"Uptown""Downtown"...

Being stuck in traffic on the main street of our town had me thinking back to the time when our town was such a bustling one.  So many things to do and places to go.  I know that, looking back, things seem better, look bigger and that's not always the reality.  But in the case of my hometown, it truly is. 

A lot of my memories are centered...well...in the center of our town.  Some called it uptown, some called it downtown.  It didn't matter.  It was such a vibrant place...back then.

I remember, so well, the city busses that would take us all over the place...  Riding with my Mom, as a child, I remember how she'd let me pull "the rope" that would signal the driver that our stop was coming up.  Once "uptown,  the countless stores awaited our business.  Dress shops, movie theaters, lots of restaurants, department stores, drugstores... all lined the street of our thriving town.   

 I'm not sure why but  I vividly recall the fragrance of cashews, roasting,  when we'd enter the Sear's store, in search of bargains.  Their candy counter was next to the escalator that we HAD to pass to get to the second floor and that usually meant a small bag of candy for me.    Onto Penney's, where I remember waiting impatiently, in the fabric department, while my Mom pored over the bolts and bolts of material,  just hoping she'd pick SOMETHING so we could move on.   Occasionally, we'd pay a visit to the more upscale Martin's or Robinson Schwinn  (where I saw my first elevator attendant- can you imagine THAT job?  As a claustrophobic, it certainly wouldn't be on my list of "Career Day" choices!)  A special treat, before boarding the bus for home, was a cold Coke at the lunch counter of one of the "five and dime" stores on the main street of our town.

When we were pre-teens, riding the bus "uptown" was the first real breaking away from home for a lot of us.  Leaving the safe neighborhood we grew up in, for parts of town that were different, was a big step. A group of girls, on our own, without supervision,  going uptown gave us  freedom that had us spending our allowances and our babysitting earnings on "things"...with little approval...except of those we were with.   " Should we go to Imfeld's Music Store to buy a Beatles record?"  "Or maybe Woolworth's for that pretty shade of lipstick we saw in "Seventeen" magazine?"  If I'd had a very lucrative week at babysitting or had managed to save up some loot (something that seldom happened!)  should I spring for that sweater in Miller-Wohl's window?  Or was the one at Wilmer's cuter?    We'd compare our purchases when we all sat down in a booth at "Country Kitchen", a hangout, where we felt more mature, just stepping in the door.  Every booth had a small jukebox, which, thinking back, was kind of silly.  Sure, you got your choice of tunes...as long as you didn't mind hearing  your Beach Boys song, mixed in with an Aretha Franklin  and  a Petula Clark one, the choices of your booth-neighbors.  After sharing fries and a Coke, laughing, talking, we'd step outside to the bus stop for our ride home.

As a young Mom, the city busses lost their significance to me...and to a lot of other folks.  Driving uptown with kids in tow, and running into a store, for this or that, replaced the carefree fun of making those frivolous decisions about lipstick and records.    And when the big malls came along, the shoppers followed, the stores we frequented as kids closed and our fine city center hasn't been the same since. 

 And I hate malls for that.  I probably shouldn't be so hard on them.  They were new and shiny...they offered everything one could want or need....something our "downtown" or "uptown" could no longer do.  Maybe something new will come along and malls will be replaced by something else... and the kids who enjoyed them will mourn their demise, too.  Life's like that.  We think our memories are the best... that our pasts are richer because of certain events or places.  But it would be hard to argue that my town wasn't the absolute best, in its day!  And I truly miss it.