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Geneva was known as the capital of the Allobrogi until the Romans conquered the Celts in the area of modern Switzerland in 120 B.C. It became an important Roman provincial town and was a Catholic See after 400. In the fifth and the ninth century, Geneva was capital to the kingdom of Burgundy until power shifted further west. When Burgundy fell to the German empire in 1026, Geneva became part of that as well. In 512 the first great cathedral to St Maximus was built by Princess Seleuba of Burgundy, sister to Queen Clotilde.

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In 1124 the bishop was elevated to prince but was caught in a constant power struggle with the Counts of Geneva. In 1394 the line of the Counts died out and their lands and titles fell to their neighbours and cousins, the Counts of Savoy, who were duly elevated to a dukedom. This gave even more pressure on the prince-bishops who finally joined the Swiss Confederation in 1526 in a bid to shift power. The power bid succeeded but coincided with the Reformation and cost the Savoyards their city and the prince-bishop his see.

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After the Napoleonic wars Geneva regained its independence against the pressure of the Dukes of Savoy, who had meanwhile become kings of Sardinia as well, and the kingdom of France. It became part of the Swiss state in 1848. As the House of Savoy went on to become kings of Italy, it is quite logical that they live in Geneva today and this since the abdication of Umberto II.

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Geneva, also called the city of Calvin, offers a plethora of views and interesting things to see. It is also called the diplomat's city, as so many international organisations have their seats there. Just to name a choice few, besides the UN there are the International Red Cross and Red Halfmoon, The Aga Khan Trust, and my favourite the ICC (International Committee of Committees). Due to this international flair, you find a restaurant in the city serving food from every country you may think of.

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The city's first bishops are historically a muddle, but no matter which source you use they definitely became saints. Later inhabitants include less saintly persons such as Lenin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire as well as Calvin. The city has housed many refugee royal families at one time or another, from Spain, Greece, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania as well as the Imperial families of Persia or the Ottoman Empire.

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The language spoken and used is French. The rest of Switzerland makes fun of the city because of its tax rate. Even though the per capita income is the highest in Switzerland, taxes are as well, as all income derived from international organisations is tax free, thereby excluding the highest earners from paying any taxes at all.

Geneva also hosts CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which currently is trying to simulate the Big Bang. To this end they built a little machine in a tunnel loop with a diameter of 25 km, all underground. In another test published last year, they had been able to beam particles over the distance of 25 km; a joy to all Star Trek fans, I hope.

For further information on the city of Geneva you may want to go to the official homepage of the city government geneve.ch.

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St Gall the monastery was founded in 719 and was named after the Irish saint St Gall who had lived as a hermit nearby. Its founder was designated abbot by the king of the Francs and the pope decreed that the monks would choose their abbot themselves without recourse to Rome. The monastery existed to 1805 when all monasteries in Switzerland were secularised. But the Bishop of St Gall is chosen to this day by the local governing body of the church and then mailed to Rome for confirmation but not approval.

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From its earliest days the monastery had two schools attached, one for future monks and one for the sons of the local nobility and rich merchants. On his visit, Pope Gregory IV (died 844) was so impressed by schools and pupils that he decreed a special holiday to be held for children, which is still an official holiday in town with a great procession in which only children may take part. Town and monastery were burnt down 926 by the Huns and 937 again by accident.

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In 947 the abbot was made a prince by the German emperor. His power was absolute, but waned over the centuries as the inhabitants of the city acquired more freedom and rights. When the abbey lost its hold on the county of Appenzell which had become a member of the Swiss Confederation in 1411, the abbot called on the citizens of town and county to help him regain Appenzell. Instead of which they joined the Swiss Confederation as well and bought their freedom from the German king.

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The town later joined the Reformed Church which made a Catholic island of the monastery at its midst. After the Napoleonic wars, St Gall regained its freedom and was then swallowed up in the new Swiss state. At that point it lost any political influence. It remains an important Catholic centre, though, especially as the Holy See has no influence over the choice of its bishop. St Gall is today the seat of the Swiss High Court for Administrative Law.

