Seventeen Planks

Ever since Gee hit the reload button 20,000 times on that "cool town" website, Berlin keeps winning praise for being charming. If you ask Purnell, he'd tell you the truth: The whole "cool" thing started with massive voter fraud. 

These days every new article in the lifestyle section of some big city paper brings another 250 come-heres with podcasts and instagram accounts. Enough is enough. Purnell will make Berlin boring again, on purpose, by Wednesday. 

Make Berlin Uncool Again.

We do not need another four-story building surrounded by blacktop laid down by some middling developer everyone pretends is worth a damn. 

The marsh and critters were here first. The crabs were here first. Purnell's daddy was here first. Purnell likes crabs and beer and does not like Lexus drivers from Bethesda. The condos can go pound sand up in Delaware.

The buildings on Main Street have been standing since before anybody started writing articles about them. They were good then. They are good now. Stop filling them up with Guatemalan handicrafts made in China, second hand polyester, and gay literature.

Respect what your people built. That's all this is. Purnell isn't gonna call it "historic preservation," but if a building outlasted three of his uncles, it can outlast a come here with a big 'idea' he copied from a Western shore shopping mall or fast casual restaurant chain.

Purnell has counted four shops on Main Street selling scented candles and fifty-dollar T-shirts. You cannot get a hamburger for less than $20. There used to be a hardware store. You could buy a box of nails. You could talk to a man who knew what you were building. You could buy charcoal. And Brooks' mom Julia Roberts worked there.

Daddy used to send Purnell there for a roll of chicken wire and some lighter fluid. You cannot buy chicken wire or lighter fluid on Main Street anymore. That is a problem.

Purnell's dog has never been on a leash and has never bit anybody who didn't have it coming. A dog knows where it lives. A leash law is for towns that don't trust their dogs, and Purnell trusts his dog more than he trusts most members of the planning commission, except the member named after an amphibian.

Hell, when Purnell grew up it was totally normal to hear Moms screaming the names of their kids and dogs at suppertime, calling them from hundreds of yards away to come home and eat their dumplings.

At all functions paid for with town money, the bar will offer National Bohemian and a brown liquor of the mayor's choosing. That's it. If you want a "spritz" you can drive to Rehoboth.

Why do we need one, anyway?  Purnell would like a line-item accounting of what the Economic Development Office has spent on fundraising, consultants, "branding," stupid murals, stupid events, and trips to conferences in cities with light rail. He suspects the number will surprise people. He intends to read it out loud.

If you moved here in the last twenty seven years, Purnell is respectfully not interested in your opinion on town planning.

Farley's had Playboy up out of reach of 8 year olds. Farley's had a pharmacist who knew you. Farley's had a magazine rack and a screen door that slapped. Whatever is in that building now, Purnell would like Farley's back, in the original configuration, with the hallmark cards and cigarettes, and ideally with one of the original Farleys.

The chicken house is part of who we are. Purnell will defend the right of any farm operated by a Worcester County native to keep operating its chicken houses against any future "scenic corridor" ordinance dreamt up by people who moved to a farm road and were surprised to smell a farm on it.

The Constitution allows us to dispose of trash in our backyards with a gallon of gas and a lighter. Meddlesome Maryland bureaucrats are trying to make you pay them to get rid of your brush and other junk.

Purnell will liberate the Town from this onerous oppression by personally setting a pile of Christmas trees alight on the first New Years Day after his election.

Sunday is for church, dinner, the back porch, and not being bothered. No outdoor music festivals. No malignant herds of elderly Pennsylvania motorcyclists. The sole exception is target practice, which is a tradition, a form of worship, and frankly the only reasonable thing to do with a Sunday afternoon.

Berlin will not enforce any state or federal firearms restriction Purnell judges to be unconstitutional, which, in his read, is most of them. He will hold a town meeting on this. He will bring his own.

The Berlin Fire Company is the finest institution in this town. Purnell's daddy knew every man who ever rode a truck out of that house. He's watched more controlled burns than Superbowls.

Whatever the Company asks for — equipment, extra uniforms — the answer from the mayor's office will be yes, and the answer will be yes before the question is finished. The muskrat dinner is sacred. The bingo is sacred. The parade truck is sacred. There is no irony in this plank, and there will never be.

Roland's used to have gas pumps. You could pull up, fill up, talk to Mike, and be on your way in four minutes. Purnell would like the pumps back.

While we're at it, Purnell would also like somebody to explain to him when, exactly, it became illegal to smoke while you pump gas, and who, exactly, asked for that. He has seen a great deal of gas pumped in his life and has yet to see a pump on fire.

The Pit was an abandoned sand quarry out past town where a man could take his truck, run it up a hill, down a hill, through a foot of mud, and back out the other side with the windshield wipers still going. It was, for a generation of Berlin boys, the entire point of owning a truck in the first place.

Purnell does not know who fenced it off, who put up the signs, or who decided a sand pit nobody had used for sand in forty years was suddenly a liability. He would like a word with that person. Then he would like the Pit back, gate open, no waiver to sign, no helmet required.

If you are here for the weekend and you brought a tethered child, arrived on a bus, or wheeled a cooler down Main Street, you owe the town a dollar. Same goes for dropped ice cream cones. Purnell figures this pays for the new sidewalks in about six summers.