The County

After work on Friday, I drove down to say goodbye to one of my long-time neighbors and distant relatives. It was sad to think that although I'd driven by her house countless times through the years, I don't believe we'd ever really spoken. I'd often admired her little place on the curve going out to my mother's. It was surrounded by fields and trees with no close neighbors unless you counted her son and his family who lived roughly 1/4 mile away (as the crow flies). Her grandson rode my school bus from my eighth grade year on, and he and his sister were sometimes the only two on the bus when my brother and I boarded it on pitch black fall mornings. Thinking about it now, I can still remember where he sat every day...halfway toward the front on the right, close to the window, never slouching, sometimes reading. It's funny the things I can remember from childhood compared to the detail I recall during life as an adult. It's both sad and odd, like this picture of Front Street that I took while driving with my mother and grandmother after the funeral on Friday night:

Look at all the empty buildings. I don't believe that there is one left that is home to an actual business, nor is there one that is fit to do so. While I was taking this picture my grandmother remarked that there was a time when every single building housed a successful business and that a person could barely drive down the street on weekends for being so packed. She mentioned the grocery stores, clothing stores, the theater. Even when I was a kid, most of those things were distant memories to county residents. I have to admit though that there are still times when I dream of being inside Webb's grocery. I am always on my way to the back to get a bottle of Pepsi out of the machine. I don't know how that particular store managed to creep into my dreams as an adult, but it has done so on more than a couple of occasions. I remember the store vividly, even now. There were two long aisles going the length of the store and many short aisles in between so that shopping there was like walking a railroad track. Bud or Bill was always back behind the meat counter waiting on a customer. I often marveled at how they seemed to know instinctively how wide to open their hand to grab exactly one pound of ground beef or how many slices equaled two pounds of bacon. Annette stood ready at the checkout in the front of the store. Her post was strategic so that during the inevitable slow hours she could stare out the plate glass window watching the comings and goings of the county. Sometimes I could tell that Annette would grow a little perturbed when I spent too much time loitering in front of the candy stand trying to choose between a Marathon bar and a Sugar Daddy. She never neglected to thank me for my business though. I am so sad yearning for my lost days of youth, that I am forced to post this picture in order to bring things back to present day reality:

This is now The Nicest Thing on Front Street. I wish that I could have gotten a better picture of it. I should have gotten out and stood beside it so that you could see that it is a miniature chapel. It even has a tiny gate (midget-sized) which I can only assume is used to keep the (miniature) riff-raff out. It's itty bitty, this gate...but not just only that....there's a teensy fence running the perimeter of the entire miniature thing. Words just cannot do justice to the magnitude of its petiteness nor the sadness of its immaculate grounds. How can the county keep such a pristine midget park while less than 50 yards away big people buildings are crumbling before their eyes?!

Namaste