Sometimes I feel like my whole life has happened back and forth along the same meridian of I-70. My first memories are from when I lived in Indianapolis, where my brother was born. With a few stops in-between, my family eventually moved to central Pennsylvania, where I grew up. The town I lived in sat a few miles from the turnpike which is the road you take if you keep going straight across at New Stanton instead of dipping southward and continuing on I-70. I went back the other direction when I was 17 and went to college in Columbus. Now I live in Bloomington, 40 minutes from where my memories started and from that strange line of highway.
We finished recording and the next day I got a ride with Sherri, Will, and Bz back to Columbus, dropping Will off in Centerville on the way. It felt a little like I was traveling back in time - passing through Columbus and heading toward Boiling Springs. The conversation quickly turned to nostalgia and we remembered times from when the band was starting or starting to play shows out of town. We remembered drama-filled trips to Bloomington, mosh-offs in the basement of the Legion over the preferred Chinese restaurant in town, playing acoustic on front lawns on warm early-summer nights, favorite houses, and bad dogs. It felt jovial and familiar. The crass, joking cracks across car seats, the more serious conversations about politics or relationships, the stops at the glowing travel plazas filled with the same junk food that you're sometimes mysteriously compelled to eat on tour. The four of us traveling together, it felt weird for a moment when we stepped out of the car in Columbus and remembered that we weren't going to have to start unloading the car and play a show.
Nothing changes in Columbus, everything changes. When we got to Columbus, we went to the 15th house and met up with Mikeal and went to the 'Dube. I swear that the same girl who I recognized from shows was sitting in the same booth as the last time I had been at that restaurant. Made more comfortable as a result of a citywide smoking ban, the 'Dube still felt chaotic and seedy with its harried wait-staff, doorless commodes, and orgy of fried food. We talked about punk, telling Mikeal what the band was doing and he telling us excitedly about all the shows that were happening at his house. Columbus tends to move in cycles and it seemed like it was currently on an upswing.
The next morning, I started walking down High Street, past the campus - quiet and empty with all the students being on break, past the new "gateway" shopping plaza that was maybe better than the empty lot that I remembered, but still looked ugly and out of place. It seemed a false attempt to create the feel of big-city excitement, but instead of mimicking broad avenues with inviting cafes and boutiques, it seemed more like a cold office building being penetrated by dark, ominous alleys and crevasses. All the shops seemed so ridiculous - like things that I couldn't ever imagine needing or wanting, let alone affording. I actually went to the slick Target on the opposite side of campus that had been the glitzy development project of a decade ago to buy things with some frequency. That made sense, a little, even if the strip mall still seemed ugly and sterile. But what the hell would I do with a video game store? The horrible realization about Columbus though, is that the people are getting what they want. Columbus is the urban personification of American blandness or cheap slickness. Its no wonder its a booming test market for big-budget Hollywood movies and consumer products.
The saddest thing about walking down High Street from campus to downtown is noticing that the only things that stay the same are the corporate stores. One of the contenders in the great Chinese restaurant rivalry now sits empty. I can't bring myself to gloat at its defeat. Many of the weird little businesses that I never even entered, really never had reason to enter - the fruit basket store across from the mall, the strange little delis that catered to the downtown professionals, all looked lonely and empty and really like they were fading out of existence, like the piercing brightness and slick facades of the corporate stores a block away would eventually just consume its sad neighbors. The Taco Bell, the Wendy's - they were exactly where I expected them to be.
In between campus and downtown is a district called the short north, which seems interesting at first, until you realize that it is mostly fake. Just like the mall in Easton, a north-eastern suburb of the city, tries to pretend that its a small town square, the Short North tries to pretend that its a diverse, exciting community filled with art and culture. Really, most of the businesses seem to center around yuppies with slightly better than average fashion sense who get excited about expensive cafes trying to replicate places in other cities with low-rent charm.
I caught the city bus about halfway through my walk and found out that my seven year old student ID was no longer valid for getting on the bus - they were now only accepting the red-faced ID designs that had come a few years after I matriculated. I paid my fare bitterly, a little embarrassed at my raging sense of entitlement as I was the only one on the bus trying to get a free ride. Everyone else had paid the fare, probably paid it every day. It had been a fun visit to Columbus, but I was ready to leave.
I got downtown too early for my bus and walked to the library to wait. The coffee house across from the library where Sherri worked and where we stopped by to visit her on one Monday night bike ride was replaced by a boring-looking cafe. The library was still the same - ancient, proud, and imposing with the words "MY TREASURES LIE WITHIN" and "OPEN TO ALL" engraved into the marble. I read for a bit and then went back to the bus station. It was the same, still decrepit and chaotic - the same place I had passed through a million times on my way back and forth from the Midwest to the East. Where I had broken down with Spoonboy and bought curly fries on our trip together to DC.
Riding the Greyhound is a slow and uncomfortable experience, and one that is less and less convenient since the bus stopped running out of Bloomington. But, I had missed it, missed feeling so wrapped up in life and stories. The boy that got on the bus in Zanesville and sat across the aisle from me proudly produced deer antlers from his bag and from time to time would fish out a twenty ounce Pepsi bottle that I thought he would drink from but then realized that the black liquid in the bottle was not cola but chewing tobacco colored saliva. Behind me I could hear the loud perky woman, maybe feeling out of place, trying to make friends. I'm always annoyed by this, but most people seem to appreciate it. In front of me was a boy who had been kicked out of Army basic training because he had ADD and was trying to make it back home to Philadelphia on his last few dollars. Riding the bus is slow and uncomfortable, but you never really see strangers embrace or shake hands as they exit an airplane together. You never hear them offer messages of concern for their relatives, known only to them in story, or exchange contact information.
posted by geoff on 12/25/2005 11:35:00 AM
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