Instant Karma: My Good Deed of the Day

Every now and then an opportunity will present itself wherein you have the choice of two courses of action.  How you choose to respond to these little "tests" that the Universe throws at you are, perhaps, the most honest appraisal of your character, especially when it is obvious that no one but you would ever have to know whether or not you passed the test. Well...no one but you and your conscience.  Also, I do believe the Universe keeps score.

This morning was the first Saturday in a long while that I decided to get up early and head downtown to Lancaster Central Market, the country's oldest continuously operating farmers market and a place used to frequent quite regularly on weekends.  There is a Thai stand there that serves up the most amazingly delicious fresh veggie spring rolls; S. Clyde Weaver's deli stand is the perfect place to stock up on sandwich fixin's for the week; there's always something delicious being offered at The Goodie Shop.  More fresh produce and fresh baked goods than you can shake a stick at overflow aisle after aisle of locally owned stands, and I am a big proponent of the buy fresh/buy local concept.  Market is also something of a community gathering place where friends meet for coffee or where you've got a better than even chance of running into someone you know and getting lost in conversation for awhile.  There's a reason it has lasted for over two centuries.  If you're ever in Lancaster, PA, you need to make it a stop on your itinerary!

As I said, it had been awhile since I had been at market.  Having been un-/under-employed for a stretch meant that some expenses had to be cut out.  Now that I'm getting back on my feet, I am happy to be able to add regular Market stops back to my routine.

Despite its heritage, Market makes some concessions to the modern world around it, among them the ATM machine in the southeast corner of the building.  It was there that I was tested this morning.  I needed some cash for shopping and to boost my pocket money for the week, so I decided to take $40 out of my account.  Annoyingly, the machine had a notice on it indicating it was out of receipt paper, and so would not be able to provide a receipt for the transaction, but I needed the money.  I swiped my card and punched in my $40 request, and after a moment of churning the machine instructed me to retrieve my cash.  To my surprise I found four $20 bills.

My first thought was that the machine had made mistake and taken twice the amount I wanted from my account.  Without a receipt, though, I had no way to see what the ATM thought I had asked for.  I replayed the screens I had just walked through in my head: "Did I hit $80 by mistake?"  No, I was certain I only asked for $40.  Then it occurred to me that this ATM  is different from most in that the cash dispenser is not just an open slot where the cash is slid out to you, but rather requires you to open a plastic door.  What if someone had tried to get money out before me and, not knowing to open the door, figured the transaction hadn't gone through - and wouldn't know until he checked his statement that he was out forty bucks?

Either way, something was amiss. I walked over to the nearest stand and explained the situation  to the standholder, who offered to call the Market Manager over for me to talk with.  I shared the story with her, as well as my thought that either I had be double-hit or the money belonged to someone else.  After apologizing for not being more alert to refilling the machine's receipt paper, she offered to bring me back to her office to use her computer to check my bank balance online and see how much was actually taken from my account.  If it turned out that my balance was correct, then she would hold onto the money for a period of time to see if anyone claimed it.  If not, either I could keep it or donate it to charity.

I had just about logged onto my account when another gentleman knocked on the Manager's office door.  He explained that he had tried to take $40 out of the ATM but didn't get his cash, and then had gone to another ATM elsewhere in town. When he took out his $40 there, his receipt showed his balance down $80.  As he told his story, I verified that my balance was correct; clearly the other $40 was his.  He was very happy to get it back, and thanked me profusely before going on his way.  The Market Manager also thanked me, and added, "You've got some good Karma coming your way!"

I walked out of Market feeling pretty damn good.  One person I shared the story with said, "They should have given you some type of reward."  No, no they shouldn't have.  First of all, no one should ever have to be rewarded for doing the right thing, and I believe in this case I did the right thing.  Second, I'd like to think that if I were the one missing the $40, someone would do exactly the same for me.  I've been at points in my life where a missing $40 would be a financial calamity; how do I know that wasn't the case for this person?

I'm not going to lie; there was a time in my life when I probably would have pocketed the cash and gone on with my day happy to have scored a windfall.  Found money, right?  But over the years I have learned that there is much truth to old adage that the Universe pays you back whatever energy you send out times three, so you want to send out positive energy whenever you can.  I also believe strongly in the snowball effect of paying things forward.

