June 27, 2006

First day in town (new kid on the block)

"There are good things, and there are bad things about this place." he replied.

"There are good things and there are bad things about every place." he then added as he sliced my roast beef behind the deli counter.

"How long have you run this grocery?" i asked him next.

"1876." he said without looking up.

"I am the fourth generation."

There has been some discussions which i have been engaged in this past year regarding community, lack of it, and finding it. Some experiences, including my own, proved california to regard the topic quite irreverently, and have led some to seek it elsewhere. In way, it was a large part of what led me to be standing there in Weber's Grocery on a Tuesday afternoon.

There is a sensibility among neighbors and stranger's alike in small midwest to near-east towns. I am sure it is other locations in the world, but i have not been privy to it elsewhere.

Regardless of any generalities, it was certainly there:

While pulling up carpet earlier that morning, i asked my father to go to the tool rental store - recommended by my landlord- across town and rent a vibrating floor sander. He was helping me restore the hardwood floor in my new apartment. The landlord was fine to accommodate my efforts and reimburse me by taking it off upcoming rent. She did, after all, live across the street and was well aware of my endeavor. No one it town knew me. I gave my father my credit card and my out of state driver's license. I hoped it would suffice for payment for the sander. He returned shortly with the sander, and stack of sandpaper, and handed my cards back to me.

"I forgot about how small towns operate." He said.

"I explained to him you were my son, and we are from out of town. He just wrote your name down on a clipboard. He gave me a stack of 3 grades of paper. He said to bring it all back when we are done. Whatever paper we don't use he won't charge us for."

After i ate my roast beef sandwich for lunch i walked into the campus library. I walked into the basement. I asked a guy shelf reading books to direct me to the IT office. He pulled his earbuds out and pointed to past the reference section. I walked over and knocked on the door. I was covered in sawdust, an old t-shirt, shorts and converse. The door opened.

"I'm Todd." i announced.

"Oh hi." the man replied. "Here is your laptop." he said. And pulled a box out from under his desk.

"There you go." He said. He asked me no questions.

And later in the day my neighbor leaned out over his back porch and introduced himself. His name is Eric and he informed me he is leaving for 12 days to Pennsylvania and New York, and when her returned he would invite me over and cook me dinner. He is a cook and the restaurant he works at is taking a summer break. As he loaded his son into his car, he opened the trunk and pulled out a wooden crate full of mushrooms. he reached into his car and filled a bag with lemons, grabbed a 3 lb. bag of spinach. he gave them all to me.

"I didn't want to waste all of this food, but we can' t eat it all." he said.

These incidents alone are not extraordinary to some. Perhaps my making mention of them only shows my lack similar experiences for quite some time. Times Square certainly never yielded such stories, neither did california. But here, in one day, i took notice of all of these events.

I sat on my front porch with my dad and took a break from the floor restoration. We would return the sander the next morning, and pay then for what we used. The catalpa and maple trees spread out over my street like old men stretching their limbs in early morning. The brick sat in the streets like crooked teeth, worn down into submission like stones in a riverbed. Eric left for his vacation. A bell rang through the treetops. The carry out drive through on the side of Weber's grocery began to get busy.

"There are good things, and there are surely some bad things about this place." i thought.

And like every other place i have ever sat and looked out over the street, i felt the both edges of the sword; and remembered how they both can cut.

i was aware of my mobility, and the consequences of it.

And i began trying to see through the cracks in the sidewalk.

Posted by Todd Roeth at June 27, 2006 10:22 PM