Things change.
Stores close. Eras end. Dynasties topple. Relationships, good or bad or indifferent, evolve or stay the same. I still live in the same town, same house, still walk the places where we walked. I see changes everywhere, slow, subtle changes, things slipping away, getting softer around the edges, a world filled with grand Etch a Sketch shakes and No. 2 pencil erasures. Things we shared and places we visited are now folded deep into the recesses of our past lives, but their soft, shadow-grey reminders were, for the longest time, still all around us, egging those old emotions on, the way a stick can find old embers deep within the confines of ash. Now our infamous acts and the notorious places we haunted are, thanks to the passing of time and the vagaries of commerce, disappearing fast, being buried by the sands of time. To that end, a list..
The Manette Bridge: closing, to be replaced
Pat's: shuttered
Hiro Sushi: once again closed
China Chef: on it's third or fourth evolution
Paging Department: new look, an old hire of mine now the leader of the pack
The Port Orchard branch: a place my shadow will never cross again. Yours? Highly improbable
Hollywood Video: bankrupt
Corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way: a defunct meeting place
Summer Reading Club: the kids are grown and there's that decidedly strong lack of parental interest
Conference: Chelan is a place to visit not to travel to
KRL Foundation Gala: "I gave at the office"
Allies, beards and fellow staffers who looked the other way: all ghosts in my past now
The Rodeo Drive-in: still the same but without the chance of a secret rendevous
CalCoPo Forest to the Sea Book Discussion Group: shuttered indefinitely
Northwest Passage Toy Soldiers: mothballed for the duration
92 Honda Accord Wagon: worn out, broke down and sold
Corelli's Mandolin/Time Traveler's Wife/Mama Mia/Love in the Time of Cholera: all movies now
Connells Dahlia Farm: no more walks between the aisles of raging psychedelic dahlias
Rosedales: a weeding/pest removal joint, no more questions to be asked
Cinnamon Twisp: bigger, brighter, far less funky
United Way baskets: hard to say, all I know is that we started them
Stores close. Eras end. Dynasties topple. Relationships, good or bad or indifferent, evolve or stay the same. I still live in the same town, same house, still walk the places where we walked. I see changes everywhere, slow, subtle changes, things slipping away, getting softer around the edges, a world filled with grand Etch a Sketch shakes and No. 2 pencil erasures. Things we shared and places we visited are now folded deep into the recesses of our past lives, but their soft, shadow-grey reminders were, for the longest time, still all around us, egging those old emotions on, the way a stick can find old embers deep within the confines of ash. Now our infamous acts and the notorious places we haunted are, thanks to the passing of time and the vagaries of commerce, disappearing fast, being buried by the sands of time. To that end, a list..
The Manette Bridge: closing, to be replaced
Pat's: shuttered
Hiro Sushi: once again closed
China Chef: on it's third or fourth evolution
Paging Department: new look, an old hire of mine now the leader of the pack
The Port Orchard branch: a place my shadow will never cross again. Yours? Highly improbable
Hollywood Video: bankrupt
Corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way: a defunct meeting place
Summer Reading Club: the kids are grown and there's that decidedly strong lack of parental interest
Conference: Chelan is a place to visit not to travel to
KRL Foundation Gala: "I gave at the office"
Allies, beards and fellow staffers who looked the other way: all ghosts in my past now
The Rodeo Drive-in: still the same but without the chance of a secret rendevous
CalCoPo Forest to the Sea Book Discussion Group: shuttered indefinitely
Northwest Passage Toy Soldiers: mothballed for the duration
92 Honda Accord Wagon: worn out, broke down and sold
Corelli's Mandolin/Time Traveler's Wife/Mama Mia/Love in the Time of Cholera: all movies now
Connells Dahlia Farm: no more walks between the aisles of raging psychedelic dahlias
Rosedales: a weeding/pest removal joint, no more questions to be asked
Cinnamon Twisp: bigger, brighter, far less funky
United Way baskets: hard to say, all I know is that we started them
As for you I catch your shadow when I can. Saw the back of your head in a shot in the Sun. Something to do with graduation. Perked me up but I let it go. Our old long forgotten times are fading fast. Soon there will be nothing left but old photos in the bottom of the satchel, ripped around the edges, colors shifting, fading, with no references tothem other than my old memories. Memories. What else could possibly be keeping them alive? Is a form of CPR for ghost town lovers needed to bump those old hearts back to life?
Nah, let them fade. Let them rest in peace. And live on, in the recesses of my strong and softly beating heart.
Your WHMB
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