Split-pairs, you can help local businesses survive, donate your gently used sneakers

Well if you have driven through Lindstrom in the last four days or so, you know that the split-pairs construction has officially begun. Let me first preface this by saying that I was never on the split-pair bandwagon. I never championed for this change to downtown Lindstrom. What I am is a realist. By that I mean, the State decided long ago that they were going to do something with Highway 8 in Lindstrom. As I understand it, they gave the city two choices.

The first being, leave Highway 8 alone, but eliminate parking on both sides of the road so that four lanes of traffic could pass through the town. Let’s be honest here, if this is really true, what would that do to our town? People would be zipping by glance over and and see a gift shop, or a antique store, or a coffee shop and by the time their instict tells them that would be a neat place to stop, they have already traveled to the next town, and probably thought well, there is a coffee shop in the next town, or I am sure there is a gift shop somewhere else along Highway 8. In a nutshell, how many vehicles would really make an effort to turn off a few blocks down the road and try and figure out where exactly that business was? Maybe a lot of them, but my guess is not many.

Then we come to the second option, the dreaded split-pairs. This option includes splitting Highway 8 traffic into two seperate roads through Lindstrom and joining them to make one road at each end of the city. How can this possibly be good for the city. After pondering this for months and months, I have come to the conclusion, that out of the two choices, the split-pairs is the best of the worst scenarios, and for that reason, from this point on, my focus will be on positivity. Positivity? What positive is there to talk about? Well what about the fact that Lindstrom has over 100 businesses within the city limits. It’s true, go to our website and click on the Explore Lindstrom tile ad. Once there, click on our businesses. You will see a map with business listings for all 102 Lindstrom businesses.

That is an unbelievable number of businesses in such a small city. How about the fact that of those businesses; there are auto dealers, restaurants, chiropractors, accountants, salons, gift shops, realtors, dentists, orthodontists, antiques, photographers, a golf course, insurance agencies, financial planners, gas stations, music instructors, a flower shop, an outdoor equipment store, a screen printing/embroidery shop, workout studios, a veterinarian, a jewelery store, a hardware store, an auto parts store as well as auto repair shops, and a pharmacy. I know I didn’t list all of them, but if you visit the site you can see all the businesses as well as where they are located. Here is my first of many, many pleas to you.... PLEASE, PLEASE SHOP LOCALLY! These businesse need you now more than ever.

If you love our small town atmosphere and love all of these little shops that sets us apart from strip mall towns and big box towns, the time is now to show how much you care. I am not asking you to empty your bank account and walk down the sidewalks of Lindstrom here folks. But I am asking, no make that begging you, to please shop locally. If you normally get your hair cut at a chain, why not get your haircut locally? If you normally get your auto parts from one of those big stores with the catchy jingles, why not try the local store? If you normally... you get the picture folks. If there is a sound of desperation in my words, that is because there is. We need you! Together we can weather the storm, but without you, we are sunk. Remember this weekend is Earth Day. This is our chance to pay our respects to Mother Earth. I know that there are lots of groups out there that will be cleaning our ditches and parks. I have meant to write this in the past, now is a great time to mention it.

I would like to thank all of those people who have chosen to adopt-a-highway. You know who I am talking about, those people who are in our ditches with their reflective vests seemingly every weekend. We always say thank you to them when we are in the car to ourselves. I want to honk the horn in appreciation, but I am afraid I will frighten them. Thanks a million for keeping our community clean. The Chisago Lakes School District is collecting gently used sneakers for the Green Sneaker campaign. The school will earn 50 cents per pound of sneakers collected. Last year the school made over $1,000 in just the first year of the campaign. This year the hope is to double that amount. You can drop your sneakers off here at the Press and we will make sure they find their way to the schools. It’s a great way to clean your closets and make money for the schools.

Please make sure the shoes have laces. Thank you. We have a couple of really cool additions to our website that I think you are going to love. We now have, on our home page, a link on the right side called Help Wanted. By clicking on the link, you will be directed to all the latest help wanted ads. The great thing is that you don’t have to search for jobs by traveling through the classifieds and multiple clicking on links. The second link that we have added is really neat. It is a link dedicated especially for garage sales. If you click on the link, our Garage Sale special page will come up which you can use to submit your garage sales. Once garage sales get rolling, make sure to check in each week to see what sales are coming up.