Seeing Two Ways

A while back, I went to lunch at the recently re-opened Cafe 210 West with my roomie and bestie Linda.  I had some wonderful wings and a pitcher of their signature Long Island Iced Tea (small pitcher.)  Many of the tables were missing, as they are on "social distancing footing."  Still, every table outside on the patio was full as people drank and watched people go by on College Ave (a fave PSU pass time.)

Cafe 210 view

I finished my wings and was almost done my drink, when something occurred to me.  In the photo above, the table by the window is empty, but by this time two guys about my age were seated there.  Alumni- and they hadn't been here for a while.  I know this because one of them took a picture of a Joe Paterno poster on the wall that was relatively recent. 

I thought about what the bar used to look like during my undergrad days when I came here (late 87- Dec 88.)  It's actually not all that different.  A few things are different, like the phone charging station (cell phones didn't exist back then.)  

Then it occurred to me... one of the few benefits of aging is the ability to see things as they ARE, now in the present, and seeing them as they WERE in the past.  It's a strange ability, to be sure.  While walking on the Penn State campus, I remember buildings demolished and replaced by the new ones currently standing in their place.  That bar was once a game store.  That clothing store was an arcade.  In Phoenixville, that Mexican place was once the Trio restaurant.  That parking lot was once a department store.  In Royersford, that shopping mall was once an amusement park.  That McMansion farm used to be a cornfield.  

It's not just here, and, obviously, I'm not alone.  What do the elderly see when encountering a place they knew well?

Obviously, time changes everything.

State College Bars of the 80's, now gone

In some ways this is a good thing- if you love history as I do.  I see how things change.  I see what was, and what is.  And, sometimes, what will be (especially with all the construction here in State College.)

Still, it's a reminder that I'm getting older.  Yes, things change, sometimes for the better (like the aforementioned phone charging stations.)  Sometimes not- (pandemic.)  As I've written somewhere before, all the tears in the world will not slow or stop time.  Each second is as long as the last, and so on.

This afternoon, I walked by the Cafe again.  All of the patio tables were full, mostly with young couples.  One couple in particular caught my eye- probably still undergrads, each with a solo pitcher of beverage in front of them (like the one I had.)  They were engaged in deep conversation, with nothing else in the world mattering but the moment and each other's smiles.  I thought about snapping a quick picture, but I didn't.  I would be intruding.

I tried to remember what it was like being that age- about the summer I spent in State College in 1988; about having my whole life unwritten before me, and full of promise, instead of the weight of decades of failure, regret, and mistakes aging me beyond my years.  

I thought about it, and kept walking.