Dear Dad...
Aug. 1st, 2006 10:13![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mapsedgeDear Dad,
You wouldn't recognize the town. It's been twenty-two years since you died; that's a lot of time to build things, to tear things down, to change the town we lived in for fifteen years until the cancer eventually tore you down.
All the car dealers are still on Noland, though several have changed hands over the years. Hal Quinn doesn't advertise "desk smashing good deals" anymore; that's a Honda dealership now. Ed Parker is still there, still does his own TV commercials and still sucks.
The Pizza Hut where you and I used to go to get dinner on those rare Friday nights when you'd loosen the purse strings enough to buy out is gone. In fact, that entire crappy little strip mall is gone, replaced with another car dealership. The Miracle Mile extended by another couple hundred feet.
Zarda Dairy is long gone, as is the donut shop next door...Somthing-Maid Donuts...I feel a little bad I can't remember the name; their donuts were really good. Better than the over-frosted too-sweet ever-so-American pastries that pass for donuts down at Krispy Kreme. You wouldn't like them, I think, any more than I do. Were you alive today, I think you'd be a Lamar's man. Anyway, the two stores have been replaced by a cigarette store and cheap tax-preparation service, respectively.
The McDonalds is still there; the Burger King where I had my first real job isn't. Mr Steak is gone, replaced by what will soon be a bar or dance club. Just what Noland Rd. needs...something else to choke the artery from I-70 to the Square and North Independence. Perkins is gone: the Pakistanis couldn't make it work any better than the American brothers that owned it before them. Tippins is gone, which is too bad, but no surprising. The Shoney's where you liked to go after church on Sundays is now a school of cosmetology.
Speaking of the church, it burned and was rebuilt. The RLDS'ers, as you called them, are winning; but that's a topic for another letter.
Your barbershop is still there up at Gaslight Shopping Center, but Jerry's United Super, which briefly became an IGA before closing sometime around 1990, is now a store where none of the merchandise costs more than a dollar, or is worth more than that in any case. The Fotomat where I always bought my Super-8, Kodachrome or Ectachrome movie film is a Federal Express drop-off. We call it "Fed-Ex" now. Hallmark closed, and nothing has been able to survive in the space since.
Katz became Skaggs became Osco is now CVS. Bizmart is now OfficeMax, and moved off of Noland to a shopping center across from Independence Center. Oh, and IC is now called Simon - that still perplexes me.
Wild Woody's is long gone, as is the Starlight Drive-In at 40 and Noland. That used to be what you'd call "the boonies", but it's all grown up now, and more development every year it seems. Sutherland Lumber is still there, showing it's age, and the median age of the people who shop there is seventy or so. All the younger folks, the people of my generation, shop at Lowes or Home Depot, stores large enough to get lost in that you probably wouldn't be comfortable with. The Blue Ridge Mall is a level parking lot now, with what will be a Wal*Mart in one corner.
Oh yeah...Wal*Mart isn't just a five and dime, larger scale TG&Y anymore. It's now the largest retailer in America. Yeah, I know.
Closer to home, the land to either end of Spring St. behind us, opened up and new houses have been built. Across the street, Carl is still alive, but barely. Teresa died just this year, you see, and no one expects him to live more than a year more without her.
The land next to his - the four acres or so where those two houses stood, where the motorcycle gangs sold marijuana and heroin in the 70's - that's all new houses now, too. As soon as Carl dies, I've no doubt that his kids will sell the land and that will become more houses, more neighborhood.
Elsie died about five years after you did, and her house next door has been through a succession of owners and renters. I have ambitions of buying that property and expanding northward into that lot, tearing down the house and making one big yard. Next year maybe, after the company I work for makes it big.
The Dinwiddie's are still there. Don doesn't drink anymore, doesn't go whoring up to Braymer every weekend. He's too old for either. They're good neighbors to have, and in many ways have become like family. Terry and Donna still live behind us, also good neighbors. Their sons now each have children. Life finds a way, to quote a movie you might possibly have enjoyed.
I think you'd like where our town is going. I'll write more later as I get time.
Your son,
- William
You wouldn't recognize the town. It's been twenty-two years since you died; that's a lot of time to build things, to tear things down, to change the town we lived in for fifteen years until the cancer eventually tore you down.
All the car dealers are still on Noland, though several have changed hands over the years. Hal Quinn doesn't advertise "desk smashing good deals" anymore; that's a Honda dealership now. Ed Parker is still there, still does his own TV commercials and still sucks.
