Public Enemies

I’ve gotten away with not blogging about this yet, but today I made my first venture downtown since filming started on Main Street. I wanted to get lunch at Erbert and Gerbert’s by campus and then drop off some bills at the downtown post office. I figured it would be pretty simple since I can take Jackson to campus and the post office is a few blocks down from where the action is.

Wrong.

It’s a total zoo. I made the mistake of trying to go up High rather than go down one more block to Pearl. Police barricades were set up by the opera house and I had to go down Division over to Pearl anyway. And all the smart people had taken Pearl in the first place so it took forever to turn left. Then add in crazy tourists and sight-seers not paying attention to where they’re walking. *sigh* I made it to the post office, dropped off the mail, and headed back to work. At the corner of Pearl and Main there was a crowd of people hovering outside the barricades. As I approached the red light the crowd seemed to swell and a wave of people ended up in the street. They got yelled at pretty quickly by a police officer, but still. Stupid people… Luckily I didn’t run anyone over. After I got back onto Jackson it was pretty much smooth sailing. But there were crowds everywhere, cars everywhere. I just hope they’re patronizing local businesses while they sit outside for hours trying to catch a glimpse of Johnny. I’m glad I don’t work in that area. It would drive me crazy to have to deal with it every day. But yay for Oshkosh gaining some notoriety that doesn’t involve overalls or drunken riots!