The Lousy House

On a crisp April day, I returned to my home town for the first time in 38 years. Riverside Connecticut, a subsection of Greenwich, sits on the intersection of the Mianus River with Long Island Sound. It was a wonderful place to grow up; it was solidly middle class with teachers, plumbers and commuters all living side by side. Today, houses which sold slowly for 40 grand in 1970 easily top seven figures now. It has evolved into an exclusive retreat for the wealthy commuters to NYC. The old Colonial and Victorian houses, which were usually in intermediate degrees of decrepitude with peeling white paint as their common feature, sport 4 color fresh paint schemes, shake roofs, spectacular landscapes and real ambiance.

I was lucky in my timing as the daffodils. tulips, dogwoods, cherry trees and crab-apples were all in riotous display. One could not have asked for a more opportune return to one's childhood.

Sitting among this splendor was the biggest shock of all--the survival of the "lousy house". The lousy house was (and is) a small variety store that sits about a hundred yards from the railroad station. It sold (and still sells) penny candy, cigarettes, newspapers and simple groceries like bread and Twinkies. It never had a sign out front; it never advertised; and it never even had a real name. Kids would flock there after school on their bikes; they would buy penny candy from a large oak display case, sodas from a water filled cooler in the back for seven cents or snow cups for a dime. Your mother might send you there for a 25 cent pack of Pall-Malls or a 27 cent loaf of Daffodil bread. It has a front porch where kids would sit and eat their loot or blush at the arrival of the opposite sex. I have no idea why it was called the lousy house because there was nothing wrong with it.

So, with no "branding", no advertising, and no marketing, there stood the lousy house in all of its former glory just as I had last seen it almost 4 decades ago. I had to go in. The place was pristine in its originality. The oak display case was still there...still full of penny candy (which now costs a dime). The water cooler for the sodas was gone but the grabber, the mechanical device used to grab items from the top shelves was still there on its hook in the corner. The newspaper tray was still there as I had remembered it.

Most conspicuously absent was Ada, the lady who ran the joint. She knew every kid in the neighborhood (and wouldn't think twice about calling your parents if you tried to buy some cigarettes). She also knew every piece of gossip in town. Her nephew, who now tends the shop, explained that she had died two years ago at age 87. She had worked the place well into her seventies. He told me that old "clients" had dropped by fairly often; that she had remembered most of them; and, that all of them, like me, were shocked that the old place still existed. I was sorry to have missed her.

Also conspicuously absent were the kids. While my generation rode bikes everywhere and generally ran wild, the new generation is home watching tv, playing on the internet or texting their smart phones. Despite the resilience of the lousy house, the old neighborhood had a distinctly different feel to it.

It is remarkable to consider what survives and what does not as progress marches inexorably forward. Without Ada, it is hard to believe that the lousy house will last much longer. I know that it was the high point of my return to my home town--kind of a Rosebud moment. Such moments do not come often and need to be cherished.