Main Streets [antikvár]

IntroductionIt was the heart and the soul of my home town, the street we called 'Main.' It defined the town and served as the dividing line between those two ambiguous subculmres to the east and westwhich to outsiders were identical, but to those of us who lived there, made all the difference in the world. We west-siders always felt just a little superiora little betterbut I'm siire those people on the alien east side feh the same about us too.Main Street, however, was the melting pot. East met west in its department stores and banks. Here were the toy stores of my childhood and the record stores of my youth. On North Mainacross the trackswere the taverns of my rites of passage to adulthood, and on the comer was a place of still more transformationthe church where I, my folks and my little sister went weeklyand which I took more seriously as I grew older.I remember when they put the stoplights in on Main Streetthe rites of passage for the street upon which I'd experienced my own. I remember also the coming and going of the movie house; Disney or DeMille at the matinee; the era of disuse; the transformation to an 'art film' theater. The life of a street is told in the microcosm of that single building just as the street itself is a microcosm of the heart and soul of the culture of our continent.A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, just as a 'main' street by any other name is still the centerpiece of its respective town. In my rambles across the land, I've kept a page in my mental notebook to log the variety of names with which this street has been endowed. Main is quite simply the most common, of course, followed by the names of respective states, counties and founding fathers. In Columbia Falls,this vital trunk is called Nucleus Avenue, clearly among the most creative appellations.As our towns and small cities have grown over these recent years, we have seen their coreas defined by Main Street face competition from a new phenomena, the 'mall.' This sprawling monster skulks at the distant edge of our townsa cowardly beast that saps our Main Street's lifeblood without daring to look it in the eye. Despite this competitor, Main Street lives and breathes for the generations of today as it did in my time.Like the theater that now shows 'films' instead of movies, the old soda fountain now is adorned with fems and the menu, whose centerpiece was once grilled American cheese on white bread, now offers avocado and alfalfa sprouts on bread that has nine grains. I remember when bread was made with wheat and when cows ate alfalfa, but this evolution is part of Main Street's ability to adapt to changing times. I can recall, and now I can understand, my grandfather's chagrin on the day they started putting parking meters on Main Street.The enduring nature of Main Street is quite simply that it does endurein our hearts and memories, and in those of generations yet to come.William Patrick Jennings Main Street September, 1987At riattl: One of the unchanging aspects of Main Street is the presence of the church on the comer. Here, a timeless scene unfolds as a mother, with her infant and the family pet, pauses to meditate on a stately house of worship in this BertiShire County, Massachusetts town. Below: Another kind of timelessne.ss beckons in this view down West Texas Street in Fairfield, California.