It’s the first day of fall here in New England. Technically I guess it is the first day of fall everywhere. And a dark, dreary, damp day it has been. It IS one of those days that I tend to get depressed while I am driving to a destination.
Today I was doing my almost daily drive from my departure point at my office to the dank downtown of a nameless city. I decline on naming the place because even when the day isn’t damp and dreary from the downpours, it is dark and desolate from the daily doings.
On my drive back to the office I drove a detour down an old route I haven’t done for some days, maybe even decades, I stopped at a diner along the way. A nice diner from the fifties decade, it might be a Fedora, it isn’t a Worcester design. Departing the diner after a delecious doughnut, I was on an old state highway.
I was surprised to see how much the area has changed. There were derelict buildings, shuttered and down-fallen. I drove by an almost dead mall, not quite dead, but decidely dying. It was depressing as I recall this being the first mall built in this area. It was all the rage when I was just a lad. My dearly departed dad and mother would drive their son and daughters here in the old Dodge Dart, all you desired was on display.
Now it looks like a shell of what it once was. The three big anchor stores are closed, draped in drop cloths. I didn’t dare to stop and enter to discern what might still be open in the darn place. I would imagine I would have seen drunks and delinquents down every alley.
There were many other businesses that were dead and decomposing as well. I always feel bad when I see these. They were someone’s dream back in the day and now they are all but forgotten. Dinner palaces where no diners go. The Dodge dealer long departed, dandelions and daisies in the driveway. Auto repair shops no longer diagnosing the details of a dead dray.
One thing I did notice was the older, smaller buisnesses I thought would had dropped dead a decade ago are still open. As difficult as it is to detect if they are still open, there are door signs saying “Open” and there are lights, although dim, inside. There is still a dated drinking establishment near the depot where daily doses of daiquiris, diluted down to save dough are still divvied up on the bar. This is where Dan, a dapper little man, has been delivering drinks to those who daily enter to drink, dine, and discuss the daily doings.
But alas, my drive down memory lane is done. I have arrived at my destination and I must depart from my vehicle and diligently return to do my duties at my dusty desk.
This post has been brought to you by the letter “D”.
