There was no industrial base – no manufacturing. It was not a regional transportation hub nor a retail distribution center. There was no sophisticated research and development center as Raleigh-Durham. The city was dying. Downtown was dead. A situation similar to that we find at the base of Pikes Peak. After all, most of the state government employees were lifelong government employees nearing retirement age, in their late 50’s. As such, us old folk are not prone to spending money on high dollar designer running shoes – we do not stand in line at 2 in the morning to buy the latest I-phone replacing the one we bought two months ago – nor, do we over-spend our incomes and generate sales tax revenues to support our city. We do tend get off work, channel surf for reruns of old Lawrence Welk shows and sit with a glass of warm milk, a tube of Ben-Gay, and possibly some Ex-Lax.

When Austin civic leaders realized their city had tanked, they galvanized, formed the Arrow Group – and began to research ways they might re-invigorate their city. They worked had to identify their strong points and capitalize on those points and worked to reduce the impact of their shortcomings. One key to the revival was us hard-drinkin, hard-livin’ beer-drinking old country boys who loved our country music and chicks. And, they had Willie! The transformation of the downtown, at night, as a ‘country-music’ hub to equal that of Nashville proved to be the spur that drove the transformation of Austin. Just think of the PBS shows of “Austin City Limits”

Perhaps what Sam and Kathy are doing – rather than something the old ex-lax downtown retailers complain about – - could be part of a new-wave of energy from the younger generation that could spur more activity at night in the downtown core – that would increase awareness that there actually IS a downtown, and start the process where the younger ‘let’s go spend some dollars’ crowd would begin to frequent during the day. After all, the downtown area offers a rash of really interesting shops, products and experiences that are available nowhere else in the community.

And, we did, after all – send a team of local civics to see what works in Austin. Looks as if they brought back: warm milk. There is a wealth of energy in those of our younger generation that have not move away to find a job. That is a resource which could be tapped as part of the downtown re-invention process. After all, they have the money and more important, the energy to spend it!