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Molly could remember when Greenfield wasn't much more than a green field and a few stop lights along Main Street. She was excited when at age 11 McDonald's came to town, astonished when at age 12 Burger King showed up across the street (aren't they the same thing except one has happy meals?), and relieved when Wendy's made their way in by the time she started driving at 15. Now Greenfield's fast food industry was showing a little class! But it was really Wal-Mart that put their little town of almost 4,000 on the map. Strange that in college Molly’s freshman roommate joined the Responsible Growth Project and was even part of a human chain in protest of Wal-Mart building in her home neighborhood while for Molly, Wal-Mart meant late night shopping (open til midnight!) access to goods she'd have to drive 45 minutes up the freeway for otherwise, and, should she some day get married, a place to register besides the hardware store.

What used to be a short drive down Main Street, right at the second light and out of town 5 miles, over what is sometimes a creek but usually a wash, left and then the first (OK, only) house on the left with the circular driveway was now no longer recognizable as the way home. The Brown’s wholesome, down-home white ranch was now at the end of a cul-de-sac. In the ten years since Molly went away to college Greenfield grew suburbs. Her triumphal if not confused return in her silver Saturn to the home she grew up in required snaking her way through the slightly fashionable although prosaically named suburb of Blue Creek. The Brown’s were lucky in that their suburb was named before the city planners got pretentious. Some of their good friends and longtime residents of Morrison County got stuck with Azure Spring, Indigo Heights, and Cimarron Pond.