Just Sayin’…

So, I’m driving down Prairie Street Thursday at noon in Emporia, listening to 96.1 FM (which plays so much of my favorite music – a lot of the Eagles, some Bon Jovi and Rob Thomas now and then and that Buble guy with his cheery “Everything” song. And I like Carrie Underwood OK, but if I hear “Before He Cheats” one more time, I’m gonna scream.

Or maybe on Thursday, I was listening to 104.9 FM, because I switch between the two radio stations. When one has commercials, I’ll often flip to the other station.

So, it may have been on 104.9 that I happened to hear an ad telling about Friday Fruit at Sutherlands. Huh? Bananas, apples, oranges. Sutherlands is selling food now…. are the oranges in the plumbing section or the paint section of the store? Weird.

Still on Prairie, I drive past the cemetery and there’s new construction going on, land-moving and concrete work, in the southwest corner of the cemetery – in that vacant lot part of the cemetery. A sign says that it’s going to be Ashley Estates 2, senior citizen housing mostly.

Now I’ve always been fond of cemeteries and figured that living next to a cemetery would have definite advantages – quiet neighborhood and all, but putting senior housing right up against a cemetery seems a little too, um, suggestive, don’t you think?

Which is why I thought it odd when the Emporia Surgical Hospital built on 15th about five years ago, with the cemetery as the backdrop. I mean, you’re driving to go have surgery, concerned, maybe fearful, thinking about your mortality, and directly behind the hospital is the graveyard. What’s going to pop up in your mind? For a hospital, that location just had bad Feng Shui written all over it.

The Emporia Surgical Hospital closed in September, citing exorbitant insurance costs.

Location, location, location.