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Somewhere in Time:
November 11, 2002;
Recently, my wife and I had driven a few miles to care for a loved
one who needed some support. We ended up far enough from home
that we decide to stop for a late lunch on our return trip. In
truth, we do not need much of an excuse to stop for lunch, or
dinner, etcetera. We happened to be passing through an area where
I had once worked and we remembered a nice Chinese restaurant
in the area. We went there in expectation of reliving a memory.
The memory did not happen. The hostess seated us well enough, but the situation seemed not quite right. I should have put my finger on it and I did, after the fact. In a booth across the aisle from us sat a enormous woman with a huge plate of food. She looked like she should have been in one of those "All-You-Can for six bucks" places.
When the waitress came, I asked her to bring me a bottle of Tsingtao. That is the English Equivalent name. The true name is Qingdao, which is the name of a city in China that has a world famous brewery. The product is a beer called Tsingtao in America. I tend to favor it whenever I have Chinese food. Believe it or not, the brewery was established by Germans when they leased the area from China way back when.
I did not get my beer. The waitress, a nice Chinese woman who thought she knew English, finally made me understand that the restaurant was no longer licensed. They had somehow lost their license. That was enough for me. I did not enquire as to the why of it. The combination of the huge woman with the huge mound of food, bound to be mostly starch, and a missing license told me, "Get out of here!" So we did.
This story has a happy ending. We had to drive on toward home, but we did end up at a favorite Chinese place nearer to home. I got my bottle of Tsingtao along with some excellent wonton soup and a dandy plate of Szechaun Beef, medium hot, with a side of shrimp fried rice. Okay!
As we finally had our nice, very late, lunch my wife reminded me of another restaurant incident. This one happened near a Michigan area called Birch Run. Birch Run is just west of I-75 between Flint and Bay City. Also in that area is a city called Frankemuth which is famous for a year-round Christmas store called Bronner's and a restaurant called Zehnder's. Zehnder's is famous for its chicken dinners.
Everyone who travels this way will know about Frankenmuth and Zehnder's and many people look forward to visiting there. What everyone did not know about was an outstanding Italian restaurant near the northern Frankenmuth exit, but on the Birch Run side of I-75. I believe the Italian cuisine to be infinitely superior to chicken dinner, even with mashed potatoes and gravy. So, whenever we had occasion to travel north, we looked forward to an Italian dinner, even if it was lunch time.
I can shorten this up a bit. On one trip north we were coming home particularly hungry. We were almost salivating like Pavlov's dog in anticipation of the veal, pasta, Chianti, etcetera. You have already guessed this, except for the details. When we pulled into the parking lot, I knew there was something wrong. There were way to many cars. Then we saw the reason. Our fine Italian restaurant had sold out to a G** D****** rabble-pandering Cracker Barrel. We chose to remain hungry until we got home.
All of this got me to thinking about how things change and nice things sometimes disappear along with the not so nice things. We have lots of ways of describing the phenomena. One of our favorites is, "You can't go home again." A Chinese proverb says it this way, "You cannot step in the same river twice." However we say it, change seems to be the only constant in our lives even though we tend to resist it.
Lest I be accused of resisting change, I must discuss the difference between change and alleged progress. The phrase, "You can't stop progress," is used to justify some of the most obscene commercial behavior humanly possible. I don't know how it comes down in other places, but in our area the insanity is personified by the behavior or the monster chains. They go head-to-head buying out prime commercial locations for obscene sums of money. What is the poor tempted merchant to do?
This is what happened with our Italian restaurant. It also happened with a nice burger bar restaurant I used to frequent. They were bought out by a motel chain. It is happening all over Michigan with the drug chains. I have no idea what the problem was with the Chinese place, but you have to do something pretty dumb to lose a liquor license. In Michigan, because of the way the state controls it, a license is the same as owning a money printing machine.
These are all changes that make me sad. Nice things disappeared somewhere in time. Somewhere in time is a nice Italian Restaurant where you can enjoy an intimate moment with your spouse. Somewhere in time is a nice Chinese restaurant where you can be alone with someone in a nice booth and chuckle about the fortune from a fortune cookie. Somewhere in time, is a nice little sports bar that became a Rite-Aid drug store.
Somewhere in time is an old fashioned hardware store where the stuff is in bins rather than shrink wrapped kits. There is a crotchety old man who will find what you need if you tell him what you want to do. He will scowl and grumble and rummage around in his bins till you have everything you need. Because the stuff has been there so long he will have to guess at the prices, always reasonable, and dare you to challenge him. He'll put the stuff in a bag and take your money and, thank God, he will never, with a frozen smile, say thank you for shopping at Dorkmart. That was somewhere in time. Now it's a drugstore.
I am really not against change as such. Change is what makes us grow. The opposite of change is not stability. It is death. As I write this, I realize that it is smoke alarm battery time. I will make those changes this week. This also means that winter is coming on. Winter is a change which I dread, but it is also what makes me appreciate spring and summer.
Over my life, many nice changes have occurred. The hand tools I use are infinitely superior to what my father had. These make me productive when I could not have been if I had to use his tools to do things. I speak of air hammers and pneumatic nailers, electric drill/screw drivers, routers, and many etceteras. Also, it seems that every time I go to a building supply there is some new miracle material to make building things easier and more fun. For example, PVC, exterior lumber that does not rot, vinyl siding, and a whole lot more.
And then there is medicine. My father died at age 55. With
the state of the medical art which saved my life, he could have
had several more good years. So, somewhere in time there are some
very bad and sad things, like plague, cholera, polio, and small
pox. So, I do generally welcome and appreciate change. I simply
reserve the right to deplore the wallowing, grasping greed of
the giants. That's all!
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