Ghosts

Dear You,

Odd how a glass of wine poured slowly over a memory makes the past more poignant. I was thinking about the old Ben Franklin store on Main Street, and all of a sudden I saw myself as a teenager, headed past it on the way to Steadman's News Stand. It was after school, and I had my papers to fold, put into my canvas bag and distribute along my route.

How lively and interesting was that street. If I weren't running so late, I might stop for a cherry phosphate at Leonard's Drug Store, where that pretty redhead with the big blue eyes would mix it for me. Or I could pop into Seip Hardware and see if Becky was there to talk with her father. I'd pass McLain's, where I'd had my lunch of chili and rye bread earlier that day.

Wherever I went, people knew me and took an interest in my doings . . . especially when I was misbehaving. In that era, I could be sure I would be spoken sharply to -- or worse, someone would call my parents and turn me in!

All gone. Fifty years later, those businesses are as dead as their owners, and many of the storefronts are papered over, the spaces empty. Parking spaces are plentiful now.

In "Bridge of Sighs," Russo captures the long-ago presence of a small town, and reading it I cannot help thinking that those places have all given way. Driving through them now is a little like reading Wilder's "Our Town" over and over again -- sad, like the long-lost events of everyone's youth.

Our Lawn

Dear You,

Because I was away for the past two weeks, I returned to find a pile of accumulated mail and a lawn that resembled a meadow. The first was easier to deal with, since I could sit while I tossed credit card offers and solicitations for money in the wastebasket. The second, however, meant rolling up my sleeves.

I think it was the Stage Manager in Our Town by Thornton Wilder who observed that most men enjoy cutting their own lawns. No doubt he was saying something about the pride of ownership. In my case, however, having tended this particular lawn for the past 16 years, I really wouldn't regret to see its ownership passed to another.

Today I waited until the last sprinkle had faded and the sun had been out awhile before adjusting the wheels up a notch or two. Even so, I continually stopped, shut off the engine, tipped the beast sidewise and cleared the wad that refused to blow through the side discharge. An hour of that was enough -- the second hour challenged my fortitude.

There is something to be said about all manners of living -- and today I'm thinking how fine it is to have an apartment, leaving a landlord to cut the grass whenever he pleases.