Now when all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust
And all our youth and beauty, it's been given to the dust
And your game has been decided,
and you're burning the clock down
And all our little victories and glories, have turned into parking lots
When your best hopes and desires, are scattered through the wind
And hard times come, hard times go
Bring on your Wrecking Ball
Bruce Springsteen
Wrecking Ball
It was likely the last farmers market of the season, late October in Wilkes-Barre. The mean streets of Wilkes-Barre is what I tell people when they ask where I’m from. It’s a joke that’s mostly for me and lost on those that happen to have inquired and have never been to the valley. They weren’t mean streets then and despite the local news that doesn’t have much to report, I don’t suspect they’re much meaner these days. We were in town for a visit, my sister and I. Ella was on for the ride as school was in fall break. There was no occasion and no set itinerary. It was a Thursday and that’s when they have the Farmers Market on Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre. Not the kind of run-to-car-in-anticipation kind of event, but it would do for this afternoon. Downtown is much the same as it always was. My memory and nostalgia indian-wrestle in my head as I try to sort through the old stomping grounds. What was where and how did this turn into that. Where is my old YMCA and wasn’t that Starbucks a Woolworths? That clock hasn't worked since the late eighties. Is there really a nightclub now that has an evening dedicated to bikini bull-riding and dollar Rolling Rocks?
We walked through the market and it was warm with just enough bite in the air to remind you it was almost November. We looked at crafts and ate potato pancakes and carried on out of there. I wanted a coffee and had a choice of Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts and I chose Dunkin’ Donuts as I often do. We browsed a record store and were on our way home.
There was some debate as to how to drive home. This was normal and everyone had an opinion, but we ended up on Wilkes-Barre Blvd. My folks-family-of-four and Ella and her new dog Ringo driving along through the mean streets of Wilkes-Barre. I looked over to the Murray complex where I worked for a couple summers in college, and they were tearing it down. A huge wrecking ball was just then winding up like a great big metal sling-shot. What came out of my mouth then went something like this. “Ohhhh, Look, Wow, Neat!” I said it like it was one word. It was immediate and squealed with as much enthusiasm as any 10 year old. They all looked on cue and watched as the wrecking ball brought down an upper story of the old industrial complex. More Ohhs and Wows and Neats followed.
I suggested that since we didn’t have anything to do, we stop briefly and take a look. There was some discussion as to where to stop. I suggested just pulling into the back of the AAA parking lot. It’s now a pharmacy, I was corrected. Fine, pull into the pharmacy parking lot. We did and we watched the show for the next 10-15 minutes. It was like we were at the drive-in. My dad opened the sun-roof on the Jeep and Ella poked her head out. Soon she had her elbows rested on the roof of the car and her feet dangling on the floor of the backseat and just a minute or two after that she was outside completely and resting comfortably on the roof of the Jeep. We had the oldies station on and settled in for some free entertainment.
The last time I had been in that building was with my parents for a Flea Market. That’s what they turn everything into around here just before it dies. The place was as awful as it was depressing. The building leaked and wasn’t fit for a ghost then and that was almost 10 years ago.
I said I used to work at that complex when it was a restaurant. My Dad laughed and said he used to work at the wire company as a runner when he was a kid. This wasn’t just one building, but an entire lot of 13 buildings that were built at the turn of the 20th century. It was a wire and cable company. They manufactured cable and rod for just about everything including the coal mines. My Mom informed us that that’s where my Grandfather worked for most of his career. He sold that cable to the local mines. My sister didn’t interject. She was out of the car at this point and twirling her hair and running through something in her own head. Probably writing a piece just like this one. I’ve been meaning to ask her what she was thinking about, but I haven’t yet.
That was it. I’d say we watched them smack the shit out of that building about 20-25 times. We wondered why they didn’t just implode it. We wondered what sort of mall consumer-friendly piece of crap they’d turn it into. I thought of the song that I heard for the first time at the Springsteen show just two nights before. Wrecking Ball. He sang it for the Spectrum that will be torn down this winter. Like the song, this wasn't nostalgic. Buildings come and go and it is what it is. The landscape changes.
As we got the kid off the roof of the jeep and were getting ready to go, we kept hesitating. This next hit is going to be a good one. Wait, this one is going to bring down the entire side. There was a chain-linked fence between us and the demolition crew. They thought we were jacked out of our mind, but we didn’t give a shit.
We took a left hand turn out of the pharmacy, (formally the local automobile club) and headed up the hill. We all smelled the Nardon Brothers Pizza coming from the bakery across from the demolition site. I asked if that was the same pizza we had in High School. My Mom said that was the same pizza they had in high school. We all agreed it was pretty lousy despite eating thousands of those tiny square meals. We sat at the red light for a couple minutes as I took some pictures of me and Ringo in the side-view mirror. My Dad pointed out the Turkey Hill Convenience Store as he often does. "That place just got held up again at gunpoint last week. This city is going to Hell." The light turned green and we headed up Hazel Street and turned left onto Blackman and out of the mean streets of Wilkes-Barre.
