one of Dad's things that I brought back to my house in Santa Fe was a hammer which I bought him for a long-ago holiday. I bought it at the Sears store on Broad St because I'd gone there shopping with him many times.
Tom Mahl wrote the other day to say the building was torn down. & then the local paper ran this.
little by little the Elyria of my youth has disappeard. I've already written here abt the Y & my beloved public library. Hess & Hess drugstore where I bought movie magazines when I was a boy vanishd years ago. it's been decades since there were bears in Cascade Park. both downtown hotels (Sedaris & Graystone) are but memories. all 3 downtown movie theaters are long gone. all but one building of my high school has been demolishd. General Industries where Dad workd was destroyd by fire. & not so long before the onetime Sears building met the wrecking ball the camera from Loomis' was taken down.
there remain some touchstones to my past. the courthouse still stands opposite Ely Park. The Hickories is the home of the historical society. & here I am in a 2006 photo taken in the lobby of the old post office:
the building now houses a bank but the new owners retaind the major architectural & design elements of the original post office which was essential to my boyhood.
when I return to my hometown what stays familiar is comforting. but each visit reveals erasures which are increasingly painful.
Tom Mahl wrote the other day to say the building was torn down. & then the local paper ran this.
little by little the Elyria of my youth has disappeard. I've already written here abt the Y & my beloved public library. Hess & Hess drugstore where I bought movie magazines when I was a boy vanishd years ago. it's been decades since there were bears in Cascade Park. both downtown hotels (Sedaris & Graystone) are but memories. all 3 downtown movie theaters are long gone. all but one building of my high school has been demolishd. General Industries where Dad workd was destroyd by fire. & not so long before the onetime Sears building met the wrecking ball the camera from Loomis' was taken down.
there remain some touchstones to my past. the courthouse still stands opposite Ely Park. The Hickories is the home of the historical society. & here I am in a 2006 photo taken in the lobby of the old post office:
the building now houses a bank but the new owners retaind the major architectural & design elements of the original post office which was essential to my boyhood.
when I return to my hometown what stays familiar is comforting. but each visit reveals erasures which are increasingly painful.
1 comment:
One has to say that Chrissy Hynde said it pretty well.
"I went back to Ohio/but my city was gone.
There was no train station/there was no downtown.
South Howard had disappeared/all my favorite places.
My city had been pulled down/reduced to parking spaces.
Way to go, Ohio."
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