Elegy
Here I am in my hometown, Durham, North Carolina. It is hardly worth mention that much has changed since I left for the big city. The truism that “one cannot go home again,” is true with the sadness that is endemic to time. This place has changed and so have I. What was a medium sized, tobacco-manufacturing town, the home of Duke university, has changed in many ways since the 1960s. A book would not be sufficient to chronicle all that has passed, and the new that has come. Lamentably, what is new is not always better. “Progress” is in the eye of the beholder. Change is driven by what can directly pay for itself. That is the rule in my lifetime.
We had time on our hands yesterday in the early evening. We decided to walk through the first indoor mall that was built in Durham. That mall, and the others that followed were to hollow out the retail properties on Main street. For small towns a thriving Main street is the social center of town, forming the nucleus of social and commercial activity. Malls have never been centers of social activity, as their design is optimized for commercial efficiency. And as we now know, they do not and did not produce a decent livelihood for the majority of those who work there. Corporations populate mall space as they can afford the high cost of a lease. A corporation will pay it’s employees the lowest possible wage. A sole proprietor, businessman or woman, often is concerned to pay a decent wage to those who labor for them. There is a world of difference.
The tobacco factories, the American Tobacco company and Liggett-Myers tobacco company are long gone. The Mall through which we walked yesterday evening appears to be at least, one third unoccupied retail space. Macy’s recently departed. But, the hollowed out, nearly abandoned Main street, is well on the road to rejuvenation. Restaurants, galleries, locally owned are taking and renovating the vintage store fronts. We will probably make a reservation at Dame’s Chicken and Waffles on Main street for this evening.
I miss the Honey’s Drive-In that once was “a stones throw” from where I am writing this. I enjoyed many slices of fresh strawberry pie with friends at Honey’s when I was much younger. A MacDonald’s now stands on that corner. Will I ever go to that MacDonald’s to hang out on a Friday evening? Never.
EAST COKER by T. S. Eliot
I
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.In my beginning is my end.
