From a window overlooking the St. Jones

As the New Year begins it’s interesting to imagine what Dover’s downtown might have looked like by now if the city government had been more aggressive in helping business people who wanted to make investments in the area.

This was the subject of a conversation last week among a small group that has been following the fortunes of Dover’s center area for years and years.

The old Bayard Hotel would have been replaced by now with a new structure.

A combination retail and condominium building would have risen where there is now empty space because of buildings torn down.

Other varied projects would have been inspired to start.

And the whole pace of the place would have been more active, more exciting.

Admittedly it’s easy to make observations like this, of course, and the current recession might have come a little too soon to see major projects completed.
It does seem though — and this has been a comment among business people for years — that with more of a spirit of helping from the city that Dover could have advanced in its downtown business section well beyond its present situation.

There have been plusses in recent years here and there. But the overall downtown condition remains one of struggling to achieve some semblance of what it used to be before the U.S. Route 13 area became so full of new stores and restaurants.

It isn’t that there haven’t been brave efforts to revive downtown, but you get the impression, thinking back over the years, that the city had a window of opportunity for development and missed the chance.

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We briefly met former Dover city manager Jim O’Connor when he was in town recently to attend a wedding. He’s about to take a new job — city manger of Westminster, Md. He has very pleasant memories of his time in Dover.

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Like many others, we tried to get a look at the somewhat rare “blue moon” over the weekend, but the sky was too cloudy. I have heard the “once in a blue moon” expression since boyhood but somehow had missed an explanation of its background.

News stories about the blue moon occurrence explained that when there are two full moons within the space of a single month then the second one is called a “blue moon” because of a blue tint which can been seen, or at least seen by some.

I wouldn’t have noticed the color anyway, I’m afraid. I can look at a holly tree full of what I am told are red berries and be unable to distinguish them clearly from the green leaves.

When it comes to a traffic light, though, I do know that the red is at the top and the green down below.

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You have to wonder how much a homeowner’s private little sign on U.S 13 north of Felton has cost that community in terms of missed traffic fines for speeding.
The sign warns of a “speed trap” ahead and indeed it is. If you go more than the limit of 45 miles per hour you have a good chance of seeing your wallet lightened.

But any motorist from this area who is at all observant manages to slow down when seeing that sign. My guess is that out-of-state cars contribute much of the speeding ticket money to Felton’s town budget.

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Everyone talks about the weather, of course, and especially now there is continual comment about how much winter we have already had with the winter season officially only a couple of weeks old. “Global warming” gets into the conversations as well.

It’s not as easy to defend the theory when a cold blast is hitting your face.

We are due for the weather we are getting, though. We have skated through mild winters in recent years.

One of the benefits of the recent snow and the following cold weather is that you can still see very white snow in piles on some side streets, unlike the dirty stuff in piles on the big commercial parking lots.

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Son David and his wife Carolyn have been in Delaware for the past few days on a brief vacation from their home in Maine. Apparently while they were here the snowstorm back home was not as big as the one we enjoyed.

They made sure to see as many family members as possible.

Both were impressed by the beautiful array of Christmas lights on the trees in the Plaza area near Dover’s City Hall.

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This college guy decided one day that he finally wanted to wash his favorite sweatshirt.

As he entered the laundry room he yelled to his roommate: “What setting do I put the washer on?”

The roommate shouted back: “What does it say on your shirt?”

His reply was: “University of Delaware!”