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St Gall became a centre for linen production in the 17th century. St Gall became at that point a byword for the highest quality linen that could be bought. When linen demand sank, St Gall was already established as a centre for embroidery that endures today. To commemorate St Gall embroidery, Swiss Postal Services issued the first embroidered stamp in the world. Its face value is five Francs and covered the charge for registered mail. It's one of the few modern stamps whose value has gone up by at least a factor 100 on its face value.

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The language spoken in town is Alemannic. The rest of Switzerland makes fun of the local dialect because it has lost vowel sounds as in bow or how and replaced it by an o as in stork. This language shift makes the use of certain words quite confusing for other Alemannic speakers. The most well known inhabitant was King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden who spent his exile years in town up to his death in 1837.

Besides the cathedral a visit to the monastery library is a must. The library owns over 600 books written and illustrated before the year 900. Apart from that, the town houses an excellent museum for embroidery whose exhibits show how well known pictures were adapted for embroidery. The town is also known as the city of bay windows. I was told there were 111 bay windows of historical significance.

For further information on the city of St Gall you may want to go to the official homepage of the city government sg.ch.

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Celts had inhabited this place since the 5th century B.C. A town seems to have been in place around 150 B.C. which was later fortified by the Romans. After the Romans left around 400, the Alemannic people took over but were quickly swallowed by the kingdom of the Franks. By 900 the town was part of the kingdom of Burgundy and with it fell to the German Empire in 1032. The first bishop is mentioned around 740 and he seems to have had the rule over the city as all bishops would have it coming after. In 917, the town was completely destroyed by the Huns.

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999, the bishop was made a prince by the kings of Burgundy and retained the title under the emperors until 1806. In 1225, Bishop Heinrich of Thun had a bridge built over the Rhine River which was the foundation of the future riches of the town. It was for a long time the only bridge between Lake Constance and the North Sea. 1348 half the population fell to the pest, and 1356 90 per cent of the town were destroyed by an earthquake.

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From 1431 to 1449, Basel was the centre of Christendom with the Council being held in the city. It was due to all these notables being present that the news of the battle of St Jakob was all over Europe within weeks. In this battle being fought just outside the town walls, 1,500 soldiers from the Swiss Confederation were defeated by 40'000 soldiers of the French king in a ten hour battle at such high cost to the French that they withdrew. It is believed that 6,000 French soldiers were killed, not counting the wounded. Nobody really cared to attack the Confederation after that.

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1459, the Pope donated a university to Basel, and in 1471 the emperor granted the fair privilege to the city. The fair is still held yearly in November and is considered the oldest in Europe. The University drew notable scientists of their day to Basel, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, Paracelsus, and Holbein. In later days the University brought forth such genies as the members of the Bernoulli family or Leonhard Euler. Changing members of the Bernoulli family held the professorship for mathematics at the university for 105 consecutive years. In 1501, Basel joined the Swiss Confederation.

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After the Napoleonic wars, Basel regained independence and received together with Berne the lands formerly belonging to the prince-bishop of Basel. With the founding of the Swiss state in 1848 Basel lost all political influence in Europe and in Switzerland. In the late 19th century, Basel became a centre for the new pharmaceutical industry and remains a major player to these days. Apart from numerous historic buildings, Basel has over 60 museums.

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The language spoken is Alemannic with many French words used at the same time, but pronounced the Alemannic way. The Swiss make fun of the city as it sees itself on a par with New York, Paris, or London where culture and the arts are concerned. It is said that you may joke about everything in Basel, as the people have a high regard for the ridiculous, except about carnival which they take very seriously.

Every year, Basel hosts the World Jewellery and Watch Fair, the largest of its kind anywhere, and the Art Fair for modern art. A spinoff Art Fair is held yearly in Miami under the name Basel Art Miami. And besides that: The Swiss National Day is the 1st of August being observed with a holiday and fireworks everywhere in Switzerland except in Basel, where the fireworks and the parties are held on the 31st of July so people may sleep off their headaches during that holiday.

For further information on the city of Basel you may want to go to the official homepage of the city government basel.ch.