The Pizza Hut where you and I used to go to get dinner on those rare Friday nights when you'd loosen the purse strings enough to buy out is gone. In fact, that entire crappy little strip mall is gone, replaced with another car dealership. The Miracle Mile extended by another couple hundred feet.
Zarda Dairy is long gone, as is the donut shop next door...Somthing-Maid Donuts...I feel a little bad I can't remember the name; their donuts were really good. Better than the over-frosted too-sweet ever-so-American pastries that pass for donuts down at Krispy Kreme. You wouldn't like them, I think, any more than I do. Were you alive today, I think you'd be a Lamar's man. Anyway, the two stores have been replaced by a cigarette store and cheap tax-preparation service, respectively.
The McDonalds is still there; the Burger King where I had my first real job isn't. Mr Steak is gone, replaced by what will soon be a bar or dance club. Just what Noland Rd. needs...something else to choke the artery from I-70 to the Square and North Independence. Perkins is gone: the Pakistanis couldn't make it work any better than the American brothers that owned it before them. Tippins is gone, which is too bad, but no surprising. The Shoney's where you liked to go after church on Sundays is now a school of cosmetology.
Speaking of the church, it burned and was rebuilt. The RLDS'ers, as you called them, are winning; but that's a topic for another letter.
Your barbershop is still there up at Gaslight Shopping Center, but Jerry's United Super, which briefly became an IGA before closing sometime around 1990, is now a store where none of the merchandise costs more than a dollar, or is worth more than that in any case. The Fotomat where I always bought my Super-8, Kodachrome or Ectachrome movie film is a Federal Express drop-off. We call it "Fed-Ex" now. Hallmark closed, and nothing has been able to survive in the space since.
Katz became Skaggs became Osco is now CVS. Bizmart is now OfficeMax, and moved off of Noland to a shopping center across from Independence Center. Oh, and IC is now called Simon - that still perplexes me.
Wild Woody's is long gone, as is the Starlight Drive-In at 40 and Noland. That used to be what you'd call "the boonies", but it's all grown up now, and more development every year it seems. Sutherland Lumber is still there, showing it's age, and the median age of the people who shop there is seventy or so. All the younger folks, the people of my generation, shop at Lowes or Home Depot, stores large enough to get lost in that you probably wouldn't be comfortable with. The Blue Ridge Mall is a level parking lot now, with what will be a Wal*Mart in one corner.
Oh yeah...Wal*Mart isn't just a five and dime, larger scale TG&Y anymore. It's now the largest retailer in America. Yeah, I know.
Closer to home, the land to either end of Spring St. behind us, opened up and new houses have been built. Across the street, Carl is still alive, but barely. Teresa died just this year, you see, and no one expects him to live more than a year more without her.
The land next to his - the four acres or so where those two houses stood, where the motorcycle gangs sold marijuana and heroin in the 70's - that's all new houses now, too. As soon as Carl dies, I've no doubt that his kids will sell the land and that will become more houses, more neighborhood.
Elsie died about five years after you did, and her house next door has been through a succession of owners and renters. I have ambitions of buying that property and expanding northward into that lot, tearing down the house and making one big yard. Next year maybe, after the company I work for makes it big.
The Dinwiddie's are still there. Don doesn't drink anymore, doesn't go whoring up to Braymer every weekend. He's too old for either. They're good neighbors to have, and in many ways have become like family. Terry and Donna still live behind us, also good neighbors. Their sons now each have children. Life finds a way, to quote a movie you might possibly have enjoyed.
I think you'd like where our town is going. I'll write more later as I get time.
Your son,
- William
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 15:24 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 17:39 (UTC)As I was working last night through the list of tasks that occupies my Monday nights before I can go to bed, I started talking to him, much in the way that this letter was written. There's more in that emotional well, but for a later time.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 18:16 (UTC)I loved that. I miss my mom.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 18:59 (UTC)will be others, at least three more.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 18:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 19:00 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 19:31 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 18:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 16:50 (UTC)And I'm really not too sure about the RLDS'ers winning if you really think it all out. *grin*
Love you and can't wait to see you guys in a coupla weeks.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 18:57 (UTC)We get all types, actually. For instance, after the church burned and was rebuilt, there was a very loud few who insisted that there NOT be a cross on the wall behind the pulpit, because they don't want to be accused of idolatry.
You've heard the joke about why baptists don't have sex standing up, right? (Because people might think they're dancing. nyuk nyuk.)
My variation: Why doesn't the TL display a cross? Because people might think they're Christians.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 19:24 (UTC)I just know that the 'regular' RLDS folk are not at all like the leadership anymore...not at all. Aw, hell...this isn't a convo for LJ. But would be a very interesting one to have sometime...