Back in May of 2001 I commented on the rules for placing memorial bricks around the Old Drum statue (Gadfly 88). I thought it was shortsighted by somebody to not allow people to honor their pets on the bricks. I pointed out that Marshall has a walkway with pet-honoring bricks at the Jim the Wonder Dog park, and that Warrensburg has a much stronger claim with Old Drum; we could draw donations from across the country.

Now, it appears the policy has been changed. I heard our Main Street director on the radio saying that we can place bricks with our pets' names. That's good - with adequate publicity we'll fill that walkway up quickly. What's more, people from out-of-town who buy bricks will come to Warrensburg to see their bricks, bringing us tourism dollars.

But, why has it taken 5 years to do what was logical from the outside? A previous Main Street director said the County Commission wouldn't allow pet-honoring bricks. An individual who was on the County Commission at the time has since denied placing any such restrictions. I don't know which story is correct; I'm just pleased that the rules have changed.

To promote this tourism-generating program, I'd place a link to the brick-ordering page at Main Street's website - but they don't have one. Too bad; the "Old Drum" page at my website gets 30-50 visitors a week.

See also Gadfly 88.