Out with the Old

A consortium of governmental entities has decided my past is insignificant.

This week, they began demolishing the shopping mall where I spent much of my youth. Soon, they will also start razing the high school where I misspent the rest. And the sentimental buzz-kill: They've torn down the sports arena where I saw my first concert (Aerosmith, before they were anyone's grandfathers).

Not one to stand in the way of progress, I understand the desire for newer and bigger and better. (Suburban sprawl? Guilty, guilty, guilty.) Yet part of me wonders, in this current "green" society, if we couldn't find a way of simply fixing and improving what we already have. Or, at least, recycling it for a different use.

I'm not full of ideas, only ideals. Of wanting to preserve a piece of the past while adapting for the future. Perhaps, in light of an upcoming high school reunion, I'm confusing logic with sentiment. Yet still.

It's too late to save Southwyck Mall. And the Toledo Sports Arena won't ever rise from its ashes (formed greatly, no doubt, from the illegal substances smoked there in the sixties and seventies).

But if Steven Tyler and gang are still up for a good show, I know a nice little high school gymnasium with lots of empty bleachers.