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Zurich's historical city straddles the Limmat River which will later join the Aar River as it comes from Berne on its way to the Rhine River. Zurich was a Roman toll collecting post, and was equipped with a Carolingian castle under Charlemagne. His son Louis the German founded the Fraumünster abbey in 853 endowing it richly with lands. After a spate under the rule of the Dukes of Zähringen, the town was made a free imperial city after the death of the last duke. The abbess of the convent was promoted to the rank of duchess, making her the ruler of the city.

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She lost her power to the gilds over the next century, and the city joined the Swiss Confederation in 1351. Zurich was one of the starting points of the Reformed Church und Ulrich Zwingli, as well as the birthplace of the Baptist Church. Zurich was a very rich city already in the 14th century, as the Manesse manuscript shows (shown in Heidelberg, Germany), a beautifully illustrated bible that was paid for by the family Manesse in Zurich. Zurich has remained the financial centre of Switzerland to this day.

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The town centre is dominated by the Grossmünster, also a gift of the German emperors, the Fraumünster, and the church of St Peter with the largest tower clock in continental Europe. Zurich boasts the most expensive and exclusive shopping mile in Switzerland, the Bahnhofstrasse. It has also a nightlife that never stops concentrated in the area between the railway station and the Grossmünster, called Dörfli (little village). Numerous restaurants, bars, and clubs are to be found there side by side.

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Zurich is situated directly on Lake Zurich, which is the main bathing site in summer. Yearly in August, it hosts the largest event organised in Switzerland, when over one million people come into the city centre for the Streetparade. Over 40 Lovemobiles (a name derived from the Berlin Loveparade) take to the streets hammering out techno sounds at maximum volume.

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Zurich has many glorious places to see and to visit; apart from buildings mentioned there is the zoo and Lindenplatz with a breathtaking view of the city. Apart from that, there is one recommendation you wouldn't first hand think of: The Imperial Chinese Garden. A gift of the city of Kunming in China for the help rendered by the town after an earthquake, it is the only complete Imperial Chinese Garden outside of China I know of.

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The language spoken in Zurich is Alemannic. The rest of Switzerland makes fun of the inhabitants of the city because they confound nightlife with culture. Zürcher (people of Zurich) denominates anybody living in the vicinity of Zurich and is not meant friendly, Stadtzürcher (people of the city of Zurich) is only used for second generation inhabitants of the town, and Gnomes of Zurich is the name for the bankers.

Famous inhabitants in the past include Lenin and Goethe. Zurich is home to the Federal Technical University whose main buildings above the city were designed and built by Gottfried Semper who had previously built the Opera at Dresden. Being already professor for architecture at the University of Zurich, he headed the finding committee for the submitted architectural plans. When these were found lacking, he drew new plans himself and took over the building supervision at the same time.

For further information on the city of Zurich you may want to go to the official homepage of the city government zuerich.ch.

Berne's historical city is cradled by a large bend in the Aar River which later will join the Rhine River to flow towards Rotterdam and the North Sea. It was founded in 1191 by the Dukes of Zähringen like many other towns in Germany and Switzerland. When the Duke died without issue, Berne was made a free imperial city. As such it joined the relatively newly formed Swiss Confederation in 1353. Berne became the seat of the Federal Government in 1848 after the Swiss Confederation joined into one State.

The town centre dates mainly from after 1405, when the Great Fire burned down virtually all buildings in town. It was rebuilt in the Renaissance style of the time and its main feature is the arcade walk. Almost all buildings have an arcade on the ground floor and the shops are inside these medieval arcades. It makes for the perfect shopping experience on a rainy day.

Apart from many other views of interest, e.g. City Hall and Minster, the Zytglogge clock tower is a magnet for tourists. Every full hour its elaborate figurines dance to the tune of the clock's bells. It is well worth time to spend just to have witnessed it. The tower is probably the most sent out view on postcards and has become a trade mark of the city.

Obviously one must have seen the Parliament building. The view here shown is taken in winter, when the place before the building is converted into an outdoors ice rink for the public. Just to the left of Parliament you will find the Hotel Bellevue, the most renowned of local hotels. Its terrace has a breathtaking view over the Bernese countryside; taking a drink there is mandatory.

