Main street revisited

Saturday, I revisited the small town I wrote about earlier this year. It’s a snapshot in time. Nothing seems to have changed. Nothing moves very fast, especially on a hot weekend afternoon, late, when the sleepy main street is almost deserted and I am the only one walking about, in and out of this store and that.

Of course, I had to go back to the dime store and check out the nostalgia scene. What a time capsule that place is! It never ceases to amaze me. Four months later, I walk in and the same old man and his son and wife are scattered about the store straightening merchandise, walking around, looking out the big window onto main street. Just like before. And, just like before, they each ask me if I need some help finding anything, and I smile and tell them I am “just looking.”

I wander around the aisles and realize that I could be back in 1925, except for the fact that everything is so deserted. It’s too quiet. No one is in the store. It’s empty, just like Main Street.

The owner stocks a little bit of everything from orange juice squeezers to oil lamps, to socks and Bic pens. I always try to buy something when I’m there, stuff I don’t need but which I can probably use at some point: a spiral notepad, a soap container for traveling, and a small round globe that is also a pencil sharpener. I had to buy that to put on my desk at work at get odd looks. It seems like ten-cent stores have had those since the very beginning. It reminds me of my childhood. Besides, it’s always fun to spin a globe and see where it lands.

I chatted with the owner and his wife while they were ringing up my purchases. We talked about the odd weather. I mean, 92 degrees in the middle of April is strange. The purchases were snuggly fitted in a brown paper bag which was stapled closed with the receipt attached.

Walking out the door, I ambled up Main Street almost to the end, and entered the old antiques store I try to visit, despite the fact that the “antiques” truly are junk, not even much in the way of interesting collectibles. Everything on certain display tables was “20% Off.” I had to laugh at that. They could knock 80% off and not sell most of the stuff in that store. But it’s huge — two adjoining brick buildings that once were probably merantile or dry goods stores back in the 19th century.

I walked from room to room, each step making noticable creaking sounds on the wooden floors. Above was the untouched original, pressed tin ceiling. I saw a print of an old grist mill in the window which I bought and have now in the dining room, sitting upright on a box. I am wondering why on earth I bought it. I collect grist mill memorabilia, but this one is cheesy even by my loose standards for that kind of stuff.

Anyway, it was probably the only purchase the dour lady presiding over the place had made all day. It was a nice scene, she had said. It would make a nice puzzle. Of course, that’s what it reminded me of. The print was made by an outfit called Precious Treasures Wholesale Co. in Tennessee. Oh, boy. That says it all.

I picked up a copy of the local newspaper from a newstand before heading into the Bookstore/Espresso Cafe that seems more than a little out of place in such a small town. It has a rather sophisticated selection of books, somewhat like you’d see in a college town, and, being a connoisseur of bookstores, I can vouch for this one. It is one of the best small bookshops I have ever been in. Their selection is impeccable.

I bought a book that really intrigued me: “100 Best Poems to Memorize.” I’ve decided I’m going to start memorizing poetry like I had to do under duress in 7th grade, except maybe now, 40 years later, I will be able to appreciate more fully the beauty of the words if I can speak them out loud. Once again, I was the only person in the store.

How on earth do these main streets survive? They keep trying to re-invent themselves, but this town is the genuine article. There are businesses left on Main that have been there since before the turn of the century. Family businesses. But yesterday, on a hot and sleepy Saturday afternoon I found myself the lone adventurer on the once bustling and prosperous street, a time traveler poking my head into the past. The air was thick with heat and humidity. I could have sworn the big clock by the bank was stopped at the wrong time, and inside the calendars were probably set to 1956 or some other year in a decade long ago. Was that the old First National Bank, now abandoned?

I think this main street will always be here, though. The town is just too far from any other larger town or city.

Time — it all gets kind of muddled and meaningless there.