We have plenty of GOATs. We need a lot more champs. (And a healthy dose of passeggiata.) 

In a world of superlatives, there’s never a shortage of debates about who, or what, is the best.  

The best of the best of the best, of course, are referred to as “the GOAT,” the acronym for greatest of all time. We love heroes, and GOATs provide aspirational measuring sticks for performance greatness.  
 
But I’d argue that we, as mortals, are better served by those who qualify as champions. 

The CityView Magazine edition you’re reading spotlights three of Fayetteville’s greatest of our time. Their respective individual greatness is measured tangibly in influence and impact. Yes, they’re GOATs. What makes them historically significant and memorable, though, isn’t what they did for themselves, but rather what they did within their respective spheres of influence to make life better — to raise the bar, to move the needle, to advance the cause, for the heart of Fayetteville. 

They didn’t do it for personal gain, but for the betterment of a place and its people.

What Eric Lindstrom, John Malzone, and Hank Parfitt (pictured left) have accomplished has earned them CityView’s “Downtown Visionaries” honors for 2024. Reading their profiles in these pages, you’ll be struck — even if you know them — by the tenaciousness with which they strived to make their respective ideas become visible realities.

They wanted the ball, wanted to make the play. Yet any scores they tallied added up to wins for Fayetteville. When others might have walked away from an opportunity to labor, Eric, John, and Hank championed the causes, and then led the charge and put hands to the work.

Time and again they won the day for downtown Fayetteville, and by extension they lifted each of us — and anyone who spends time in the areas where their fruits are visible, regardless of whether they ever hear these men’s names. 

So we tip our hat to Eric, for whom revitalization became a passion greater than a simple calling, and who put his expertise, his wallet, and his whole heart into the development of downtown Fayetteville to create an area where people would like to work and live. We salute John, a New Jersey transplant whose real estate chops and propensity to see things (particular physical structures) as they could be — not simply as they were — resulted in innumerable creative ways that added vitality to downtown. And we thank Hank, a healer by profession and a leader by nature, who recognized how the arts could add value and inspiration — making all of that a part of both the people and the place of downtown.  

Please take time to read their profiles.

A serving of passeggiata 

And speaking of time well spent: thinking of downtown makes me think of a tradition I’ve been reading about as my wife and I plan for a trip abroad. It goes by many names, but in Italy, it’s described as passeggiata — a leisurely stroll along the main street of a town. It’s a social ritual, often done before or after the evening meal, with delightful benefits: to see (and be seen), to aid your digestion, to indulge in some unscandalous gossip, or exchange news (or just smiles). 

Properly done, there’s no real destination and no real rush. 

We rarely indulge these days in what the Italians call dolce far niente, “the sweetness of doing nothing” or “sweet idleness.” We also connect with our neighbors far less than is good for us. 

Try some passeggiata. June’s here. The sun sets late. Toss out the excuses and take a walk. 

(And say “hi” to Eric, John, or Hank if you’re downtown — you’re likely to run into them.)

Read CityView Magazine’s “The Downtown Issue” June e-edition here.