As a bear forms part of the coat of arms of the city, there is a legend that the name of the city was derived through the founding Duke killing a bear on the peninsula the city was built on. In 1857 the bear pit was built which currently houses three Pyrenean Bears. As the premises are too small for bears to live in, the city is currently building a new home for them. This new feature costs a lot of money; therefore stones for building it are sold to people in the city. If you are offered stones to buy, now you know what for.

The spoken language in Berne is Alemannic, though you hear all four national languages spoken due to the federal importance of the town. The rest of Switzerland makes fun of the Bernese because their Alemannic dialect is very slowly spoken. The people are referred to as Bernese; ‘Them in Berne' means the Federal Government up to its usual stupid pranks.

Berne's best known inhabitant was Albert Einstein who published his first writings on the electrodynamics of moved objects. The most quoted inhabitant probably is Elisabeth de Meuron, known as ‘Madame'. The quote pertains to a person coming to look for work in her household who was asked ‘are you somebody (of substance) or do you expect wages?'

For further information on the city of Berne you may want to go to the official homepage of the city government bern.ch.

I lay resting in my bed, my mind wandering, dancing with dreams, drifting in and out of sleep and then I heard the sound of the island coming to life and the waves gently lapping against the shore and it woke me. For Corfu was waking up and I was going to miss it. As I made my way down the dimly lit streets, winding in and out of hidden corridors, wiping the sleep out of my eyes and searching for coffee, I found another early riser to share a cappuccino with. Not speaking at all but speaking volumes, we both recognized the importance of watching the sun rise, sipping our steaming, frothy cappuccino, drinking in the view and truly waking up. Having a few of these precious moments in the morning to enjoy such diminutive pleasures is a unique experience. My newly found comrade poured a smidgen of kumquat liquor in his cracked, lopsided, porcelain mug and gave me a wink. It was an instant that captured the epitome of Corfu and the engaging character of its inhabitants.

Entranced at the light creeping up the colossal structures and radiating a golden, silver, pink hue over the entire city, I was spellbound by such raw beauty. Corfu came to life and so did I; it was going to be a beautiful day here. But it was still early and slightly chilly and the morning air was brisk with excitement as I set off to explore and let the daylight bring me to life.

With no map, no guidebook and no initial plan in mind, I meandered around the marble streets for hours stumbling upon unusual finds, ancient buildings and exploring obscured pathways seeing where they led me. Spianada Square is another locale that offers delightful carriage rides, bell towers, charming cafes, old wrought iron benches, vintage bookstores and is host to annual cricket matches. Not capable of sitting still, I set off for the esplanade. Leisurely walking along the promenade the sidewalks became smaller and the buildings all came to a point as if they were leaning towards the echo of the sea. This is where many prominent scholars, painters and poets, such as Dionysios Solomos, came to reflect, gather their thoughts, create and inspire.

As I made my way through another undiscovered, cobble-stoned side street of the Village of Kassiopi, I overheard the heartbreaking hymn of a man singing deep within his soul as if he had lost something he deeply cherished. A mourning perhaps or maybe it was prayer. My curiosity was aroused. Following this cry through the passageways, listening to the wind and inquisitively peering around corners, I was getting closer. Just then, the words became noticeably louder and the song more poignant. I knew I had found him. I stepped into Saint Spiridon's Church and discovered this soprano with his eyes closed, kneeling on the ground, hands spread out to his sides performing his daily ritual of prayer and homage to the Saint. The only illumination that shown through, was from the myriad of vibrantly decorated, stained-glass windows that adorned this church.

This Saint is so special to the citizens of Corfu that a few times a year his remains are carried around Spianada Square in a somber demonstration to memorialize his life and marvel at his munificent miracles. This Ionian style Greek Orthodox Church is one of the greatest religious monuments in Corfu. Completely at peace after listening to the solemn melody, saying my hail mary's and confessing my sins, I bowed my head in respect and made my way back out to the light of day.

As I looked up towards the vast cerulean skyline, watching the clouds glide leisurely by, I saw the Old Fortress archeological site. This is truly a momentous structure as it is positioned high on the cliffs of Figareto that seems to stand guard, like a big brother, over Spianada Square. The fort is currently linked to the island by an iron suspension bridge, but use to be completely separated by a wooden drawbridge and maritime moat. Exploring the citadel and its distinct design and affluent history, takes you back in time when the Venetians ruled this region and fought for its freedoms.

