“I don’t want to end my life cooking fish”

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Fred Stiening

A college classmate posted on his Facebook page that Laney’s fish camp is closing.

Mooresville Newspaper coverage

Mooresville was a small town that has been swallowed up as Charlotte NC has grown. Part of their reason for shutting down is “changing demographics”

I don’t know about other places, but the restaurants around here in Chicago are uniformly dead. I went to a sub place last week (kind of an upscale Subway). It was about 1:30, which is late for lunch. I expected the place to be pretty empty – what I didn’t expect was 8 people behind the counter. There was one other couple in the place prior to 2:00, when about 4 of the people left for the day.

There is no way this is sustainable. I’m thinking there must be government tax credits funding having people stand around with nothing to do.

This entry was posted in Collapse of America. Bookmark the permalink.

24 Responses to “I don’t want to end my life cooking fish”

  1. CC1s121LrBGT says:
    March 22, 2013 at 3:28 am

    There have long been tax credits for hiring people that have been on welfare, and there are a record number of people on welfare today.

    The idea is that employers would rather hire people that have not been on welfare than people who have. The incentive reduces the welfare roles and keeps the employer patient as the new employes learns new skills and work habits and increases productivity.

  2. Nidster says:
    March 22, 2013 at 4:40 am

    I would love to fish for WaHoo, or Kingfish on the open sea and end my life cooking and eating fresh caught, wild fish.

  3. Art Stone says:
    March 22, 2013 at 11:42 pm

    One of our regulars lives in the area.

    Back in the early 1970s, we went regularly to a “fish camp” near a wide place in the road called Barium Springs – the location of an orphanage. My sense is it was an earlier location of the same place – it’s maybe two miles between the locations.. I can still taste the hush puppies.

    I’m not sure what the changing demographics are – my guess is it is all those snooty Yankees moving North out of Charlotte who get irritated at people who say y’all. ;). I kind of wonder where all the people I lived around in North Carolina are now – if they’ve retreated up into the mountains or moved to Texas or just all died off.

    Thanks for the fish.

    • CC1s121LrBGT says:
      March 23, 2013 at 12:42 am

      Can’t be Texas. Any real Carolinian would rather die than have to eat Texas bar-b-que. 😉

      • Art Stone says:
        March 23, 2013 at 3:28 pm

        Yes, mine was a conscious reference to that 😉 in 1981/2, I spent a number of weekends just driving around in Oklahoma in the middle of nowhere, listening to HHGTTG on the NPR stations. It was somewhat surreal driving across cattle guards at 60 mph chasing thunderstorms that were likely to spawn tornados while listening to tales about Marvin and Babel Fish and pocket lint.

        • foyle says:
          March 23, 2013 at 10:29 pm

          HHGTTG …wow why does it not surprise me that we would share an appreciation for Douglas Adams. (The original BBC radio version is the best, the Disney-fied movie from a few years back was awful).

          Got your towel?

          • Art Stone says:
            March 23, 2013 at 11:42 pm

            My knowledge of the book is a bit spotty as it depended on me driving on the weekends. Later on, I got the ms-dos game, which filled in a lot of the gaps in the story. I latched on right away to his sardonic view of life and human behavior. Living in OK at the time made it all the more relevant. Coming from my sheltered life, my year in OK included:
            – living in a “college dorm” that was nothing more than mobile home – because there was no place to live within 50 miles
            – watching the sky turn red for several weeks due to dust storms
            – seeing what a locust plague looks like
            – finding out how ineffective air conditioning is at 115 degrees
            – watching grass fires burn for weeks and nobody cares, even as it burns right next to their pickup truck
            – malls that close at 5 PM on Saturday so you don’t miss church
            – flood control dams that don’t prevent a flood because they were kept full before the rain started
            – watching your doorwall’s glass bend when the tormado is going over your house
            – Learning that the way to avoid destroying your car’s suspension is to go over cattle guards at 60 mph
            – visiting the place where Frank Phillips thought it would be clever to gather exotic animals from all over the world in semi arid Oklahoma and then wondering why most of them died in a few years
            – wondering why a town of 25,000 needed 100 police and at least as many private security guards, when everyone in town worked for the company
            – wondering why you build a 19 story office building in a town where land costs nothing

          • CC1s121LrBGT says:
            March 24, 2013 at 2:01 am

            No towel, but I have a napkin I stole years ago from the Big Bang Burger Bar.

            http://www.bigbangburgerbar.co.uk/

          • Art Stone says:
            March 24, 2013 at 2:50 am

            I remembered in vague terms that Douglas Adams had died, but didn’t remember the details. There is something appropriate that he died of a heart attack working out trying to be healthy. That must be close to infinitely improbable.

  4. HPaws says:
    March 23, 2013 at 7:03 am

    Charlotte which the ‘govco’ money wasters have convince themselves is an International City has no decent independent restaurants (I’m a classically trained Chef). The top four are all chains (Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris, The Palm and the Capitol Grill). It is not possible to make this claim with any validity. The independent local restaurants have a history of aim high, achieve middling – and later dumb down their menus for the culinary illiterate and undemanding. The availability of quality waitstaff is limited at best. One restaurant opening I attended was a culinary mix between Paula ‘the Whale’ Dean (puke frat boy food with a tie) and the latest issue of Bon Appetite. I’m not sure if the menu wasn’t a sort of culinary prank or not, but the waitstaff was. With the exception of a drive up restaurant I am never ‘dude’ to the staff no matter how bosomy or cool they present themselves.

    • Nidster says:
      March 24, 2013 at 12:44 am

      I frequent a ‘mom & pop’ restaurant, Chinese food, that consistently delivers very good food. While it may not be considered top quality culinary cuisine they have a wonderful cashew w/chicken lunch ($4.92 with tax) among many other good choices, that are prepared fresh ‘to order’ and are very good and suit my taste. I tend to avoid restaurants that you described because they inevitably fail to please, are huge disappointments, and overcharge (a lot).

  5. Nidster says:
    March 24, 2013 at 3:40 am

    Milliway’s has never stepped-foot in my locale.

  6. Parrott says:
    March 24, 2013 at 8:00 pm

    Thats true, Mooresville, Davidson & Cornelius are being eaten by Charlotte. Huntersville is a mess. Only thing that keep the growth somewhat slowed is I-77 north from Charlotte is still four lanes to Statesville, and is congested all of the time.
    We have a saying here in the mountains of Virginia when someone ask directions on how to get to Charlotte. We say: Just drive 77 south till you smell money. (Lake Norman) LOL
    Art did you ever eat at Pirate’s Landing In Elkin NC? They’re not too bad.
    Have a good one
    Parrott

Leave a Reply