Up, up, and away

Last week I wanted to take a picture of the sign on the door of Dollar Tree. As I approached the door, a woman and a small girl came out. The girl was holding a balloon and I thought, "I hope she holds it tight." A second or two after we passed, I heard the woman say, "Oh. There it goes." I turned to see the balloon racing to the north, carried by the strong south wind.

What is surprising about the announcement on the door is that they were able to maintain the $1 price for as long as they did. For the past 80 years the U.S. has had inflation, mostly mild. When I was young, the cost of a postage stamp for a letter was 3¢. Ben Franklin and Woolworths were called dime stores because that was a common price of things that they sold. My father sold candy bars for a nickel each. When it was  founded in the early 1960s, the 6 in the Motel 6 name referred to the cost of a night's stay. The odds are that we are entering a period of more rapid inflation because inflation is the way that governments with big deficits handle their debt problems. How long will it be before Dollar Tree will be 2-Dollar Tree?

On Saturday volunteers put wreaths on the graves of about 700 veterans buried in Weston Cemetery.

On Wednesday the 15th the auction for the former Monnett School building closed. The winning bid was $75,500. 

December 21 is the winter solstice. Now days will start getting longer, though very slowly at first.

On Monday evening both the Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeal and the Planning Commission met. There was only one item before the Plan Commission, a rezone request from Heavy Commercial (HC) to Parks and Recreation (PR). The Love's Travel Center at the DeMotte exit would like to use 20 acres of their land to build a RV park. This development was encouraged by the running of water and sewer lines from DeMotte to the Interstate. The proposed development would be separated from the Travel Center by the drainage ditch. Love's has done a few small RV parks but, with spaces for 65 RVs, this would be by far the largest. The spaces would have water and electric hookups and most would have a sewer hookup. There is a dog park planned for the facility as well as a playground and a pickleball court. A 3200-square -foot building would have an office, showers, and a small store to sell items that RVers use. The park will be gated, and a code will be needed to enter. There will be a stay limit of 28 days. Loves will add a turn lane and a bypass lane on SR 10 at the entrance. The rezone was approved and will go to the Commissioners. Later the BZA approved the special exception needed to establish the park. There are still some regulatory hoops to jump through, including Drainage Board approval.

The other item of the night was approval of a special exception for Phase II of the Dunns Bridge Solar project. This was a continued item from the November meeting. There were questions from the Board about topsoil, getting border trees to grow, and updates on project construction. The findings of facts were the longest I can recall; they took about 15 minutes to read. They were approved as was the special exception.