Fancy restaurants, specialty food retailers like Trader Joe’s, and upscale retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue have found justification to move in nearby.
I had taken for granted the many attractions that we enjoy in the area until I heard my friends from other cities complain about the cost of going to the zoo or a museum. Raleigh has been referred to as the “Smithsonian of the South” with its many attractions, many of them free. We enjoy free trips to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences or the “dinosaur museum,” as the kids call it. Pullen Park, where we can ride the carousel or train, is also a favorite. When I can, I take outings to the North Carolina Museum of History and the North Carolina Museum of Art and Artspace, a visual arts center where you can visit with and buy art from artists in their studios.
The kids enjoy story hour and crafts at Quail Ridge Books, one of the few remaining independent bookstores, and lunch at the Hayes Barton drugstore near our house. They enjoy entertainment offerings more exciting than games of cops and robbers, kickball, and arrowhead hunting that filled my days as a kid. Starting in preschool, kids can sign up for ice-skating, karate, and Kinderlacrosse, which I imagine might be similar to a chaotic session of Kindermusic, with a stick.
But despite the many reasons to love our simple life here, on more than one occasion we’ve referred to our beloved town as “Pleasantville.” Sometimes everyone I see all day looks and acts like me. Where is Hub, the town drunk, who used to give us quarters when we were kids? Or my other hometown characters like Walking Willie, who must have logged fifty miles a day walking around town? What about Hardhat, who donned a new hat every day? I’m sure similar folks are here, but I’m too busy trying to get some work done or chasing my kids to notice.
The seven colleges in the area do help give the area a bit of an edge. They do their share to attract the best and brightest, who often contribute to a good music scene, start-up technology and biotech companies, and better food offerings. On a trip downtown the other day, my three-year-old daughter mistook a musician with a red bandana for a pirate. Who says we lack diversity?