Which is why I share this with all of you.  I'm not seeking pats on the back or praises for being an honest person; that's who I am, and trust me, being so can be a double-edged sword at times.  No, I share this because I hope each of you will take the next opportunity that presents itself to you to "pay it forward," and do the right thing.  Then, share it with your friends, whether you have a blog or a Facebook page or just tell the story in person.  Think of it as your little part of making the world a little bit nicer of place to live in.

Now, I've got some delicious veggie spring rolls to dig into, so it's time to stop blogging and start eating!

A Bit of My Hometown's Punk Rock History

Over at the always interesting ...tapewrecks... blog, Tom Quinn has curated an excellent oral history of Lancaster, PA's "First Punk Rock Band," The Bodies.  Better yet, he has rescued a handful of rare recordings of the band, who never released any records during their brief existence. 

The Bodies were essentially a cover band.  They learned Punk Rock from vinyl and snarled through the songs they liked best, spreading the good word to a bunch of misfit kids in the heart of Amish country.  There were very few originals in the mix, but The Bodies were still a band, a Punk Rock band dammit, and right here in Lancaster!  They were the ones who kicked open the door for our scene; they inspired other bands to start playing, and they themselves went on to join other bands through the years.

Get yourself over to ...tapewrecks... and read, listen and learn, my friends.  The story of The Bodies is not a unique one, but it is an important one for those of us who grew up in the scene around these parts.  Those of you who are from other places have your own "First Band" stories - I'd love to read them.  Those were good times...

Lancaster is Hit with the Ugly Stick...Again

Lancaster City seems bound and determined to repeat history. Certainly, those who run things around here have not learned from it. Three and a half decades after the Brunswick Mall debacle, I watch my beloved hometown rush headlong towards the finish line on the Lancaster County Convention Center, a bloated, hopelessly optimistic, and inherently doomed "city revitalization" project which has been the epicenter of controversy around these parts for nigh on a decade now.

Anyone who has lived in or around Lancaster since 1970 knows the joys of the Brunswick Mall. Conceived as an urban renewal project in 1965, it saw the razing of a full city block of vintage architecture in favor of what has come to be known to locals as "The Concrete Monstrosity." It was envisioned as a hotel and business space with a mall full of shops, two outdoor courtyards for public gathering and a enclosed skywalk bridging North Queen Street so that folks could safely cross; the final result was outdated virtually upon its completion. At first, shops did appear in the storefronts and efforts were made to use the courtyard spaces on a regular basis, but after the novelty wore off, the city was left with a block-long patch of the ugliest concrete construction imaginable, looking like nothing more than an abandoned Stalinist block building, and inspiring just as much cheer. In recent years, renovation has finally begun on the area in an attempt to make the area more attractive, but at this point it is simply putting makeup on a pig.

You would think with such a glaring reminder of misguided "renovation" and poorly spent funds still marring the city, developers would be much more cautious when a similar project came about. Sadly, you would be wrong.

I won't go into the history of the debate over the proposed Lancaster County Convention Center - you can read a nice summary of that history here and here (scroll down to the comment by ArtieSee near the bottom of the page), or do some Googling. I won't waste time talking about the fact that building a convention center on the edge of a rundown and, at times, extremely unsafe part of town with inconvenient parking at best will do no favors towards encouraging repeat business. I won't even go into the fact that, at this point, a project that was sold to the city at a $74 million budget as an "economic boon" is now looking to clock in at just under $200 million (all but $11 million of which is taxpayer funded), and is expected by some estimates to lose $1 million a year.

No, I will instead limit my commentary to this: the thing is frickin' hideous! Once again, Lancaster is trying to "revitalize" via tons and tons of concrete. This time, though, instead of spreading it out, they're piling it high! This will be one of the tallest buildings in the city when it's finished later this year. And rather than completely demolish vintage architecture (in this case, the former Watt & Shand building, which had been on the National Register of Historic Places), they decided the thing to do was to gut it, leaving the facade standing, and plop the tower of concrete inside of it. Oh, and little to no apparent effort was made to match the design (or even color) of the original building, much less the surrounding edifices.

Construction is scheduled to end this spring. I have no doubt that, initially, the Center will see much use, much as the Brunswick Mall did in 1970. But, what happens when the novelty wears off? We're going to left with yet another expensive, hideous reminder of urban renewal gone bad and concrete gone wild.