You could see this coming. Having been born in Camden and living in the area my entire life, I struggle with the balance and political issues that come up time and time again. Parking is always on the front burner. Preserving our precious village is another one that I’ve heard ever since high school. My father once said that the problem with Camden is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. He said a lot of profound things.

I’ve been casually following the issue of what meals can be served at a bed and breakfast. It seems pretty obvious at first that breakfast would be the proper meal. Otherwise they would be called bed and every other meal places, which is really what a hotel or motel with a restaurant is. It’s interesting to me when I listen to the arguments against this proposal that it will destroy the character of High Street and/or Camden. I believe I heard the same argument when bed and breakfasts were proposed in the first place. I’m not for or against the idea and I don’t live in Camden anymore, so it makes no difference, but it does make me chuckle. Serving breakfast is OK, but dinner (suppah) kills everything.

But Camden has bigger fish to fry than that. They are on the verge of Tactical Urbanism.

If there is one thing that has been missing in Camden all these years, that is it. Just the name sounds goofy. I understand that people are serious about this, but really?

I experienced the Tactical Urbanism for myself after a smart comment on a Facebook post brought forth several comments so I agreed to buy a coffee and muffin for the police chief and we would experience the new phenomenon together.

Unfortunately, or perhaps by design, the chief was not available to be seen with me on the Tactical Urbanism bench to enjoy his coffee and blueberry muffin; however, shortly after I sat down, the fire chief almost broke his neck while crossing the street as he did about three of those ‘Is that Bill Packard on that bench?’ looks. Chris was very professional and made no comments on the merits of the idea.

That’s when when a gasoline tanker was coming straight toward us with 10,000 gallons of gasoline on it. Undaunted, I moved to the other side of Chestnut to experience the Tactical Urbanism from that viewpoint. A polite truck driver hauling garbage to the PERC facility in Holden stopped in traffic to let several folks cross Elm Street and aroma from the garbage truck added to the experience.

So here’s my take on the whole thing: I know that I don’t get it. I’ve been told that my whole life, but after my Tactical Urbanism experience, I moved to the Village Green and sat on a bench there for a bit. No, there were no big trucks or traffic, but it was very beautiful and peaceful.

Then I wandered up to the park and took in the view of the harbor from a bench up there. All I could smell was the smell of the ocean, so I got screwed out of the garbage smell. Since I was close by, I paused for a bit at the amphitheater and sat on a step. That was peaceful and tranquil. On my way back to the car, I remembered the view from the benches on the library property, so I went up there for a few minutes and thought about my morning.

I couldn’t come up with any good reason to sit in the street in Camden. I also couldn’t see any burning need for more green or people areas. It has always bothered me that we don’t appreciate enough the beauty that surrounds us and the opportunities we have to enjoy it. There always seems to be a faction that fears we will do something awful and destroy the whole thing and then there are others that don’t see the wonder in where we live. It’s not that I’m against change; it’s just that some things don’t need fixing.

Pictures of downtown Camden are famous all over the world. People come from everywhere to experience what they’ve seen pictures of. None of those pictures show Tactical Urbanism. Hopefully they never will. My father was right.