In offering kudos to my hometown, I use the energetic parlance of the day: “a shout-out to the city of Greenfield and a new look for an old building!” After what many felt was a bit too long, the two-story building that occupies the northwest corner of Main Street and Oak Avenue is on the upcoming planning commission agenda. To be precise, it is El Camino Real-Business (ECR) and Oak, but back in the 1950s and ’60s we mostly called it Main Street.
Anyhoo, at that meeting, next Monday evening at 6 p.m., commissioners will be asked to adopt a resolution to approve the design to include a market on the ground floor with four apartments on the upper floor. Does that sound familiar to anyone? While I cannot account for the number of upper floor apartments, I would have said there were six, I can surely remember when that building housed a market named Economy and can easily remember many of the faces of those who owned and worked in there.
I can’t give you exact dates but at least prior to 1910, it was the Ioppini Building and among other uses once housed the city post office. After 1939, it was known as the Beyer Building after Mr. Beyer did some remodeling, most notably rounding off the square upper floor corners; to this day the name and date are inscribed just below the roofline facing ECR. In the early years, the main entrance faced southwest, looking diagonally across the intersection toward what was then two empty lots with exception of the Greenfield Grange Hall, west of the Ninth Street alley (that building now sits east of the alley). Just outside the Economy Mkt. entrance was the Death Pole. Whether a telephone or power pole I don’t know, but for years Irwin Coffee, owner of the Greenfield News, printed short death notices and tacked, later stapled, them to that pole prior to running a full obituary in the next issue of the local paper. Small town stuff that would probably be looked upon askance these days.
I remember two incidents on that corner, vivid memories even to this day. One was watching my friend’s grandfather, the mayor of our town, a man named Butch who from behind the Economy Mkt. meat counter gave us kids a hot dog to eat while mom shopped, came by in a hearse on his way to the final goodbye down at the Catholic Church. The other was one late summer day when me and my friend since kindergarten, both of us sitting on our StingRay bikes, on that main corner of town and he told me he wasn’t going to go to seventh grade with the rest of us, he was going to a place called York School over by Laguna Seca racetrack. Rusty was over there for two years and we missed him; he didn’t join us again until our freshman year.
After all of what should be done to that building is done to that building, when the final redo is redone, it will be fit again as a place some kid may hold in their memory 60 years from now.
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Now, let us move on to something a bit less harmonious than the fond memories of youth to a subject that, so help me, makes me want to side with those engaged in dealing with bureaucratic encumbrances; you know, the proverbial “red tape.” Nothing severe is needed, no pruning of money tree branches is in store, but at least a bit quicker on the follow-up to allotted funds is called for. After months of waiting on a final decision by the local high school board to honor the campus library after the lady who was campus librarian for some 33 years, the board finally voted, AYEs all around, and two plaques, one for each entrance, were to be ordered and the school would let family, former students and supporters know when a unveiling event would take place.
Then nothing. For weeks now and still nothing. I know some personnel changes have taken place on campus, Sherrie is gone and she did a lot, so hopefully when new people in new positions get up to steam, Theresa’s event will happen before there are less of us to show up for that honoring. Thus endeth the rant.
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Turning to the current political scene, I saw some images the other day that reminded me of how as Americans, especially those in partisan politics and the media, are eager to jump on the actions of some and later let the same action by others slide. For example, who remembers Jody Powell and Ham Jordan? Both were staff under President Jimmy Carter and both got skewered by Republicans for wearing jeans, tennis shoes and casual shirts while working, sometimes entering the Oval Office in such attire. It was roared at for being disrespectful, even if only when no outsiders were there.
The other day the Black Shirt billionaire in ball cap and sneakers not only appeared in the Oval Office in strasse garb but spoke to the reporters and others in the room, all who were properly attired in skirts and shirts with ties, as was Second-in-Command Trump. Not a peep from the Republicans.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy had both his daughter and his son in the Oval Office, the photos are famous, but never when he was conducting important business. But the other day a cute little kid was right amid an important conference, and when not perched atop First-in-Charge’s shoulders found it appropriate to speak up and offer his observations. Obviously, like his daddy, he just doesn’t know any better.
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Spend a dollar a second and a million dollars is gone in 11 days. At the same rate, a billion is spent in 31 years, a trillion in 31,000 years. America is in debt 32.2 trillion dollars. Fagettaboutit.
Take care. Peace.