It was becoming dusk and my mind was full. There are various typical tourist attractions in Corfu, but the complexity of this island and its people lies within the cold, stone walls of its primitive buildings, in the morose song of the prayer, marble walkways, inimitable iron works and in the depths of the Aegean.

For additional information on Corfu please visit:

• http://www.corfu-greece.biz
  
• http://www.agni.gr
  
• http://www.greeka.com/ionian/corfu
  
• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8905
  
• http://www.greektourism.com/?langID=2

Every year, millions of tourists come to Turkey to see the natural beauties of my country. Most of these tourists are Russian, German and people coming from North Europan countries like Finland, Sweden and Norway. There are many historical and touristic places in Turkey but most of them are found in Aegean and Mediterranean region. Izmir, Antalya, Didim, Kusadasi, Marmaris, Fethiye, Bodrum and Ephesus are all great examples to these beauties. All of these places are located near the sea. Some of them have a historical background while some don't have. This article is about a small town Patara.

Patara is an ancient town in Mediterranean region. It is located in city of Kas which is one of the touristic cities of Antalya Province. According to the historians, Patara is the birth place of Saint Nicholas who is known as Noel Father in Turkish culture. Most of you know him as an old man who drives his deers and gives presents to the children in Noel nights. He lived all his life nearby Patara, in the town of Myra..

Patara was founded by Patarus. So, it is known with his name. Patarus was one of the sons of famous Greek commander Apollo. In the past, Dorians coming from city of Crete lived in this small town. It witnessed many wars of Greek and Egyptians. In 1. century B.C, it was joined to Roman Empire and Rhodians occupied the ancient Patara. It was joined to Pamphylia in the year of 43. According to the quotes in Bible, Paul of Tarsus and Luke changed their ships in Patara.

Patara has a small hill and a ruined temple on one side of the hill. Currently, It is under ruins. Every year, Europan and Turkish archaeologists come to Patara to search about ancient civilizations living in this region. Excavations are made.Most of those excavations are made on the hill and ruined temple nearby. Off-shore part of Patara is under sand. After the latest excavations, archaeologists announced that Patara has a main street and amphitheatre.

One day, if your steps take you away to Turkey, you should visit Patara. Sure that, you can find many interesting things which have not been discovered yet.

There is a frayed, aged certificate dated from "77 attesting to the fact of Mr Ferreira"s worldly travels. It is pasted on his cabinet, which he brought into the office. Mr Ferreira could be said to be one of the Humansdorp's GRANDFATHERS, the backbone of the town. He may have white hair but it certainly does him proud, as it serves as a token of the wisdom he lavishes on his work along with a keen knowledge of the local area. He is adamant on acting out his wish to promote the town. Unfortunately, accordingly to Mr Ferreira the Fynboos (shrub type of plants) Festival has been scrapped, yet he hopes it can be re-established.

The festival should be less costly, more locally plant orientated and only for a day in Mr Ferreira's view. The Fynboos Festival at least brings attention to plant life, which we pay little regard to. We are so technologically obsessed that we sort of have lost the wonderment about and usefulness of plant species. Humansdorp offers its own unique fynboos species. If you wish to know more, just ask Mr Ferreira! As luck would have it, Mr Ferreira was indeed a professional teacher for thirty one years. He taught at a school in Grahamstown and at two schools in Port Elizabeth. While spending time with Mr Ferreira, one certainly does bear witness to his generosity and patience. It is unfortunate that his working environment is so dire. For now, the office only has a functional well used fax machine (kindly donated by Mr and Mrs Oosthuizen, owners of Sugar 'n Spice stationery shop) and a telephone. Unfortunately the office does not have toilets.

If a tourist or visitor needs to use a toilet he/she is taken to the municipality offices next door (which is an inconvenience to the municipality staff) or the Wimpy. In each case it is dismal for tourism. Mr Ferreira even stated that he has used the “tree at the back” when his bladder is full. Yes, there is a toilet also at the back but a filthy one and supposedly for the workers. Workers should be using proper clean toilets as well! Hopefully (especially with the help of benefactors) two clean operational toilets (one for males and another for females) will be built soon on the premises. Even a kitchenette is desired and would promote hospitality to the rand spending tourist! Any spare donations given would be gratefully utilised towards purchasing and hanging international flags and attractive lights to highlight the tourist office to travelling guests. If any generous benefactor wants to make a contribution towards the tourism office please visit or phone 02742 295 1361 during office hours.

