down-the-town-ing

I don’t know about yours, or if we share one, but my downtown is pretty magical.  It’s gone out of style a time or two, but it’s always been there, and its always been alive.

I’ve spent a lot of time there this summer, especially the last few days.  I decided it was time to try to capture a little of it in its midday summer glory.

Everyone going everywhere else.  Sidewalks graced with old men going for a paper, and college students painting with acrylics, and hipsters on their was to Blackbird, and little old ladies getting pastries, and terriers on leashes enjoying the scenery, too.  I grew up on these streets when Mom owned the shop on the corner by Gil Drugs, when Amy the Hotdog Lady knew us and made the best ever hot dogs, and Gil next door always talked to us when we’d go buy candy bars on lazy afternoons, and Mike the Mailman always had a story when he stopped along his route.  The buildings were taller, then. And the trees were shorter. But the lifeblood is still the same.

It’s moving. It’s hip, but it doesn’t know it.  It just..is. I hope it always will be.

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