rarely came to our two theater town. The to-do thing on a Friday night was to go to the high school Football game or cruise Main Street.

When you’re young you want the progress and the technology. Now that I’m older , I’m tired of the change. And the technology down right scares me more and more. “The machines are taking over!”

Maybe I’m just missing the old days. I miss TV shows coming out every week instead of dropping all at once. I miss newsstands. I miss Furrs Cafeteria. I miss the days when the future might be a better place than now the fear of the future will be worse and most likely more expensive place.

I definitely need to figure out this significance of time thing for sure….