You may sometimes be greeted by Brenda Badenhorst, who is a voluntary assistant. Working on a meagre salary of R2500, Mr Ferreira is certainly not in this for the money. R11000 is allocated to the offices every three months to cover salary, telephone, postage, building up keep and other costs. The office falls under the Kouga Tourism, which provides this grant. Although promised a salary increase but yet to be enforced, Mr Ferreira is still dedicated to his work. You can help out! To all the businesses in Humansdorp; Mr Ferreira wishes to express that people support the “tourism forum” for 2010 especially in the sense that our town is clean and accommodating to provide side line attractions for the visitors.

Remember you can pay a nominal fee (variable options to suit your requirements) to the tourism office to be advertised on street maps and in other tourist reading print media. If there ever are signs of community commitment and love of a town, one such sign must surely be street sweeping. Despite transient arthritis, Mr Ferreira is an active and proud street sweeper on his street! Any one can support tourism to help elevate Humansdorp up to the tourist spotlight. If we all work together to keep the town clean, operational and most of all friendly, it can only be beneficial for all.

A friend of mine suggested looking in Brookside, a small section of Tulsa, and so we planned on starting our search there. All dressed up and ready to dance, I met Kaytie at her house. As we set out, we hoped to experience something other than our routine small-city lives, and maybe catch the smallest glimpse of what teens in New York City or Chicago get to experience. But despite our best efforts, the only new experience we had that night did not involve partying like the big cities do. Through the course of events, we managed to wind up in a smelly casino: a veritable magnet for broken souls, empty wallets, and annoying security guards.

At the start of our evening, we cruised down Brookside, expecting to see club after club. What we did see were a few nice restaurants and a couple of unkempt looking bars, but no clubs. Disgruntled, and wanting to find somewhere new to visit soon, we searched for some sign of a nightspot we could visit. After an hour or so of driving, Kaytie and I had seen neither hide nor hair of any clubs, although we had seen some beautiful and some slightly scarier parts of downtown Tulsa. Some of the parts of downtown were grungy. Scattered in them were homeless persons, dark alleyways and broken-down buildings way past their prime. The better parts of downtown were well-lit underneath towering skyscrapers. However, downtown Tulsa did not present any possible place we could both have a new experience at, so we began to consider other promising venues we could visit.

Stepping out of Kaytie's silver Ford Taurus, the two of us were immediately greeted with an intense smell of cigarette smoke and greasy foods, reminiscent of bowling alleys. Walking into the Creek Nation Casino, we had our wallets ready with our ID's, presuming that we were to be carded as we walked into the door. Soon we found out that this wasn't the case. We were both disappointed - having just turned eighteen, we were ready to show off that we could legally enter the casino. Instead of security ready to check our identification, we were welcomed by the sight of tacky red carpet and ugly mauve walls. Not to mention slot machines. The slots were everywhere, wall to wall, huge, flashing beacons, ready for unsuspecting victims with pocketfuls of money to be drawn in. The smoke was visible in the air. Light smog wafted ubiquitously, an inescapable fog of potential lung cancer. Kaytie and I quickly stepped into the much smaller non-smoking room, and as we stepped in, I observed a man with a pipe in his mouth stepping out. So much for smoke-free.

Older people were everywhere in the casino; almost everyone seemed to be above the age of sixty. They would sit and press buttons for long periods of time, presumably not getting the results they were expecting. Their eyes seemed to glaze over as they stared at the flashing screens, scanning the computerized reels as they spun, with cherries and sevens and other bright images. Kaytie and I sat down to try one of the cheaper slot machines; we slid our dollar bills into the bright beacon and tried to figure out how the heck it worked. Mostly we pressed random assortments of buttons, trying to press the right combination in order to win. A helpful, but slightly annoying, security guard came to our rescue. He was young, overweight, and he spoke with a lisp. He showed us how to play the slot machines, and when he was done with his explanation, he stayed to watch us play for around ten minutes. Kaytie and I assumed that he stood chatting with us for so long because he thought we were attractive, because surely talking to two eighteen-year-old girls for ten minutes would be frowned upon by other security guards. Kaytie was much better at the slots than I was, or, as she put it, “better at pressing buttons.”

We didn't stay at the casino for very long, mainly because we found that it was just plain boring. It was quieter in the casino than I was expecting; I suppose it was due to the immense concentration that pushing buttons must obviously take. The slot machines seemed to be more work to figure out than they were worth, and winning a few bucks definitely did not seem worth the second-hand smoke inhalation from just standing inside the casino. Our night may have not ended with the excitement that I was expecting, but I did realize that, in life, it is probably better just to put in a hard day's work, rather than spend all of your time in a smoky, old person, tacky carpet-filled establishment.

It's not like a ghost town that you see in an old cowboy picture. Rather, it's a place with occasional spots of activity, encircling empty buildings of inactivity. Now, when everyone walks through downtown, you still see streets containing the same old brown buildings edged with corroded metal beams and black-covered windows obscuring the sun. It's as if the buildings are afraid to show their faces, for fear of reminding everyone how they once were and what they have now become.

Once proud landmarks like the Consumers Building and the Hayes Hotel now have sideways-hanging signs with “For Lease” printed on them. Pieces of paper with words like “condemned” and “set for demolition” flap in the breeze. Brown rust now blends into old brick-covered faces-bricks once assembled by proud citizens. These were the very same buildings where Jackson's forefathers gathered and planned the future of the town. But to the city's credit, there is a move to use these buildings again for business.

Most Jacksonians who were living here in the 1980's know why these buildings became vacant. Many people were laid off from their jobs. Plants closed down, and the mighty hands that kept Detroit going became idle. They became the hands that signed unemployment checks and drove Japanese cars on their way to far away places in search of new jobs in places like California, Arizona and New Mexico. These places took in the large numbers that made the American landscape seem like a big teeter-totter, with one side on the southwest dipping to the ground, while the northeast stood high in the atmosphere of uncertainty.

This town was once a proud part of the American automobile's past. Cam shafts and tires were made in small towns like Jackson, Lansing and the many counties surrounding Detroit, where it all started. The industry grew and thrived and for many years, it seemed like the prosperous times would never end for the state. But, unfortunately, they eventually did.

When I grew up in Jackson, my father and both my grandfathers worked in factories. We were middle-class, and having factory work at the time was a big deal. With these new jobs, the men in my family suddenly didn't seem like just my father and my grandfathers anymore. They seemed mightier, more alive and quite imposing, with their greasy shirts and their stories of smoke and stench and loud noises.

But one by one, the car industry began to lay off our mighty men. As the economy fell, the bottom fell out of the lives of these strong men. All of a sudden, they were standing in unemployment lines, looking for something else to work at, besides building cars. Cars were all they knew, so it was especially hard to adjust to.

And now, instead of looking mighty, they started to shrink in size. I don't mean literally-they just didn't look like the mighty men that they once were, when they were working for Goodyear and Fisher Body. They looked knocked down. They appeared defeated.

This doesn't have to happen again in 2008. Living in the southwest, I saw what relatively small towns could do with a little ingenuity. Towns like Tucson, Arizona that went through hard times as well, learned to bounce back. It was amazing to see them turn into bustling cities in a relatively short amount of time.

And here's how they did it!

Before they became major players in the economy of the country (and the world), these towns were investing their business in corporations from out of town. Tucson asked for businesses like Geico to build a customer service center there. They reduced Geico's property taxes to encourage them to build and to hire local workers to fill their buildings. It was a successful partnership.

Ask other towns out there how they became successful-how they became part of the global economy. Ask them how they were able to stop their businesses from becoming rusty relics of the past.

However you plan on tackling this problem, start slow, but start now.

This can be done. Unite for a change and who knows what could be accomplished in a short period of time. Pay more in higher taxes for it. I know that it's hard for Jacksonians to pay more taxes, but pay whatever you can. Let's not have our kids grow up to look at anymore empty buildings and wonder why nothing was done.